Scripture Challenging Scripture ( 1. Deuteronomy 23:3-6 2. Nehemiah 13:1-3 3. Ruth 1:22)

Last week I started a series of sermons on parables.  I talked a lot about the Good Samaritan, and how it had been interpreted over the years. 

Some interpreted it as a riddle, in which every character, every object, and every action stood for something else, and our job in hearing the parable is to figure out what each thing stands for.

Some interpreted it as an example to follow.  The Samaritan did what was right by helping the poor, wounded traveler, setting the example that we are to follow.

Then I mentioned that John Dominic Crossan – a former priest and a New Testament scholar – points out that, if the story of the Good Samaritan were an example to follow, why did the good example have to be a Samaritan?  Because a Samaritan is the last person you’d expect to be a good example. 

Why not a good priest, or a good Levite, or a good Pharisee?  Those were people who were respected.  Those were people who would have made a good example.  But a good Samaritan?  That’s like saying a good Taliban, or a good gang member.  It’s the last person you’d expect.  If the story were being told to Rush Limbaugh, it would be the good democrat; and, if it were being told to Ralph Nader, it would be the good oil company executive.

You get the point.

So – more than a riddle to figure out, or an example to follow – this parable is a challenge to our entire way of thinking.  What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good.  The one we hate has become our neighbor who cares for us. It’s a story that completely takes us by surprise.

Except:  it really shouldn’t.  It shouldn’t take us by surprise, because it follows the pattern set by the challenge parables of the Old Testament.  John Dominic Crossan points out three of these challenge parables in particular, each of which is an entire book:  Ruth, Jonah, and Job.

I know I’ve talked about Ruth, Jonah and Job before; forgive me for repeating myself a little bit today.  But in the context of this series on parables, please allow me to present, again, these stories.

The books of Ruth, Jonah and Job were all written at about the same time in history.  The stories they describe take place at various times in the past, but the composition of all three takes place after the people of Israel had been in exile.  Captured by the Babylonians, they were set free by the Persians; the Persians figured that a re-established Israel would make a nice buffer between them and Egypt. If Egypt were going to attack Persia, it might be nice if Egypt had to go through those pesky Israelites first.

So the Israelites were back in Israel, and they were in a rebuilding mode.  The temple was being rebuilt, and the Torah was being rediscovered. It was a time of strong national identity, of patriotism (to use a modern term), a time to restore the nation.  And therefore, it was also a time of conservative ideology and theology, and a back-to-basics, “Israel first” mentality became the norm.

This is the attitude reflected in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was one of the readings we heard, and perhaps you’ve been wondering about that particular scripture.  Nehemiah describes the dedication of the newly rebuilt walls surrounding Jerusalem, and how – at that dedication – the Torah was read.

And what was read from the book of Torah was the command which forbids Ammonites or Moabites from ever – ever – entering the assembly of God. 

We find this prohibition against Ammonites and Moabites in the book of Deuteronomy.

During the time of exile, the Torah, the law of Moses, had been lost and forgotten, and the people had associated with Ammonites and Moabites.  They had even intermarried with them.  Now, at the rededication of the capital city, it is discovered that the ancient law forbids such a thing.  But with new pride in Israel and desire to return to their roots, this particular law sounded good to the people of Israel, and so they kicked out from among them all those of foreign descent. 

The book of Ezra describes the same thing.  Even those Ammonites or Moabites who had married into Israel were forced to divorce themselves from their families and leave.  In this time of rebuilding, Israel was circling the wagons and securing the borders against any and all foreigners.

The book of Nahum also condemns foreigners, particularly those from Assyria.

And the book of Jeremiah does the same, singling out those from Uz and Edom.

So this is the historical background, the context in which Ruth, Jonah and Job were written.  And each of those books presents a huge challenge to the prevailing attitude of the time.

We are tempted to read the story of Ruth as an example of how we are to act.  Ruth’s loyalty and devotion are examples of how we should behave.  But there is more to it than that.

Ruth is a Moabite.  If the point of the story was simply to portray an example of behavior for us to follow, she could have been anyone.  But the author is very insistent that we recognize that she is a Moabite.  Did you notice the redundancy in the one verse from Ruth that was read for us?  In one single verse, this fact is mentioned twice.  “Naomi returned with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab.”

