The Lord is Merciful and Gracious

“The Lord, the Lord, 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 …” —Exodus 34:6-7

I grew up going to church. Back then, I would hear sermons at least two times per week. I went to Sunday School and attended an additional Bible study every week. There was a lot of sitting and listening to people talk about God and the Bible. This continued when I went to college. Then after getting married to Shawna, we were are part of a church where we listened to three sermons per week. To say the least, I’ve heard a lot of sermons. While I do not remember the details of each, I can honestly say that there was not one sermon given on this passage. This is a bit problematic since these verses serve as a foundational core to the Old Testament. They are like a thesis statement in a term paper, as they define how the Israelite people were meant to view who God is. These words act as a starting point for defining the character of who God is. We know this because these words are repeated in different books of the Old Testament. 

The fact that I never heard a sermon on these verses illustrates another problem. When I thought about who God is or what God’s character is like, the qualities of his nature found in these verses were not the starting point. They were not even included. I would describe God as all-knowing, all-powerful, all-controlling, and absolutely different from anything that a human being is. Above all, God was the ultimate judge, the one who constantly assessed my every choice, waiting to catch me when I messed up. To me, God was the great tyrant that demanded my allegiance, and he was ready to point his finger at me when I failed. 

I was told that this is what we should expect of the God of the Old Testament. Jesus is the nice side of God. But God the Father is the angry judge that no one likes.  

Yet, these verses from the Old Testament do not present this kind of picture of God, as your mother so aptly stated in her sermon. This definition of God’s character does not include the words that I grew up hearing. Instead of a God who is absolutely different from human beings, God is relational. In fact, we read that God has the character traits that are valued by kind, healthy human being. Instead of distant and controlling, God is merciful and gracious. Instead of judgmental and angry, God is actually slow to become angry. Instead of controlling and holding all power over everything, God is loving and faithful. 

The perspective taught in the churches I attended for most of my life actually represent the way the majority of churches talk about God. For those raised  in the Catholic Church, much of the teaching therein is founded upon the writings of Thomas Aquinas. He said that when we think about God we need to picture him as completely contradictory in every way from humans. Whereas we give and receive love through relationship with other people, and therefore our affections are impacted by others. God, Aquinas said, is untouchable. He actually is like an unmoving pillar. We can navigate around his static existence, but he never shifts in relationship to us. He can cause the world to spin as it does, but what occurs in this world and how we live and love does not have any impact on who he is, how he feels, or the way that he acts. 

But if this is the case, then the claim found in Exodus that God as loving, forgiving and faithful makes no sense. Take forgiveness. There is no need for God to forgive someone unless that person has done something that was hurtful to God in relationship. If God is not impacted by others, then there is not reason for him to forgive their actions toward him. The same applies to loving others. Love is about giving and receiving. It’s about opening up our lives to others. If God is completely unaffected by us, then how can we say that he loves us? 

I’m writing this in a coffee shop. If I accept Aquinas’ view of God, then God is really not present with me. I have to put myself into holy place with holy people and a holy leader in order to meet with God. And then the only thing that I can do is listen to God’s static commands to me. This would be like trying to be a friend with a really famous person, and they set specific parameters upon the relationship. They would only meet in special places, not in common spaces like a coffee shop. Then when we met, they would have a PR representative read from a canned speech. 

Some don’t go quite this far. They might say that they could meet with God in a coffee shop, but it’s a one-way conversation. God speaks, and we listen. And if I cannot understand what God is saying then I am the problem. I would say that this is the way I grew up. This would be sitting with a friend at a coffee shop and listening to them talk for two hours without showing any interest in you. No one would call that loving. 

The core characteristics of God found in these verses announce that God is actually sitting here with me as I write this, and I can interact with her. God really listens to me and wants to hear where I am coming from, and what I am experiencing actually affects her. My words, my opinions, my feelings actually matter to her. God extends his life to us but does so in such a way that our lives have an impact her. That’s the way that love, faithfulness, and forgiveness work if I were sitting here with a friend in this coffee shop.