God Is With You Gen 28:10-22

One of the most common ways of seeing God is to imagine God sitting up beyond the clouds. I see God often this way and I know others do. “Put a good word into Hughie/The Big Bloke up there for us” is a common request people make. “Can you just ask the Fellow upstairs to stop the shaking?” It’s one way of seeing God as the power which is beyond us. The problem with this image is that it encourages us to turn to God only when our lives are in a mess. For much of the time we can forget the Fellow upstairs because everything is sailing smoothly.
In our scriptures God is often seen as the power beyond us. One of the most common images is to see God as the Creator, the power that brings all life into being, or the power that is in charge of the life of the world. When I see God this way I’m also reminded that it’s not an all controlling power because God has given us free will, and there are other powers at work in our lives. I don’t see God as responsible for everything that happens in the world but I do see God working in all that happens drawing goodness out of chaos, and beauty out of tragedy. I like the image of Jeremiah who witnessed a potter working with a lump of clay on a potting wheel. Often something would go wrong and the potter would have to start again. He never threw the clay away, but simply started reshaping again it until the desired pot emerged. For Jeremiah and for me this is a helpful image of God. God is a power beyond me working to shape my life and the life of the entire world.
Christmas tells us something else about God. God is not simply up there or out there, but God has become one of us in Jesus. Jesus is God walking with us, alongside us. In Jesus we can see what a human life full of God can look like. In Jesus we have a guide who can help us find the Way that will build good lives and good communities. As we study his teaching, and we see the way he lives and treats others, as we listen to his stories, something of God rubs off on us. We learn that life isn’t all about getting the best for ourselves, but is about giving ourselves in service. We discover values of right and wrong, we learn about compassion and the sanctity of life, we begin to understand the kindness and graciousness of God. Our lives take a different direction when we start walking with Jesus – when we start living with the reality that God walks with us and guides our every decision, and every action. We start orientating everything we do to building a new earth shaped by love and by the kingdom of heaven. We get caught up in being the presence of God in our world right now.
God is beyond us, God is with us…..but it’s not a passive presence – God is doing things! God is calling forth a new world!
Christmas also has another implication that I don’t think we really comprehend well, and that is that God is alive within us. One of the sad traditions that has developed within the Christian faith is that a good religious life is about denial. It is about putting on a sour face and saying no to all human desire. Sex is bad, smiling suspect, and enjoyment a tool of the devil. The early church believed in our humanity because God had become one of us. Irenaeus, who you may remember I introduced you to last year, was one of the first church leaders. He said, ‘The glory of God is the human person fully alive.’ Human beings can shine with the glory of God. He took seriously the idea that God walks with us, and he took seriously that God is also alive within us. One of the questions I often ask of people when I sense that we are in the presence of God is ‘what do you most deeply desire?’ Our deepest desires are never about money or personal success, but they are about other things, deeper things, things that really matter in life. God is alive in these deep desires, just as God is alive in the deep dreams of our lives. My ears pricked up when one of my nieces was telling me over Christmas about a dream she has for her life. I’ve always wanted to go to India and do some voluntary work she was saying. I don’t know why but it just sort of sits there for me. My advice to her was simple, ‘quit your job and go do it.’ Life is too short to not listen to your deep dreams. These deep dreams are of God. God lives deep inside us in a place I call my soul. It is a place where the very purpose and meaning of my life is found, and people who are in touch with their souls are authentic people in whom God has come alive. I need to say many of these people do not attend a church – God has no favourites. The glory of God is in the person who is fully alive.
God is beyond us, but God is with us, and God is within us…. but it’s not a passive presence – God is doing things! God is calling forth a new world!

The strange thing is that for some reason or another we often do not recognize God. This is nothing new. Our forefather in the faith Jacob learned about God one night when he was running away. Jacob was no saint – he had connived with his mother and told lies to his father. He had cheated his brother, Esau, out of a large inheritance, and Esau was after him. One night Jacob stopped at a “certain place” which is a Hebrew way of saying no place in particular. Ashburton or Darfield might be called “certain places”, everyday places where there is no real reason to stop. But Jacob did stop because he was tired and needed to rest. As was custom he puts a stone under his head for a rather hard pillow. Maybe he put a tunic or rolled up garment on the stone to make it softer, we don’t know. But that night, in that very ordinary place something happened, because God came to him. He saw a ladder set on the earth reaching up into heaven, and angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the voice of God spoke to him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and Isaac” Then after the introductions the real message comes, “know that I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”
Jacob is stunned. What is God doing in this place. How come I didn’t see him before! This is a holy place but I had no idea. What is this God will be with me? He sets about building an alter and calling the place Beth-el which means House of God.
Like Jacob we can be awake, but also asleep to the presence of God in our lives. Sometimes we are awakened by a blessing like a new child born into our family, an unexplained healing, a relationship that was on the rocks taking on a new life. Sometimes we are awakened by suffering, by the awareness that we are mortal, or hitting rock bottom in some way. Dramatic events can shake us free from our usual pattern of sleepwalking and open our eyes to God. Our soul is often awakened by suffering, or deep undeserved blessing, or maybe an overwhelming realisation of beauty and awe. Suddenly we realize there is another presence that journeys with us. Jacob says, “God was here but I wasn’t aware of it.” Apparently it’s possible for God to be right along side you, even within you, and you can’t see it! This is the great discovery of Jacob.
And the close presence of God began to change things. It takes time, but slowly Jacob begins to work on things and get things in order. He eventually reconciles with his brother Esau, and they become friends again. In a dramatic turn of phrase he proclaims to Esau, “seeing your face again is like seeing the face of God”! Once you start seeing God in ordinary places like Bethel, you never know when God might show up, even in someone who has been out to kill you for the last 20 years.
Do you know what the central promise of the Bible is? “You are forgiven”, maybe or when you die you will find a home in heaven. No, I think the central promise is this: “I will be with you”. It’s a promise found in many places and in many ways in our scriptures. Our favourite Psalm says “ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for…you are with me”. (Psalm 23) We have just celebrated Christmas with the coming of Jesus. Jesus called….Emmanuel, which means God is with us. When Jesus’s physical presence left the earth the promise was that he would send his Spirit so that “I am with you always even until the end of time”. In the book of Revelation we get a picture of the end of time and it looks like this… “Gods dwelling place is now among people and he will dwell with them. God himself will be fully with us.
“I will be with you.” I want to invite you to take this promise seriously as you enter the New Year of 2012, because this is the promise that can sustain us and encourage us, guide us and enlighten us above all other promises. It is a promise that if discovered will make 2012 a great year!
I do not know what 2012 will hold for any of us. Undoubtedly there will be personal tragedy and there will be personal joy, but I can give you no deeper truth than this… God is with you, God is very close. May you know the close presence of God as Jacob did. May you know that you are held in God’s embrace, and called by God to do the wonderful things God has planned for your life. Listen for God, be aware of the deep call of God from within, be watchful of the threads and movements of your life, be bold in using your gifts and following your passions and dreams. And may you find a deep peace, grace, and power in God’s presence, beyond you, with you, and in you.
The presence that is calling forth a new world.

Dugald Wilson 1 Jan 2012