And then there’s the whole story about how, after immigrating from Moab to Israel, Ruth finds an Israelite husband, and becomes the great-grandmother of – wait for it – David, the greatest king in Israel’s history.

Unh?

So in the midst of all this pro-Israel, anti-everyone else fervor, the parable of Ruth dares to ask:  What does it mean that King David is descended from a Moabite, that he himself is a Moabite-Israelite?

Or, to put it another way, the parable of Ruth asks, “What would have happened to Israel’s history if Boaz, Ruth’s husband, obeyed Ezra and Nehemiah and Deuteronomy, and all the rest who insisted that marrying foreign wives was a sin?”

In a society with such a strong anti-Moabite, anti-foreigner attitude, the story of Ruth would have been very difficult, very challenging, to hear.

Well, if Ruth challenged one assumption that was commonly held, Jonah challenged two commonly held assumptions.

For one thing, it was commonly assumed that prophets were good, and did what was right.  But poor Jonah; when God told him to go one way, Jonah went the other way. 

But that’s because where God told Jonah to go violated the law of Moses, by requiring Jonah to mingle with – you guessed it – hated foreigners. 

In this case it was the Assyrians who lived in the city of Ninevah. 

Listen to what the prophet Nahum has to say concerning Ninevah: 

“Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful!... I am against you, says the Lord of hosts.  I will throw filth at you [and that’s the nice translation] and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.  Then all who see you will shrink from you and say, ‘Ninevah is devastated; who will bemoan her?’”

Those who listened to the story of Jonah, when he ran away from Ninevah, they probably thought, “Good! Those evil foreigners don’t deserve any compassion or pity.  Even scripture condemns them!”

And then, in the story, when Jonah does end up in Ninevah, the people listening to the story probably thought to themselves, “Well, he can preach, but they aren’t going to listen.  This is just a set up to their great destruction!”

But what happens?  Jonah preaches the shortest sermon in the history of sermons; just one sentence long.  “Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!”  And then…

Ninevah repents.  Completely!  It is the most amazing turn from evil to good ever!  It is – well – it’s hyperbole, is what it is, because this is a parable, and things can be exaggerated.  And they are exaggerated to bring out the meaning.  Even Jonah’s pouting, and his being swallowed by a giant fish; it’s ridiculous, really.  But the most ridiculous thing of all is that a prophet was disobedient to God, while the people of a foreign nation listed on the “axis of evil” so completely does what is right.

And all anyone listening to this story could say was, “Unh?”

For the people who lived in Israel at the time of rebuilding, a time when trust for foreign nations was at an all-time low… this was a difficult, and very challenging, story to hear, because it uprooted all their assumptions and undermined all their prejudices.

Then we come to the parable of Job. 

Perhaps you’ve been wondering about my use of the word parable in regards to Ruth, Jonah, and Job.  Well, come on, when a story begins with the words, “Long ago, in a land far, far away…” you can be pretty sure that we’re not dealing with historical fact.  And yet, that of course does not mean that there isn’t deep, meaningful, and profound truth contained within the parable, and a mighty challenge for anyone who reads it.  In fact, John Dominic Crossan calls the book of Job “the most powerful parable in the Bible.”

In the story of Job, there are actually multiple challenges presented to anyone who hears it.  The first comes right away.  The far away land referred to is the land of Uz, and there we find the holiest, most righteous man who ever lived.

Uz was not where you’d expect to find the holiest, most righteous man who ever lived.  Jeremiah described the people of Uz as enemies of God.  They weren’t even Jews; they were Gentiles!  They fought against Israel when the Babylonians came in and destroyed Jerusalem and took the Israelites out of Israel.  Now that the Israelites were back in Israel, back rebuilding their city, here’s a story that begins by saying that the holiest, most righteous man was one of those people.

John Dominic Crossan points out that in all three of these Old Testament book-length parables, we see an escalation from a very good Moabite – in Ruth – through a city full of very, very good Assyrians – in Jonah – to the holiest and most righteous man as a very, very, very good Edomite from the land of Uz. 

Each one of those is a contradiction in terms.  Each one goes against expectations.  Each one was almost impossible to imagine! 

