God Can Send Messages From Anywhere

RELIGION TODAY - March 1st 2008

It is far too easy to slip into the 'Christus Victor' sort of way of seeing the world. That is the fancy official way of talking about a way of being religious that is akin to going to a Wildcats game; we sit in the stands shouting as loud as we can "We're Number One!" knowing in our hearts that God is about to put a whooping on the other team.

Anyone can fall prey to this way of thinking. Those of us on the liberal left are pretty sure that God is a liberal too. Those of us who would call ourselves conservative or right wing are convinced God is too. Both of us know for sure that God is Christian.

All of this knowledge is deeply rooted in our hearts even though most of what we read in the Bible and observe from experience contradicts this. For example, Jesus took great pains to try and convince us that God loves everybody -- but for some reason we just don't hear this the way it is intended.

Which is why we need Comedians -- comedians, when they are good, have a way of using satire to indict us of our own faults, and call us to repentance. I will never forget, as a teenager, seeing the Canadian sketch comedy group "The Frantics" perform their routine St. Peter. In a nutshell it goes something like this:

Tom has arrived at the Pearly Gates and is greeted by St. Peter who says "Welcome, you may enter the Kingdom of Heaven to join your fellow Presbyterians. Tom says he isn't Presbyterian... he's Catholic and St. Peter shuts the gate. Tom must go to hell. It turns out Heaven is for those who follow the one true path, Presbyterian. Tom says he's been a good Catholic. He did mass, communion and confession. St. Peter laughs, saying it was all a waste of time. Tom asks what about Jews, God's chosen people? St. Peter says God is fickle. For a few thousand years the Jews were the chosen people; then Muslims, Aztecs and Methodists.

It goes on for a while, but you get the point. The point is that it is silly of us to decide God likes us better than someone else. Sometimes we need to hear these lessons from outside of a church so that they have a little more impact. I just saw the movie Evan Almighty. I put it off for a while because the critics panned it so bad. I should have known better; it was both really funny, and a good religious message, no matter what faith you find yourself in.

The message is this: God loves everybody and God offers everybody different opportunities to remember this.

When I wrote this, there were some 6 billion 787 million, 278 thousand people on the planet, the population grows at about 3 people per second and you will read this some four days after I write it if you want to do the math. There is a moment in Evan Almighty where God talks about his 6 billion children. (And I only use Him because God in these movies is Morgan Freeman -- which is inspired in that a person of African Descent challenges some of the audience. In the comedy Dogma, God was played by Alanis Morissette, in the nude. God as a young naked female pop star challenges another set of assumptions, but I digress).

The most powerful scene in the movie is a dialogue between God and Evan's wife about whether or not God has actually answered their prayers. Near the beginning of the movie, Evan, a newly elected congressman prays for his family in the midst of all the upheaval they are experiencing. Later, after Evan has begun construction on a massive Ark his wife leaves him, fearing he is crazy. God meets her in a coffee shop and says this: "Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

I could preach a million sermons in which I say exactly this same point. You could read it in religious books or even the Bible. But sometimes we need Morgan Freeman to say it from the big screen. God works in mysterious ways indeed.