As a progressive Christian, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth century American poet said, “They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of God as somewhat of a recluse.”
I believe God is omnipresent. That means God is everywhere and fully present – all at the same time. And if God is omnipresent, then “there’s not a spot where God is not.”
Like light, like air, space and thought, God is everywhere; all the time. And if God is everywhere, the good news is that we can never be separated from God, we can’t be lost from God. The Source of All, the Substance of All that Is cannot be removed from all that is and, therefore, cannot be removed from us.
Acts 17:28 says, “It is in God that we live and move and have our being.” God is right where we are. God is everywhere we are. Wherever we are, God is. If you believe that, then it’s an affirmation of divine omnipresence. And you can say, “Wherever I am, God is.”
For many of us, it’s tempting to hold on to our childhood view of God: God the gift-giver: “Santa God”; God who delights in punishing us: the “Marquis de God”; or God who’s somewhat distant until we call out for help carrying our heavy burdens: the “Bellhop God”. But none of these images are an omnipresent presence in which we could live and move and have our being.
I love the psalmist’s view of God: “Where could I go from your presence? Where could I flee from your presence?” The short answer is nowhere. There is no such place. I like how I’ve heard Rev. Durrell Watkins say it, “God is the life-force of my being, the omnipresence in which I live, the Breath of life that is my life.”
A couple weeks ago we talked about the creation story in Genesis 2 and 3 where the first human is made from the earth and God breathes life and spirit into the newly formed human. So from the very beginning, the human’s life is the very breath of God. God is the creative power that forms the human, and God is the life-breath that gives life to the human. There is no separation. In God we live and move and have our being.
Our reading in Psalm 139 shows us that connection with God is not limited to church buildings or scriptures or sacraments or creeds. No, the power of God is in the sky and space, day and night, everywhere we are and everywhere we look. There’s not a spot where God is not!
So, the stories we read of an exiled Moses finding God in a burning bush, of Jonah being called to minister to his enemies the Ninevites, of Jesus being born in a barn, of Jesus being found by Persian astrologers, of Jesus eating with prostitutes or advocating for children or talking with a Samaritan woman, and of God being in the places least likely to be found.
How can God be accessible to Assyrians, or Ninevites, or prostitutes, or lepers, or kids, or Samaritans, or gays, or those who have a different name for God, or those who have a different political or economic philosophy? Our reading in Psalm 139 clearly shows that there is not a spot where God is not, which means that God is with the rich and the poor, the marginalized and the hurting, and with those of other religions or those of no religion and is even with those we are tempted to call our enemies.
When people believe that God can’t be found in the love that two people share (no matter their race or sexual orientation), or that God can’t operate through the ministry of women, or that God can only be found by Christians, or even by certain denominations within Christianity, they are saying that God is far removed from the lives we actually live. Their God is not an omnipresent God. However, a God in which we live and move and have our being must be omnipresent, and therefore, fully present wherever we are and whoever we are. That’s omnipresence.
Because there’s not a spot where God is not, God can be found in a burning bush, or an unwed young girl giving birth to a baby in a barn, to a lonely woman getting water at a well who is treated like dirt by the majority, or on a hill where thieves and murderers are being crucified. This is the way of omnipresent divinity.
Last week we talked about Jesus de-cluttering the temple. In his gospel, John has Jesus saying that the temple will be raised up in three days. The religious authorities thought Jesus was talking about the literal temple, but Jesus was using the temple as a metaphor for the body. What does this show us?
A couple things: One, this shows us that Scripture is often meant to be taken metaphorically rather than literally, and two, it reinforces for us that we are God’s temple. We are the temple of God. Our world, our bodies are the temple of God. We’ve been taught to see God in Jesus, but sometimes we forget that Jesus saw God everywhere. Jesus, in whom we see God, also sees God in us. Wherever we are, God is; there’s not a spot where God is not.
Do you ever feel like God has abandoned you or condemned you? Do you ever feel like you’re beyond the reach of God’s love or that God is nowhere to be found?
Friends, it isn’t even possible. The breath of God is the spirit of life in you. You cannot be separated from God. Oh, such good news!
Dr. Durrell Watkins wrote an affirmation that I like:
I am in God.
God is in me.
I can never be separated from God.
This is the good news.
And so I rejoice!
Amen.