A good Moabite, a good Assyrian, a good Edomite from Uz.

And then, with Jesus, we have a good Samaritan.  After hearing Ruth, Jonah, and Job, it shouldn’t be all that surprising to hear another story like this, one that challenges society’s prejudice and phobia.

Now, believe it or not, having the most holy and righteous man come from Uz is only the first of several challenges in Job.  The story presents multiple challenges at multiple levels, which is why John Dominic Crossan is so impressed by it.

There are the debates between Job and his friends, which take up 37 chapters – most of the book.  In these debates, Job’s friends point out over and over that Job must have sinned in order to have such a calamity befall him.  And isn’t that what we hear today every time some disaster occurs?  Some evangelist preacher always makes the news by saying that this disaster or that terrorist attack is the result of a sinful nation.  They said it about the hurricane in New Orleans, the tornadoes in Oklahoma, and the September 11 attacks. 

Job’s friends do the same thing.  John Dominic Crossan calls them “deuteronomic fundamentalists,” because they know that the scriptures – Deuteronomy in particular – teach that those who do good are blessed, and those who win are cursed, and they insist on applying those scriptures to every situation.  We see the same thing among Jesus’s disciples, when they see a blind man and ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” 

And Jesus basically says, “Guys, it doesn’t work that way.  Didn’t you read Job?”

Job responds to his friends by saying, “Show me my sin.  If I have sinned, let me know, and I will repent.”  But of course, Job’s friends are wrong.  Job hasn’t sinned.  He is, after all, the most holy and righteous man on earth.

But if Job’s friends are wrong, is Deuteronomy also wrong? 

That is challenge number two.

Then, at the end of Job, God and Job have a conversation.  God gives Jonah back double for all he had lost.  His fortune is restored.  But…

God never tells Jonah the truth.  We expect God to, but God never does. 

And I don’t know about you, but for me, this is the hardest challenge of all.  It challenges the very character of Israel’s God. 

I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.  I think this challenge is saying to me, “guess what:  God isn’t anything like you think God is.  You expect God to act a certain way, but God doesn’t need to conform to your expectations.” 

And I remember how, sitting on little wooden chairs in in my kindergarten Sunday School room, singing “Jesus Loves Me,” God seemed so simple; a stern but friendly old man with a white beard who was in charge of everything. 

God, I now realize, is nothing like that.  The more I grow in faith, the more mysterious God becomes.  Once upon a time I thought I knew all about God.  Now I feel as if I know nothing, that it’s all mystery.

I believe that this is a sign of a maturing faith.  But for some people, it’s just too frightening.  It’s too much of a challenge.  So they hold on to the more comforting, more familiar image of God of an immature faith.  A God who is in charge of everything.  A God who rewards those are holy and punishes those who sin.  The God of Job’s friends, the God who behaves in predictable ways.

But the God Job encounters is not predictable.  This God is not easy to figure out.  This God doesn’t always explain why.  This God leaves many questions unanswered.

To believe in this God is to believe in something that cannot be explained.  It is to dwell in mystery, not certitude.  According to Barbara Brown Taylor, the best response to this God isn’t certainty of belief, but dumbfoundedness. 

For some people, this is a great challenge.  Some end up leaving the church, because they wake up one day and realize that they no longer have God all figured out, and they think that this must be a sign of a weak faith. 

This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Realizing that God is more mysterious than you can imagine is a sign of a maturing faith.  Realizing that you have more questions about God than answers is a sign of a growing faith.  Realizing that you don’t know everything is what it means to walk humbly with God.

"Worthy" (Jonah 3:1-5, 10)

The second time the word of the Lord came to Jonah, things went a lot better than they did the first time.

The first time the word of the Lord came to Jonah, things did not go well.  God said, “Get up!  Go to Ninevah! Preach to the people of that great city!”

But Jonah went the opposite direction, all the way to Tarshish.  Jonah did not go to Ninevah.  He did not want to preach there.

Why?  Were the people of Ninevah really that bad?  God wanted the people of Ninevah to hear the message, in the hopes that they would repent.  Jonah, apparently, did not think they were worth preaching to, and he really couldn’t care less if God destroyed every single one of them.

