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As I preach along these summer Sundays, I have been preaching about First Questions For God - applying the questions we ask to get acquainted with someone to God, as He introduces Himself through the Bible.

First Questions for God: Who are you really? - Exodus 34: 1-9; Romans 5: 1-11 ­August 16, 2009 - Cicero Untied Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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            As I preach along these summer Sundays, I have been preaching about First Questions For God - applying the questions we ask to get acquainted with someone to God, as He introduces Himself through the Bible. What is your name? What do you do? Where do you live? I have spent three sermons exploring how God has answered those questions.

            But now it's time to take the relationship to a new level. You can get the answer to those first three questions, and still wonder a lot about a person. What we really want to know is what a person is like. Who are you really? What are the qualities we can expect from you? What makes you tick? These are things you find out only after you have gone past the get-acquainted stage, and spent some time getting to know somebody. Seen him or her responding to situations over the long term.

            The story we heard this morning from Exodus is one of those moments: Picture Moses on the mountaintop. The world is a mess. Moses had already been up on that mountain, and received the tablets of the Law. He had gone down the mountain, and found that the Hebrew people had fallen apart - they had made a golden calf, and fallen into idolatry and sinfulness. And, in anger and frustration, Moses had smashed the stone tablets. Moses was outraged at the disrespect for God that the Hebrew people are demonstrating. Certainly God must be outraged as well.

            But this is one of those moments when Moses, and you and I, can really get to know who God is, really. Because God is not about to rain destruction down on the people who have slapped Him in the face. Instead, now God is telling Moses to carve out two more tablets, like the first. And God will once again give His law to the people. And God will pass before Moses, and proclaim words that were repeated over and over in the Bible:

            "The Lord (Yahweh) (is) a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin ... "

            Would you like to know the true God of the Bible? The one beyond the opening questions? The one you can count on when the chips are down? Here's who God is in His deeper core: merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Forgiving iniquity. What Moses was seeing was a new quality of love­ - - love that can't be shaken - -love that is so much at the core of a person, that no barrage of outrageous behavior can overcome it. It is not a fleeting emotion, like much of what we call love in this world. It is steadfast. That's what you and I need to know about the true God. No matter what we do to fall short in this world - whatever outrageous behavior we exhibit, whatever injustices we live, whatever sin we indulge - none of that changes who God is at God's very center - a God of steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness.

            And that is a message that is shared over and over in the Bible, because the people continued to do outrageous things against God. But God never changed. And of course,  for us this is most profoundly shown in the life and death of Jesus. In Paul's words in Romans 5, " ... God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." If you want to know who God really is, look up there on that cross. Realize that you and I are just like the people of the Bible - prone to do outrageous things against God. But praise God for His steadfast love. Praise God that his response to our outrageousness is the mercy of the cross of Jesus Christ.

We have some trouble grasping that simple truth. And one of the reasons for that, I think, is that we have the same trouble Moses had on the mountaintop: we know that human behavior merits punishment. .And that's what we expect from God. It's like the Dear God letter from an eight-year old: Dear God, It rained for our whole vacation, and boy is my father mad! He said some bad words, but I hope you won't hurt him. He's a good Dad. Your friend ... (I've decided not to sign my name.)

            Here's the thing: the Bible teaches that God is loving. But the Bible also teaches that God is righteous, and expects us to live righteous lives. So, when we apply our own standard of righteousness to our own actions, we expect that God must hate us and must be eager to punish us - and we'd rather not sign our name to our letter. That image of a judging, record-keeping, punishing God is deeply indoctrinated into us, because we have trouble holding the ideas of God's love and God's righteousness side by side. Thomas Jefferson, close to death, is remembered to have said, "I tremble when I remember that God is just." And how else could we feel, knowing some of the things we have done?

