A Most Stubborn God

I have been studying the book of Genesis to teach a new class at church. Genesis is a huge book with famous stories and important theological motifs, but one theme stands out: family. And particularly… how shall we say this…. Family drama.

Genesis contains the first family and the first family of Israel. It contains the patriarchs that we so often laud upon their ancient pedestals. But if you need to feel good about your own family, you might take a quick trek through Genesis. I read through it front to back the other day, and quite honestly, was left feeling a little embarrassed. Those stories are not as safe, clean, and pretty as they were presented when were children.

Just like with our own family history, Genesis tends to focus on the stars of the shows. Eve, Abraham, Jacob… those main characters seem to get it wrong more often than right. Repetitively, stubbornly, they insist on doing things their own way.

You know that really stubborn person in your family?
If you can’t narrow it to one, I’m sorry.
If you can’t think of one, it’s you.

And in our  family, God’s family, so many of us are stubborn in so many ways. But somebody in the family wins the title, Most Stubborn of All Time Ever. And that somebody is God.

* * *

Now in Sunday School last week when I levied this, Ms. Betsy grasped her pearls, both literally and figuratively.

“Oh, now, CASEY! Whateva do ya MEAN, calling God stubborn?!” She panicked in her transatlantic drawl. “Does the Bahh-bel use that word?”

No, Betsy, et. al., the Bible doesn’t use that word. The Bible uses the word faithful. At least that’s how we usually translate it. But I’m afraid we’ve lost the meaning of faithfulness in a culture where faithfulness seems only to be a cute myth from days gone by. Promises are made to be broken, we say.

We do have lots of biblical ways to talk about God’s stubbornness or faithfulness. We say God is the Rock That Cannot be Moved and the Fount Which Will Never Run Dry. God is the Beginning and also the End, Alpha and Omega. We sing that the Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. And we believe it!… until we feel shame.

In Genesis, the Creator is made known as the God who is also in covenant with the creation. Covenant is where God gets stubborn. Covenant means that God refuses to quit on us. The covenant between God and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and us is essentially, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” And some way, somehow, by ways that are not human, God is still their God even when they don’t act like God’s people.

Over and over and over again, the people of Genesis get it wrong. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned from sitting with those families and their drama is? God is still there. Every time they turn around in sin, God is there. Every time they laugh in an angel’s face, God is still there. Every time they make moves without seeking God, still there. God is just so surprisingly, shockingly, stubbornly there.

This doesn’t make sin inconsequential. This doesn’t make grace cheap. This makes God faithful. This makes God bigger than our sin, bigger than our shame, bigger than us. The one thing more stubborn than our sinfulness is God.

Rachel Held Evans sums it up best, quoting a bit of Madeleine L’Engle. She says of the people in Genesis: “For in these ordinary, embattled characters, complete with ordinary faults and fears, we encounter a God who is stubbornly present­­— ‘marvelously, terribly there’ —and who invites us all into the ongoing work of creation, even in the midst of our own failures and doubts.”

Stubbornly present. Marvelously— terribly, even!— there.

This is not some secret. It’s in the very second verse of the Bible:

“Now the earth was formless and void,
darkness was over the face of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Genesis 1:2

 Formlessness, void, darkness, and deep, and God. God is there. It’s who God is; it’s what God is like. There.

* * *

In the first story of sin with the first people, we see shame cause them to deviate from their faithfulness to God. They had a rhythm of ‘walking with God in the garden in the cool of the day.’ But when they realize their wrong-doing and shame comes, it drives them to run away and hide.

Who runs and hides? Adam and Eve; not God. Who puts distance between them? Adam and Eve; not God. What does God do? God still shows up. God keeps the schedule. God comes back to where they all once where and asks, “Where are you?” God is stubborn like that. Always showing up.

When you don’t believe it.
When you don’t feel it.
When you don’t want it.
God is still there.

“But I don’t deserve God,” is what I hear most. Great news about that, actually. When I hear this, I want to yell, “I really hate to break this to you, but IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU; IT’S ABOUT GOD. God’s with-us-ness is not merited by our actions. It’s based upon God’s promise. And God is stubborn about keeping the promise.

 “God will never forgive me again for this.” Sorry. It’s the business God is in. We are always forgiven because God’s reputation, goodness, and faithfulness are at stake, not our own.

When you don’t believe it.
When you don’t feel it.
When you don’t want it.
God is still, stubbornly, there.

* * *

If the Lord don’t come and the creek don’t rise,

Casey