Now I don’t know about you, but I can remember having thoughts about people that, while they may not have been quite so extreme, really weren’t all that different.

I remember in high school, feeling that way about some of my classmates.  Now, it may surprise you to know that I was not the most talkative kid in the school.  For the most part, I sat in my desk, and tried to be invisible.  Every once in awhile I did raise my hand to ask a question or to contribute to a class discussion, but it took all the courage of Moses going before Pharaoh for me to do so.

A number of my classmates didn’t have that problem.  They had no problem drawing attention to themselves, talking all the time, whether it was in class or out of class.

Naturally, I thought of them as arrogant, egotistical suck-ups, and I didn’t understand why the teachers couldn’t see through their act, why the teachers gave them the attention they begged for, or why the teachers allowed them to dominate class discussions and even send those discussions on detours that had little or nothing to do with what we were supposed to be learning.

It seemed to me that the class would be better off without such students.  Indeed, it seemed to me that the school would be better off.  Who needs students like that?

If God had told me that there was a special message for these students, and would I please deliver it to them? … I don’t know, but I might have said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

That’s what Jonah said.  Thanks, but no thanks.  He didn’t go to Ninevah, but instead, ran away; but after a storm at sea…,

and after being tossed overboard…,

and after being swallowed by a giant fish…,

and after spending three days floating around in that

fish’s digestive system…,

and after being vomited out onto the shore…

…Jonah had a change of heart….

He didn’t have a change of heart regarding the Ninevites – his view of them hadn’t changed – but he did have a change of heart when it came to listening to God and following God’s call. “OK God, I’ll go to Ninevah. Not because they deserve it, but just because you told me to. And, because I’m tired of fish.

Speaking of fish out of water, for two years I was a member of the Chapman College Concert Choir.  Or maybe it was one year in the Chapman College Concert Choir and one year in the Chapman University Concert Choir.  I can’t remember.

Both years that I was in the choir, we went on tour, traveling by bus throughout the western United States, leading workshops at high schools during the day, performing concerts in church sanctuaries in the evenings, and spending the nights in the houses of church members and school choir families.

I remember one night, getting ready for bed in the bedroom of one host family, talking with another choir member who was my roommate for the night.  He was a nice enough guy, even though he was one of those types who liked to talk a lot and draw a lot of attention to himself.

I probably don’t need to say that he did most of the talking in our conversation.  And he started talking about this other guy who was in the choir with us, who I’ll call Chris because I don’t remember his name, but Chris sounds like it might be right.

My roommate for the night said that he had always thought of Chris as arrogant and stuck up, because Chris almost never talked to him.  But Chris had been his roommate the night before, in whatever city we were in, and he and Chris began talking to one another in a way that they never had before.

Then my roommate said, “And you know what?  Chris isn’t arrogant or stuck up.  I was wrong.  He’s just … quiet.  Once I got to know him, I realized, he’s actually pretty cool.  And you’re kind of the same way.  I used to think people like you and Chris were being rude, but now I realize that you’re just … quiet … and that’s OK.”

The way he said it, I knew that he was really being friendly and positive, and I realized that if he was wrong about me, maybe I was wrong about people like him. 

Isn’t it strange, the criteria by which we judge one another?  And those arrogant, egotistical classmates of mine really weren’t arrogant and egotistical.  Well, most of them weren’t…. They were just more extroverted than I was.  And that’s OK.

The people of Ninevah repented.  The king of Ninevah himself called on his people to change their ways, so that God might show them mercy.  And God, seeing what they did, and how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

And Jonah threw a fit. Because he could not see the people of Ninevah as being worthy of God’s love. To Jonah, they weren’t “different” or “misguided” or “lost” or “on the wrong path.”  To Jonah, they were bad.  Evil.  Beyond redemption.

When I started leading youth groups, I was surprised when I’d invite a youth to attend, and their first question to me was, “Who’s going to be there?”

Always, I’d happily reply, “You!”

But they wanted to know who was going to be there, because if so-and-so was going to be there, then they weren’t going to show up.

And I was surprised, until I remembered what it was like for me when I was a kid, how easy it was to make judgments, how hard it was to see people who were different as cool, acceptable, and worthy of God’s love. 

