On the Exclusivity of God
Or rather, humans...
Isaiah 45:5-13 | Matthew 22:34-40
Reading through Isaiah during Advent: Isaiah 45-47
Humans create teams. It’s what we do. Tribes, nations, factions, political parties…even families - these are all ways in which we group together and separate at the same time. Perhaps it’s a natural thing to foster safety, connection, identification, and belonging. But it also leads to fighting, exclusion, shaming, and violence.
Sometimes the people of God have used God to reinforce such division. A passage like today’s is great fuel for such team-making: “Our God is better than your god!” In the biblical world - particularly the older Hebrew Bible over the New Testament - this was a natural response because the understanding was that the world evidenced many gods. The idea of one God was radical! This is part of why the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 is foundational for Israel - “The Lord God is one.” (So live accordingly.)
You won’t find Jesus doing nearly as much line-drawing, God-wagging, or divine saber-rattling. For sure, Jesus is clear that God is God and there are many things that are not. But Jesus is rather comfortable in knowing and living within the notion that God just is. He doesn’t need to compare or put others down to reinforce his confidence in God.
Jesus isn’t too interested in creating a team.
He’s all about community, but it’s a community of loving inclusion.
We don’t find him marching to Rome or even Caesarea Philippi to break down Roman temples or statues. In fact, can you think of a single time Jesus references Greek or Roman mythology, despite its prevalence in the world at the time he walked upon it?
In Jesus, we see that the work of God is evidenced in things like mercy, compassion, grace, and love. And the call is to follow suit.
Isaiah 45:5-13
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
besides me there is no God.
I strengthen you—
though you don’t know me—
so all will know, from the rising of the sun to its setting,
that there is nothing apart from me.
I am the Lord; there’s no other.
I form light and create darkness,
make prosperity and create doom;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
Pour down, you heavens above,
and let the clouds flow with righteousness.
Let the earth open for salvation to bear fruit;
let righteousness sprout as well.
I, the Lord, have created these things.
Doom to the one who argues with the potter,
as if he were just another clay pot!
Does the clay say to the potter, “What are you making?”
or “Your work has no handles”?
Doom to one who says to a father,
“What have you fathered?”
and to a woman,
“With what are you in labor?”
The Lord, the holy one of Israel and its maker, says:
Are you questioning me about my own children?
Are you telling me what to do with the work of my hands?
I myself made the earth,
and created humans upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens.
I commanded all their forces.
I have a right to awaken Cyrus;
I will smooth all his paths.
He will build my city
and set my exiles free,
not for a price and not for a bribe,
says the Lord of heavenly forces.
Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had left the Sadducees speechless, they met together. One of them, a legal expert, tested him. “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Prayer
God,
Honestly, separation makes me feel safer. Identification with people who agree like me, look like me, and live like me…it’s comforting. I feel validated.
But I do see how, quite often, the things that make me comfortable can make others feel uncomfortable.
So help me, God: Make Jesus live deep within me in such a way that my confidence is in you and not my ability to differentiate between others.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.