            But God's righteousness is not just intended to make us tremble. It is not the opposite of love; in fact, it is another expression of love. God's righteousness is some of the best news we could ever imagine - because it offers correction. For one thing, it confronts us with the truth about ourselves. The fact is, the most loving people in our lives are not the ones who turn aside from our faults, and overlook our bad habits and destructive ways. The most loving people in our lives are quite often the ones who hold us accountable, and make us see the truth about ourselves. God loves us so much, that part of his steadfast love is to hold up before us a righteous standard, and to draw us into a level of living that lets us reflect his love - His very image - into the way we work in this world.

 And we can apply that standard to our lives, and we can apply that standard to our nation and our world. This is good news for us today, and that is that God's righteousness is our hope that this world might some day be corrected. We pick up the newspaper, and read about violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, Darfur, and in the streets of Syracuse. We see children displaced and mistreated - going hungry in the shadows of castles and mansions. We see the accumulation of human activity tiring out our planet, polluting our water, warming our atmosphere. There are times that it feels like everything we touch turns dark; everything we do is cursed.

            Thank God that God loves us too much to just let this go on. Thank God there is righteousness; thank God there is accountability. In the past couple years, the pastors in our Conference have been required to attend racism awareness training. For me, a white male living in a society of rules that favor white males at every turn - those two days were days of being confronted with a new standard of righteousness, and the hope that some day the brokenness of racism can be alleviated. This is how I picture God's righteousness at work - not some day after I die that will determine whether I go up or down - not God the strict judge keeping a clipboard of my rights and wrongs. But God loving us so much that He confronts us with the vision of a righteous kingdom, and challenges us to change. As the leader of the racism workshop said, "We might not move the mountain of racism today; but let's move a pebble. And if enough people in enough groups will do just that, then someday that mountain is going to move." I believe that that kind of hope is only possible when we understand fully the God of love and righteousness who is watching over this world.

            A few weeks back, I was sitting in the car at a shopping center, waiting for Sharon. A young mother and her little girl, maybe three years old, walked out to the car in front of mine. The little girl wasn't paying attention, and she bumped into the side of their car, and maybe scratched the surface with the toy she was holding, though I couldn't see it. Her mother turned and blasted her with a shocking barrage of words to let that little girl know that she was worthless and clumsy and not worth the trouble. That was heartbreaking enough, but even more so was the fact that the little girl didn't flinch or cry or do anything - just quietly got into the car, as if this kind of treatment was just a normal part of her life. It was painful to watch, and I've thought since how I wished I had got out of the car and just told that woman what a beautiful little child she has. Sometimes I do those things; this time I didn't.

            I wonder who tells that child, (and that mother) that there is another set of eyes looking at us. Eyes full of compassion and love. Eyes that have wept for the darkness and pain in this world. Eyes that see not a clumsy child but a beautiful creation of potential and value. Not only worth the trouble, but worth the cross. Worth everything. Maybe that mother and child have heard about God's love. Maybe the little girl knows how to sing, "Jesus Loves Me." But do they know the depth of that love - that it is so much reflected in God that one of the biblical writers wrote simply, God is love.

            And that love created each one of us in God's image. That love restores that image through Jesus Christ. That love transforms this society one pebble at a time into the vision of a world where every child, of every color, of every nation, has an opportunity to flourish. That is the standard of a righteous God, and the deepest love this world has ever known. That is who God is really. And if you and I choose, that is the vision we can bring to that little girl and her mother, and all of this world. And if we do, if that is the message we are determined to deliver, then by the power of the Holy Spirit, unbelievable things will happen. We'll see God's at work. Pebbles will move, then mountains. Children's lives will change. God's kingdom of righteousness will come a little closer, in Africa, in Cicero. We don't just hold that as a distant hope; we see it wherever God's love is put into action. Don't miss this wonderful show. Don't miss this amazing opportunity to be part of something beyond yourself - the world's greatest project - the coming of God's kingdom of love and righteousness. What pebble will you move this week? What hope will be restored because of you? Now that you know, in your heart of hearts, the truth about who God really is, how will you live that out and share it?