Whether it’s because someone is from Ninevah, or has wronged us and we can’t let go of a grudge, or we just plain don’t understand what makes them tick, we find ourselves, over and over again, running in the opposite direction, away from them, putting as much distance between us and them as possible, refusing to believe that there are, in fact, more similarities between us than there are differences.

Jonah wanted to put as much space between himself and Ninevah as he could.  But God wanted to bring them together.  God wanted Jonah to realize that the Ninevites weren’t as different from Jonah as Jonah liked to pretend.

In fact, the Ninevites weren’t the only ones who had lost their way.  Jonah’s experience in Ninevah was orchestrated by God not just so the Ninevites could repent and be redeemed.  Jonah’s experience in Ninevah was orchestrated by God so that Jonah could also repent, and find redemption.

And together, both Jonah and the people of Ninevah would find wholeness.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his followers to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you … for God makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  There is some real wisdom there for how we are to treat people who are different from us, or whose personalities we just don’t get.

Caught Between Mercy and Judgment (Jonah)

Have you ever met someone, a follower of God, who acted as if they were a better believer than anyone else? Someone who never seemed to tire of standing on his soapbox, proclaiming all the things God was unhappy with? Someone who, with great enthusiasm, would declare God’s judgment on all those who were an abomination to God? Someone who actually seemed to enjoy talking about judgment of doom and punishment, as if he were describing the latest action movie, rather than the wrath of the real, present, living God?

Have you ever met someone like that?

I have, and his name is Jonah.

According to the Bible, God called Jonah to go to Ninevah, and preach against the wickedness of that great city.

Ninevah was the capital of Assyria, which, in the 8th century BCE, was the greatest nation on earth. Assyria had more wealth, more power, and more influence than any other nation. It was, one could say, the world’s first superpower.

Part of Assyria’s greatness came at the expense of other nations. It exploited the labor and the resources of many far-away lands. It pushed others aside in order to raise itself up. It made false promises, it was a bully to the nations around it, and it justified going to war on the basis of made-up intelligence, all in an effort to increase its own power. And it worked, too; when judged by the extent of its territory, Assyria was greater than even ancient Egypt or ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire was still centuries away in the future.

Ninevah, the capital city, was the most powerful city in the world. It was located about 200 miles north of modern-day Baghdad, and it was so big that its leader was referred to as the King of Ninevah.

The people of Ninevah were proud of their great city; but the rest of the world viewed its greatness with scorn, because that greatness was achieved at the expense of those other regions that had come under Assyrian influence. The prophet Nahum—a contemporary of Jonah—called Ninevah “a city of bloodshed! Utterly deceitful, full of booty, with no end to the plunder.”

No wonder that, when God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, Jonah went in the opposite direction, as far as he could go. The Ninevites, he believed, didn’t deserve to hear the word of God.

Jonah hopped aboard a ship bound for Spain, which was a really long way away. None of the maps in the back of my Bible even show Spain. In the ancient Mediterranean world, Spain was off the map, at the farthest edge of the world, un lugar lejano, a faraway land. But it wasn’t far enough; no place is too far for God. God found Jonah, and, after letting him sit in the belly of a giant fish for three days, God sent Jonah back to Ninevah.

This time, Jonah did as he was told. He went back to Ninevah. Being such a large city, Jonah knew that it would take several days just to walk across town. He began walking the streets, calling out, “In forty days, Ninevah will be overthrown. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I’m saying? You all are a bunch of sinners. Forty days, that’s all you’ve got. Your punishment is coming! God is coming, to judge you and destroy you!”

Jonah didn’t want to be there, among the “heathen,” among the sinners, but since he was, he could … gloat a little. After all, Ninevah, that great and terrible city, was about to go up in flames. “Do you people hear what I’m saying? You all are TOAST!”

Then something unexpected happened. Well, unexpected to Jonah, but perhaps not unexpected to God. The people of Ninevah heard the word of the Lord through Jonah. Somehow, even though it was mixed in with Jonah’s own prejudice, judgment, and hate, the people heard the word of the Lord. They believed the word that they heard, and they repented. They turned from their evil ways. The King removed his robe, he removed himself from his throne and sat among the ashes, and he ordered the whole city to observe a fast of repentance.

