Based on Amos 7:12-17, Colossians 1:9-14, Luke 10:25-37
Think of a tragedy in the world – currently there are many from which you can choose. For example, the recent floods in Texas and New Mexico, the 9/11 attack, the murder of innocent people in faith communities around the world, the untimely death of someone, wars, etc. Often, I will hear someone – usually a religious professional, religious personality or well-meaning believer say something like, “Well, what are you gonna do? It was God’s will!” Really?! Did God intentionally “will” the recent deadly floods, or the attacks on the Twin Towers, or the wars, the oppression, the genocides, diseases like cancer and all the tragic suffering across the whole of human history? My response to a such a statement about God’s will is, “What does that say about the god in which you believe?”
For when we’re trying to understand the will of God, it’s critical that we become crystal clear on what kind of God we’re talking about. If we cherry-pick the First Testament and believe only in a vengeful, fire-and-brimstone, wrath-filled god, then we might be able to believe statements about a god who goes about willfully harming people. However, is that really a god that you want to follow? Is that understanding of the arbitrary and vengeful will of God going to help you pick up the pieces of your life and comfort you when tragedy strikes? Yes, you can point to the story of Noah and have partial justification for such a theology, but not if you look to the end of that story, which birthed a binding covenant between God and all of creation to save it, not capriciously destroy it.
Still, trying to identify and understand the will of God is for most believers a frustrating and ephemeral thing. It is hard to grasp onto something that is always a bit unclear, is prone to change as we follow along, and most often flies in the face of what society and the larger world believes. Yet, the Bible, when taken as a whole narrative does offer some clear views of God’s will towards our spiritual ancestors and gives us clues to understand how God’s will is working with us in our day.
Take our readings for this morning where the prophet Amos is called out of his life as a shepherd and arborist to speak on behalf of God to the leaders of the Northern kingdom of Israel. Amos had spoken some challenging things about the king of Israel and how he had turned away from the will of God. The king’s priest, Amaziah, attempts to keep Amos from prophesying to the king, but Amos persists and tells all who will hear that the will of God for the kingdom of Israel at that time was to be overthrown and scattered among the people of the world. The ultimate will of God, says the prophet, is to mercifully return Israel to Jerusalem on a future day known only to God.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Colossae from a prison cell in Rome. The Colossian church had begun well but had been influenced by Jews trying to get them to circumcise and follow Torah, and by well-meaning leaders who were putting in place unnecessary rules and regulations. Paul is writing to clarify and to bring them back to following Jesus. Our reading for today has Paul praying that the Holy Spirit will lead the people through wisdom and understanding to the full knowledge of God’s will for them as individuals and as a faith community. Paul notes that God’s will for them is to “…live a life worthy of the Lord, and please him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light….”
Our last reading for today is the well-known parable of the “Good Samaritan”. A lawyer questions Jesus about how to inherit eternal life – that is, to understand how to live on earth in such a way as to do God’s will. Jesus asks what the lawyer knows about this from scripture – and the lawyer answers to love God and neighbor as much as we are loved by God. Jesus says, “Do this and you will live”. However, the lawyer wants to “justify himself”, that is, he wants to make sure that he is blameless before God and so asks, “who is my neighbor?” To answer the lawyer’s question, Jesus tells a parable whose punchline is that God’s will for all humans is for us to show unconditional mercy to each other.
So, we have before us some helpful guides to discovering and understanding the will of God. Jesus teaches that the key to living into the will of God is to love God and each other enough to be unconditionally merciful to each other. Paul tells us that God’s will was to rescue “…us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins….” Finally, we must understand, as Amos said, that even when we receive consequences from God for our sinful behavior, those consequences are not an eternal judgment. God’s will is to be merciful to us in time and return us to right relationship with God when we repent and choose the ways of God over the ways of the world.
The Bible provides numerous insights into God's will for our world. One of the main ones is in the Lord's Prayer (which we will recite together in just a few minutes) as Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. This prayer reflects our desire and hope for God's perfect will to be realized in the world and in the lives of all believers.
Discerning God's will requires a heart attuned to seeking after God and God’s direction for our lives. It’s what Jesus taught the lawyer through the parable of the “Good Samaritan”. Likewise, prayer, meditation on scripture, and the counsel of fellow believers in Christian community are vital in discovering and following God's will. It’s what Paul was teaching the believers in Colossae – to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to understand the full knowledge of the will of God and then to live lives that reflect that knowledge.
For me it is clear that our loving God does not will suffering or destruction in our world. To say that something tragic is “God’s will” is to negate the realities of our individual and institutional sin and the way in which our created world and bodies operate. The Bible clearly shows a God who is unconditionally loving, merciful, just, kind, forgiving and so very patient with us. That is the God that I know and follow. The God whose will is to encourage us to live mercifully as God is merciful to us. May God’s will be done today and always, amen!