My sermon on April 30, 2023 at Bluegrass United Church of Christ in Lexington, Kentucky.
The audio is available at kennybishop.com/podcast or on your favorite podcasting service.
Genesis 1: 27a (CEB)
God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them.
Does anyone remember that movie Oh, God! from back in 1977? George Burns, as God of course, has chosen Jerry Landers (John Denver), a supermarket manager, to be his chosen messenger to the world. It’s a fun story that takes the opportunity to weave in a nice moral message here and there.
It does bring up the question though; what does God look like?
In the movie, God looks like a wise elderly white man. He assumes different roles from time to time to sorta blend in and not look so much like God. At one point he’s a taxi driver, later on, he’s hotel room service. And every time he appears, it’s right at the last possible minute to cunningly help an emotionally exhausted Jerry.
I love the movie’s tagline:
“Anybody who could turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, incinerate Sodom and Gomorrah, and make it rain for forty days and forty nights has got to be a fun guy.”
Some of you may remember a similar, more recent movie where Morgan Freeman plays the God part and Jim Carrey is a down-on-his-luck television reporter named Bruce Nolan. Bruce feels that God is not living up to his reputation, so God makes him the Almighty for a week, and it’s only a matter of time before Bruce realizes it’s a much harder job than he expected.
Another cute movie. and once again, God is a man. But at least this time he’s not a white man.
Truth is, I actually believe God is a white man. I also believe God is a white woman. And I believe God is Black and brown and every other skin tone. And I believe that God is every gender on the human spectrum.
Some people believe that God is above all those things, and I don’t completely disagree. But I believe God is all of the things we are - if for no other reason than, according to the scripture we just read, we were all created in God’s image which means that collectively, we are all those things.
Today, there are over 7,000 known languages spoken around the world, and I believe God speaks and understands every one of them.
There are over 4,000 religions, and I believe God, in one way or another, is a part of all of them.
I believe God is Christian and Islam and Buddhist and Hindu and Jewish and all of the thousands of other religions that are something else. In Islam, there are 72 recognized sects. Judaism is divided into several streams or branches. Both Hinduism and Buddhism recognize four distinct denominations or sects.
As for us Christians, globally, in its Eastern and Western branches, among the Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and other sub-branches, there are over 45,000 different Christian denominations. And every single one of them believes they are right.
I believe God is present in the cathedral and in the megachurch. I believe God is in the little country church and in the inner-city mission. God is in the temple and in the synagogue and in the mosque and in the woods and in the ancient sacred places. I believe God is right here, right now.
I believe God wears collars and cassocks and vestments and robes and habits and hijabs and turbans. I also believe God wears shorts and t-shirts and blue jeans and business suits and sun dresses and skirts and slacks and beautiful gowns and tattered coats and worn-out shoes. I believe God wears sandals and work boots and moccasins and flip flops and cowboy boots and ballet flats and dress shoes and tennis shoes and sometimes no shoes at all.
I believe God is abundantly wealthy and incredibly poor. I believe God lives in mansions and palaces and in cottages and efficiency apartments and in houses and in assisted living and in homeless shelters and in housing projects. Sometimes God lives in a car, or in a tent, or under cardboard, or sometimes even right out there on our porch stoop.
I believe God’s table is an overflowing feast and I believe God is starving.
Some people believe that God is none of that, but I believe God is all of that.
And that puts us in a delicate place - a tricky spot. Because now we have to believe that when we see each other in all of that differentness and diversity, we’re seeing God.
It’s important for us to believe that. Because if we can believe that God is not a part of all of us, then we can also believe that we are not a part of God. And that is the beginning of not only dehumanizing each other but also removing our sacredness.
And if we can remove each other’s sacredness, we can also remove each other’s humanity.
Our nation and our world have a long and ugly history of doing just that.
When we can see ourselves - the way we look, the way we talk, the way we dress, the way we worship, the way we present, the way we love - when we can see our way of being as superior to every other way of being, that gives us permission to either eliminate all of the others or force them into our way of being. And it gives others permission to either eliminate us, or force us into their way of being.
It’s easy to dismiss people who are not like us. It’s easy and it’s dangerous.
It’s dangerous for us to think that God looks only like us.
Here at BUCC, we’re committed to sharing the truths that we’re convinced of. And we’re convinced that we’re not the only thing that God has going. We know there are other churches and other congregations, not only of the Christian tradition - but others - that are doing the good work of loving and embracing as much of the human family as possible. And they are doing it just as we are, as genuinely and compassionately as they know how.
They know, and we know, that we don’t get to decide who is worthy of God’s embrace. If we ever think that’s our decision to make, we’ve stepped outside of our calling and way outside of God’s intention for us.
Let me say it very clearly. I firmly believe that it is not possible for a person to be a true follower of Jesus and also be a racist. I believe it’s impossible to walk in his footsteps while willfully discriminating against any sex, gender identity, or sexuality. I believe there is no way to embrace his teachings on lifting up and helping the marginalized (listen up, politicians) while doing everything you can to keep them sick and hungry and poor and powerless and in debt.
You cannot claim his words about compassion while ignoring his words about justice.
You cannot be sold out to Jesus when you think you’re better than, smarter than, stronger than, or more than any other anyone else.
You cannot embrace diversity and prejudices too.
I’m not going to lie or pretend to be above it. There are some people that I just don’t like. And I have to remind myself that even if I don’t like them, that’s not a license to mistreat them or hurt them or cause them harm.
(Although I have asked God to turn around and not look sometimes when I’m tempted to scream a few choice words at the TV or wave an angry finger at some talker who pretends to know what’s best for America.)
Can we be honest? It would be a lot easier for all of us to appreciate and embrace our diversity if we didn’t have a bunch of preachers and politicians telling us who and what we’re supposed to be angry about and who we’re supposed to hate and be afraid of.
Here’s the thing; embracing our differences is only a difficult thing for those who are afraid of it.
Those who cling to the notion that God has a favorite anything - that God holds up one tiny piece of humanity and tosses all of the others - those people who are living in all that fear are convinced that they belong to that tiny number that God loves and accepts. And worse, they believe that God rejects everyone else.
Wars have been fought because of that belief. Countless millions upon millions upon millions have died because of that belief.
That belief allowed Black human beings to be traded like property. It allowed chattel slavery to thrive.
That belief allowed Indigenous people to be removed from their lands and compelled to abandon their cultures while their children were rounded up and forced to attend church and government-operated boarding schools where they were fed dangerous doctrines and abused in the name of religion and patriotism. Many of those children died, and their families were never even notified.
That belief has fed years of discrimination against women and the LGBTQ community - both of which have seen recent rises in attacks from politicians and the Christians who worship and follow them.
I feel kinda bad. Today I wanted to talk about ways we as individuals and as a church can embrace diversity. But I feel that it’s important for us to also talk about what rejecting diversity looks like.
You’d be hard-pressed to find another congregation in these parts that’s as open-minded and open-hearted as this one. But I think we can be even better - or at least more consistent. I think we should always take a look at ourselves and reevaluate how we’re doing.
Here’s what we know; we can be welcoming, but we must do more than just open our doors. We can be accepting, but we must do more than just allow someone who is not like us to sit with us. We can be inclusive, but we must do more than just make room for them.
Yes, we must extend the welcome. We must accept those who come for who they are, and we must make room for them and include them at our table.
But we must also embrace them.
We must affirm their worth. We must remind them of their sacredness. We must convince them that they belong, that they are part of God’s love, a part of God’s beautiful and diverse creation. That God looks like them and they look like God.
That sorta answers the question, doesn’t it?
What does God look like?
God looks like them. God looks like us.