PSYCHOANALYZING GOD
March 23, 2003

TEXT: Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22
March Madness has begun. How ironic that the war against Iraq should begin during the same week that we have given this title to a series of basketball games. But this is the time of year, the Bible tells us, “when kings go forth to battle.” The world has gone mad once more to think that war is the answer to peace, as though the only way to make the world a good place is to kill all the bad people.

We live in a world of paradox and insanity. We think we are being reasonable in our thoughts and actions, and we cannot understand when others don’t think as we do. We are so sure of ourselves that we are doing the right thing that we really believe that God thinks the way we do and endorses our actions.

Arab children pray to Allah and ask God to deliver them from the Great Satan who wants to kill all Muslims, destroy their culture, enslave their people, and steal their oil, and who believe that God will protect them and finally bring justice by defeating their enemies.

The leader of the free world also knows what is in the mind of God. “Events aren’t moved by blind change or chance,” said President Bush at a presidential Prayer Breakfast. “Behind all of life and history, there’s a dedication and a purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.” And so, as he commits a military invasion force of over a quarter million to the liberation of Iraq, he knows that God is on his side. It is one thing to wage war in a perceived national interest; it is entirely another matter to claim that God endorses it. And that seems to be the issue: how can anyone claim to know the mind of God or to discern the will of the Almighty?

It was Passover and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, to the great Temple, and when he had seen how they abused the sanctuary of God’s presence, Jesus said, according to Mark’s Gospel, “He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

The chief priests and scribes thought they knew what God wanted them to do in God’s house. After all, they had read and interpreted the Torah for centuries and had accumulated a body of wisdom in the Talmud and Midrash and Halakah. They had poured over every jot and tittle of the law, analyzed the Word of God, and knew precisely what God wanted them to do.

And then God’s Son shows up and tells them that they were wrong. Jesus made some other remarks which they did not understand. Even his disciples couldn’t make sense of his words until after the resurrection. The German astronomer Johannes Kepler was right when he said, “O God, I think thy thoughts after Thee.” We can never be sure of the mind of God until they have gone forth to accomplish their work.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? . . . For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” How can anyone make sense of God by using human criteria, let alone declaring that God is in favor of violence and war regardless of its perceived ultimate objective?

Some of my ministerial colleagues and I often differ on how we understand the use of Scripture in psychoanalyzing God, or discerning the mind of God. When it comes to understanding the morality of war, which I believe is oxymoronic (there is no such thing as a “Holy War”), some are quick to point out the Old Testament passages in which God sends the Israelites out to slaughter their enemies. I have tried to point out that since we are Christians, we are followers of Jesus who calls us to a higher standard of behavior. There is nothing in the Gospels, in the teachings of Jesus to support the actions of this nation, or any nation, when they take the lives of others. It is human sin that compels war, not divine mandate.

Sometimes Christians are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. But make no mistake about it: the lesser of two evils is still evil; it is never good. While good people may be compelled by circumstances to act contrary to the principles of their faith, we must never fall into the trap of glorifying the demons of this world. It is in times such as this that we must recognize the frailty of the human condition and fall back upon the grace of God, and in contrition seek divine forgiveness for our complicity in the sins of humankind.

You may have seen the baseball caps and key chains with the initials “WWJD,” “What would Jesus do?” That’s an appropriate question. “What would Jesus do?” Environmentalists are asking “what car would Jesus drive?” And there is a country-western song that asks, “would Jesus wear a Rolex watch on his tele-evangelism show?” Today the question is, “Who would Jesus bomb?”

The history of civilization is the history of warfare, of nations contending against nations for all sorts of reasons. It is expected of good leaders to protect their country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. At one time even the Pope led papal armies against those whom he perceived as enemies of the church. And there has seldom been a military force representing a sovereign nation or just cause which did not believe that the deity was on their side. Even in the Trojan War, the poet Homer says that the gods and goddesses aligned with either the Greeks or the Trojans.

We still have not learned that God does not takes sides in our disputes. Basketball teams may invoke the presence of God, but that doesn’t mean they are going to win. When Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers beat the Phillies in the league championship series, Tommy said “God heard our prayers.” The Phillies’ Danny Ozark replied, “I don’t know what happened. I prayed too.” When it comes to discerning the will of God, there clearly is a failure to communicate. Human wisdom is foolishness from God’s perspective.