Show Me God

John 14:1-11; 2 Corinthians 4:13-18

Throughout the month of May I asked for suggestions from the congregation and community for sermon topics. I got more than enough to see me through until Labor Day. Today on this first Sunday after Memorial Day, I will be preaching on one of these Summer Sermon Suggestions. This first one is theological in nature, but I am going to make it experiential. That is the way I understand theology. I do not see theology as a metaphysical explanation of reality; I see it as a description of our experience of reality. I see it as experiential. Theology is not meant to be just believed in our head, but known with the heart. If we just believe doctrine without experiencing it, we are simply indoctrinated and that is all. Then we have missed the point, which is to experience that to which the doctrine points. Doctrines are signs meant to point us to a spiritual reality; they are not in themselves spiritual reality. Today I am not just going to be talking about God; I will be attempting you lead you into an awareness of God.

The sermon suggestion for today involved the Trinity and Christ. In particular someone asked me what the term “Jesus Christ” meant. Another question by the same person asked about the Trinity, specifically how the Christian understanding of the trinity differs from that of UUA – the Unitarian Universalist Association. Presumably the person had in mind the local UUA congregation in Tamworth. I have chosen to answer these questions in the broader context of our experience of God.

In our Gospel Lesson for today Jesus was teaching about God, and his disciples were asking him questions. First Thomas asked him a question to which Jesus responded with the famous words: ““I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” I will get to Thomas later. Then Philip asked a follow up question. This is the one I want to focus on mainly. Actually it was more of a request than a question. Verse 8 reads “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus had been talking about God, and Philip cuts to the chase and asked Jesus to show him God. And Jesus does. That is what I want to do this morning – something you might consider impossible. That brings me to my first point, which is …

I. No one has ever seen God. John 1:18 tells us flat out, “No one has seen God at any time.” Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." No one can see God because God is invisible. This is what a lot of atheists these days don’t seem to get. Atheists reason that since no one has ever seen God then that proves that God does not exist. It does no such thing.

Atheism has a long and honorable intellectual history, and most atheists in recent centuries have been sophisticated philosophically and theologically. They understood what Christianity taught about God, and they disagreed. That is not the case now. A lot of atheists don’t seem to understand what Christianity teaches about God any more. There is an epidemic of theological illiteracy.   Recent atheist books I have read hold to a childish parody of God. They create a straw man which they label God and then tear it down. This is very easy to do, but it says nothing about the God worshipped by most Christians. I read an article by an atheist who seriously asked the question of where God was located. He wanted to know where in the universe God lived! That is ignorance. God is not located in space and time. God is spiritual, not physical.  God is omnipresent – meaning invisibly present in all places at all times. You can’t see God physically. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t see God. This leads to my second point, which is …

II. Everyone has seen God. No one has seen God physically, but everyone has seen God spiritually. But the apostle Paul says that people suppress this truth. In Romans 1 the apostle Paul talks about the “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse….” Everyone sees God. Psalm 19 says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. 2 Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.” The hymn says, “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” Everyone has seen God. Which brings me quickly to my next point – the main point of this message:

III. Then show me. Show me God. That is what Philip asked. That is what people want today. They don’t want religion. They want to experience God firsthand and know that God is real. They want to see God – not physically of course, because God is not physical - but spiritually. How do you see God? How do you see the invisible? It is possible. Hebrews 11 says of Moses, “he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.” Our epistle Reading in 2 Corinthians says, “we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” God is real. And we can see God. How? That is the question. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

I recently heard a true story told by a religious leader, who was visiting in the home of some friends. Their eight-year old daughter came up to him and said she wanted to see God. She asked the same question we are dealing with today: “Show me God.” The preacher said, “You go to school today and when you come home, I will show you God.” So she went to school and when she came home, she said, “Where is God? You said when I came home from school, you would show me God.” The man replied, “Tomorrow morning, before you go to school, come to me and I will show you God.” So she came to him the next morning and asked. “Show me God”. He replied. “You go to school today and when you come home, I will show you God.” She looked at him skeptically and said, “No, you said you would show me God yesterday and this morning. I will not go to school until you show me God.” (This determination was exactly what the man was hoping for.) “Okay,” the preacher said. “But you have to give God something. You can’t come to God empty-handed. (Which is very good advice, by the way.) “Do you have anything to give God?” She replied, “Mama gave me some chocolate to take to school today for desert. I will give God my chocolate.” He replied, “Good. God likes chocolate! (which says a lot about God I think.) He told her, “Give the chocolate to God.” She replied, “Where is he? He has to be here first before I can give him chocolate.” He replied, “No, you have to give it to him first.” She thought about this for a moment, and then put out her hand and offered God the chocolate. All of a sudden she started laughing and shouting for joy. Her joy became so loud that her mama came in the room to see what was happening. Her mama asked her, ‘What happened?” She replied, “I gave God chocolate and he took it!” Her mother replied, “What are you talking about? I don’t see God here!” “The little girl replied, “You don’t see God? Look. He is right here! I see him.”

