That confession was perhaps the first as a child to explode my theological imagination. I mean, think about it, that's perhaps the most radical of theological claims to emerge out of the Old Testament and find its confirmation in Jesus' own teaching.
I realized this yesterday when preaching the graciousness of God. I'll spare you the details of the sermon, but in looking yet again at Jonah, I realized just how big a confession it is to claim that God is the "maker of all that is, seen and unseen".
Once Israel began to see YHWH as the Covenant God who creates everything, there's a destabilization of various theological arrangements and settlements. God is not simply some tribal god, and hence a god who works against the attempts to capture and tame God.
At the start, of course, the worship of YHWH as the Creator allowed Israel to disparage and demean her polytheistic neighbors. Because YHWH was the only God and the Creator God Israel's neighbors were in the grip of an illusion. In the eyes of Israel when the surrounding Canaanite nations bowed down to idols there was no god behind that figure of wood or stone. Because there was only one God idols were nothing:
"Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?So it appeared, at least at first, that the notion of the Creator God gave Israel an opportunity to be smug among the nations. Just look at those stupid, blinkered idol worshipers bowing down to wood and stone!
Or an image that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;
he makes idols that cannot speak.
Woe to him who says to wood, 'Come to life!'
Or to lifeless stone, 'Wake up!'
Can it give guidance?
It is covered with gold and silver;
there is no breath in it."
The Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
-- Habbakuk 2.18-20
But there's a surprise encapsulated in the confession. When you start worshipping the Creator God, you start thinking about the world in theological terms.
Just consider, for example, how the worship of the Creator God undermines the notion of the Temple as the distinct residence of the Divine.
Psalm 50, for example:
"Listen, my people, and I will speak;Suddenly, the smugness is gone. Here -- in Psalm 50 -- worship of the Creator isn't being used against Israel's neighbors and their idols but against Israel herself, against the very heart of Israelite religious observance. Does the Creator drink the blood of goats? Does the Creator need sacrifices when the Creator owns the cattle on a thousand hills?
I will testify against you, Israel:
I am God, your God.
I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
"Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
fulfill your vows to the Most High,
and call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me."
Notice how the notion of a Creator God has become theologically subversive. This wasn't, I'm guessing, what the earliest Israelites had in mind. Worshipping the Creator is great when you have your mind set in making fun of idol worshippers. But it's interesting to me that thing didn't end there. The worship of the Creator God has implications that Israelites weren't expecting.
What I'm suggesting is that the worship of the Creator God undermines and subverts any smug, insular, exclusive and violent imagination.
Yes, worship of the Creator God untangled Israel from idolatry, but it also ultimately untangled them from sacrifical offering, too.
Just check out Jeremiah 2-4.
But it doesn't stop there.
Jesus goes one step further.
In Matthew 5, Jesus pushes the worship of the Creator God to a logical conclusion:
You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.If there were a list of distinctive elements to Jesus' teaching, surely this "Love your enemies" thing would be included in that list.
What fascinates me today -- on such a dreary, rainy day -- is that Jesus grounds this love of enemies in the worship of the Creator God.
Why love your friends and enemies alike? Why love freely and indiscrimately? Why love without prejudice and bias?
Because that's how God lives. Without prejudice or bias.
"I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
"So that you may be children of your Father."
"For he causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil."
"He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
"Be perfect as your Father is perfect."
Think about that. Jesus pondered the sun and rain. And this -- pondering the sun and rain -- led him directly to connecting our love for enemies with our worship of God.
The Children of God, Jesus concluded, should love like the sun and the rain. This -- being sun and rain, loving indiscriminately -- would make us children of the Creator. This would make us perfect.
See what I mean? This worship of the Creator God is subversive. Loving like sun and rain.
I imagine Israel had no idea where this worship of the Creator God would take them. Because I don't think it's a natural conclusion to love your enemies. It's connected to a theological claim -- a claim about God as the Creator of all that is.
The Creator of things like sun and rain.
And how the Children of God love so indiscriminately too.