And so, God changed God’s mind about the calamity that had been planned. God showed mercy and forgiveness to the Ninevites, and the city was saved.

But Jonah was not pleased. Jonah wanted nothing to do with that. Jonah was angry. These people were evil! They were bad! They deserved their punishment! “See, God,” Jonah prayed, “I knew you would do this. It’s just so like you, to forgive. I knew all along that you are a God who is merciful, and gracious, and slow to anger; a God who is abounding in steadfast love. Forgive and forget, eh? After all the evil they’ve done? If you’re not going to destroy them, God, then you might as well destroy me. You have made me so angry!”

And God said, “Angry enough to die?”

And Jonah said, “Yes! Angry enough to die!”

Poor Jonah. He was caught between God’s eagerness to forgive and embrace, and his own desire to exclude and judge. His heart was filled with bitterness and anger, while God’s heart was filled with love and compassion.

Are we so different from Jonah? Don’t we sometimes have a hard time showing mercy and forgiveness? Don’t we like to cheer when the bad guys get what they deserve? Don’t we cheer when Dorothy dumps the water on the wicked witch’s head, when Simba kills Scar, or when the swordsman says to the six-fingered man: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father; prepare to die”?

We love moments like those! Inigo doesn’t say to the six-fingered man, “let’s put the past behind us, and be friends…” What kind of a way would that be to end a movie? Give those bad guys what they deserve! Give those Ninevites what they’ve got coming to them!

There are some churches out there—I don’t like talking about this, because we are all part of the one church, the Christian church, which exists across time and space and even across denominational and doctrinal boundaries—but there are a few churches out there that speak more about judgment and punishment and God’s wrath than they do about God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. Some of those churches are quite large. And like Jonah, they are just waiting for the fiery destruction to happen. It almost seems that they’re looking forward to it.
And they’ll tell you that anyone who doesn’t preach the message they preach isn’t being true to the gospel, that they are compromising the word of God, that they’re taking the easy way out by focusing on love and mercy.

Well, it seems to me that Jonah found it a lot easier to live with hatred and prejudice than with acceptance and love. Forgiveness isn’t always easy. Love for one’s enemies isn’t always easy. For Jonah, it was even difficult admitting the truth that he knew in his heart, the truth that is repeated throughout scripture, that the God we worship is indeed a God who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness, a God who is merciful and gracious, a God who is eager to forgive iniquity and transgression and sin. That’s the nature of the God we worship. That’s the nature of the God we serve. Jonah knew that. He just didn’t like it.

On this past Wednesday, our General Minister, Rev. Sharon Watkins, preached to President Obama and other newly elected leaders at the National Prayer Service in Washington, D.C. We as a church are so blessed to have her as our leader. As one who was at the Portland General Assembly when she was elected, and as one who has met Rev. Watkins and heard her speak on several occasions, I know that God has blessed us through her voice and her leadership, and at the National Prayer Service, God used her to proclaim a message that blessed our nation as well.
During her sermon last Wednesday, she told an old Cherokee story in which an elderly man was telling his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.

“There are two wolves struggling inside each of us,” the old man said. “One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear… The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love…”

The grandson sat, thinking, and then asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”

The old man replied, “The one you feed.”

It’s time to stop feeding the angry, vengeful wolf. It’s time to stop feeding the wolf that seeks to pass judgment on entire populations and devour them whole.

Instead, let us feed the wolf of compassion. Let us feed the wolf of forgiveness. Let us feed the wolf of hope, truth, and love.

Let us no longer keep people out of our communities because of their race or ethnic background. Let us no longer keep people out of our homes because they are poor. Let us no longer keep people out of our churches because of their sexual orientation.

Let us stop feeding the wolf of anger, vengefulness, prejudice and fear. Let us stop worshiping the god of anger, vengefulness, prejudice and fear. Let us worship the one true God: the God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; the God who does indeed forgive sins, whose desire is to forgive and not to punish; the God who embraces all people of all nations; the God who relates to us as a loving father, who shows the love and compassion of a mother caring for her infant child; the God who promises to never leave us or forsake us; the God who leads us to a life filled with abundant blessings; the God who brings wholeness to a fragmented world.

Let this be the God we serve and worship.