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Jesus said that we have to become as little children to enter the Kingdom of God. We have to have the faith of a child. God is here, if we have eyes to see. It is because people do not believe God is present that they cannot see. People say, “I will believe it when I see it” or “seeing is believing.” That is not the way it works. It is just the opposite. Believing is seeing. We say that God is omnipresent. We say we hold this to be a true statement – that God is present everywhere. But if we truly believe that God is omnipresent, then we will see him everywhere. That is what I mean with I say that true theology is practical and not theoretical. It doesn’t matter what we tell others we believe about God, or even what we tell ourselves that we believe about God. When we truly believe that God is here now, we will see God here now. Do you see God here now? Scripture says that Moses saw God. It says he saw God on Mount Sinai and in the tent of meeting. Hebrews says Moses saw Him who is invisible. Do you see that which is invisible? Do you see God?

IV. Fourth, we see the invisible God in Jesus Christ. In our passage, Philip could not see God. That is why he asked Jesus to show him God. This is what Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?”

We see the invisible God in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul says in Colossians that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God.” This is where I will finally get around to answering the specific questions in the sermon suggestion. This is where the idea of the trinity originated. The Trinity is a way of describing the experience of seeing God in Jesus. The early church came to call Jesus God the Son. Christians are Trinitarian – we experience God in three persons. Tri means three. Uni mean one. The Unitarians  experience God as one, not three. Theological unitarians reject the trinity. When Unitarianism started, it was a theological movement that understood Jesus as a human preacher and teacher but not divine – not the Son of God nor God the Son. Jesus was understood as just a man like any other. The UUA has changed and broadened since those days. It still would not call itself a Christian church or denomination. It sees itself as broader and more inclusive than Christianity. But nowadays they would say that they are so inclusive that include even Trinitarian Christians in their ranks. In fact we used to have a couple in this church – Frank and Kathy Perkins – who were devout Christians and part of the UUA. The were members of the Christian Fellowship, a Trinitarian group, within the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The term Jesus Christ is another way of describing the divinity of Jesus. Jesus was his birth name. but Christ is not Jesus’ last name.  Christ is his title given to him by his followers. Peter was the first one to call him that saying, “You are the Christ ,the Son of the Living God!” Christ means anointed one. The Greek term is Christos – the Greek form of the Hebrew word that means Messiah. Kings were anointed in Israel, and the Messiah was seen as the King of Israel. Priests were anointed in Israel, and Jesus is understood as Christians’ High Priest, mediator between God and man. But most importantly for our topic this morning, Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, declaring him to be the Son of God. In his baptism Jesus experienced himself as the Son of God through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus Christ we experience God.

In Jesus Christ I experience God. I call myself a Christian  not because I hold to certain theological ideas about Jesus as part of a creed or catechism. Being a Christian is not just believing a set of doctrines. It is experiencing Christ, knowing Him to be the Son of God, and submitting one’s life to him as Lord. When I see Jesus, I see God. I experience the risen Jesus alive today as God. How did I come to see this? By faith! Like that little girl. That is what Jesus told Philip. Listen how Jesus urges Philip to faith. “Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Maybe you say, “I can’t believe that.” I can’t believe Jesus is God. My answer is: Sure you can! Let me show you how. It is so simple a child can do it. Just drop the doubt and you will see Christ for who he is. Thomas is another disciple mentioned in our gospel lesson. He is known as doubting Thomas. On Easter Thomas said he would not believe in Jesus unless he saw him with his own eyes. Thomas said, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” But even when the risen Jesus called his bluff and stood right in front of him, Thomas would not believe. That was not really the issue. Seeing is not believing. Seeing did not result in believing for Thomas. So Jesus told him, “Stop doubting and believe.” When Thomas stopped doubting, then he saw God in Jesus. And he declared, “My Lord and my God.” That is what it comes down to for us also. We see when we believe. And when we see, we wonder how we ever did not see it earlier. We wonder why everyone cannot see. It is as plain as can be. God is here. Jesus is here. God is in Jesus. Jesus is in God and God is in us. That is my fifth point, which is …

V. Seeing God in others. When we say that God is omnipresent, that means that God is everywhere. He is in everything that exists.  As Paul said “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead….”  God is especially visible in people. That is what it means to say that humans are created in the image of God.  Even people who do not believe in God are made in the image of God. To be made in the image of God means that when we look at people we see God. That is the practical experiential meaning of this doctrine. Theologians theologize about what the image of God in human beings is. Is it the soul? Is it the reason? Is it creativity? Is it this or that? That approach misses the point. The point of the doctrine is to point us to seeing God in humans.

God should especially be seen in Christians, since we profess to know and serve God. As Christians we acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of God, and we experience God as Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We experience God inside and outside and in others, especially in those who share our experience of Christ and the Holy Spirit.  We experience God the Creator in everyone created in the image of God, and we experience Christ in those who profess Christ and are part of the Body of Christ.

And when we truly see God in others, the normal Christian response is to love them as we love God. The apostle John writes: “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” He goes on to say in that same passage: “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”

We see God in our Christian brothers and sisters. That is what it means to be church. And we see God in everyone; that is what it means to be a Christian in the world. Teresa of Calcutta said, “I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" Jesus said, “As you have done it for the least of these my brothers, you have done it for me.” God is present. Just look around and you will see God. Drop the doubt and believe. If you don’t see God, ask God why. In prayer ask Christ what Philip asked, “Show me God.” And Christ will show you God.