Church of the Holy City

God Is Local and Universal

God Is Local and Universal
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 17, 2015

Isaiah 25:6-9 Luke 24:44-53 Psalm 47

Deciding on the title for this sermon was hard for me. It went through several versions before I decided, reluctantly, on the final version: God Is Local and Universal. One version that I liked was phrased as a challenge. It was going to be, “Is Your God Local or Universal?” There was so much in the readings for this Sunday that suggested that God is universal and not local. I wanted that to be the main idea. But careful reading and re-reading would not let me settle there. Finally, the readings suggested that God is both local and universal. Let’s walk through the Bible readings for this morning and see what they say about whether God is universal and/or local.
My thinking began with our reading from the New Testament. In it, Jesus tells the disiples that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. “Wow!” I said. “The message of repentance and forgiveness of sins is for all nations all over the world. It begins in Jerusalem and extends to the whole world!”
Then I looked at the Psalm for this Sunday, Psalm 47. It’s about God being God over the whole world. Then I noticed something very interesting. I noticed the word for God that Psalm 47 uses. Mostly, it isn’t Yahweh, the specific name for God that was given to Moses. Yahweh is translated as Jehovah in the King James Bible. Here is why I am so interested in the name for God: the name Yahweh is tied specifically to the Israelites. Yahweh is their God. The first commandment goes, “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2). These words tell the story of God’s name quite well. God is speaking to the Israelites specifically. He has delivered them from slavery in Egypt. God says, “I am Yahweh your God.” So by and large, the name Yahweh is associated with the Israelites specifically. He is their God. I had an “Aha” moment when I read Psalm 47. In the whole Psalm, Yahweh is mentioned only twice. Yet the Psalm talks about God a lot. God is mentioned 10 times. But only twice is God called Yahweh. The other 8 times the Psalm uses the old, universal term for God, Elohiym. This word for God is not tied to the history of the Israelites in the same way that Yahweh is. It simply means God, not the God of the Israelites. So Elohiym can be anyone’s God. This is the God who is God over the whole earth. The Bible translators use the word LORD in all capital letters when they translate the word Yahweh. Elohiym is simply translated as God. Listen to the Psalmist! (I invite you to follow along with this talk by referring to the Psalm as it is printed in your bulletin.)
Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
7 For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm!
8 God reigns over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted!
The Psalmist is bidding all people to clap their hands and shout to God with loud songs of joy. Loud songs remind me of the bands at Blues on Whyte. But it is all people who are being addressed, not just the Israelites. And the God who is to be praised is not the God of the Israelites. It is Elohiym, God. I was really glad when I saw that all the shields of the earth belong to Elohiym, not to Israel’s God. It is the Universal God who is king of all the earth; it is the Universal God who reigns over the nations; it is the Universal God who sits on his holy throne. This song isn’t exalting Israel or Israel’s God. It is exalting God. If I was really glad at all this, I was really, really glad when I read verse 9.
The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham (9).
This verse brings all the world under God’s care. It says that the princes of the peoples—that is, those who aren’t Israelites—gather as if they are the people of the God of Abraham. We all know about the God of Abraham, how God led Abraham to a new land, how God made Abraham the father of the Israelite race, how God nurtured the Israelites all through their history. Now that same God is the God of the peoples outside the Israelite race. They are as the people of the God of Abraham—God will nurture other peoples as God did the Israelites.
. This idea of a universal God is reaffirmed in the remarkable passage we read from Isaiah 25. In this passage, Israel’s God is the subject. But in this passage we find that Israel’s God is now a God for the whole world. Consider the following words,
On this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined (Isaiah 25:6).
This is clearly Israel’s God, Yahweh. But Isaiah says that Yahweh will prepare a feast for all peoples. Now Israel’s God is a God for everyone. This same God will destroy the shroud over the whole earth, God will wipe away tears from every one’s eye; God will swallow up death for ever. These things are for everyone. Then, the concluding lines are,
It will be said on that day, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is Yahweh; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9).
When the people say, “Lo, this is our God” who are the people saying it? Whose God is “our God?” I think that by the time we get to that part of Isaiah 25 it is all people, everywhere, who are saying that. “Our God” means everyone’s God. Although it says finally, “This is Yahweh,” we now know that Yahweh is bringing Salvation to all the people.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that God is local and universal. In Psalm 47, God wasn’t attached very closely with the people of Israel. In Psalm 47, God is universal. But in Isaiah 25, it is Israel’s God who is universal. True, God is bringing salvation to all the world, but it is Israel’s God, Yahweh, who is doing it. God is acting universally, but the God who is acting is the local God of the Israelites.
This brings me back to my disappointment in the title of this talk. Yes, in Luke, Jesus sends out his disciples to the whole world to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. This makes it look like Jesus’ message is universal. But when I read the passage more carefully, I saw that it wasn’t as universal as I had thought. The actual quote goes like this, “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations” (24:47). So Jesus’ real teaching is that repentance and forgiveness of sins are to be preached in Jesus’ name. The universal nature of Jesus’ message is tied to His specific name. It is not repentance and forgiveness alone that is the message. It is repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name. Jesus is for the whole world. But it is Jesus’ name. Further, the passage ends with the disciples filled with joy and blessing God. But they are doing all this in the Temple. They are still worshipping God as good Jews would, in the Temple in Jerusalem. Their joy may spread out to the whole world, but now they are expressing it locally, in the Temple, within the context of their Jewish heritage.
So where am I going with all this? I started out going with an interfaith message. God is universal like the God of Psalm 47 and we can affirm God by any name. But then I was reined in by my careful reading of the texts. I think my message now is that we know God only by our own tradition. We worship locally. While we affirm our fellow believers of different faiths, we, ourselves, practice according to our own faith.
Finally, though, we live in a big world. We cannot afford to stay within the confines of our own church and our own traditions alone. We need to know what’s going on outside the walls of our church. What questions are being asked in our society? What issues are current? What are people talking about? For if we don’t know these things, we will be isolated from the world. And I think we can imagine the consequences of isolation.
So religion is both local and universal. We worship according to the God we understand. But the God we know is universal—for the whole world. And I’ll say further, that the God we don’t know is for the whole world and for us, too. For no one religion, and no one person understands God fully. I think what I’m finally trying to say is that we ought to worship according to our best understanding of God, while remaining open to growing our understanding of God. We grow in our understanding of God in many ways. One way is by listening to the many voices of revealers across the globe. Our world is too large for us to remain only local. God is local and universal.

PRAYER

Lord God, you are known by many names throughout the world. We know you as Jesus Christ. And we know that you love us as children. We know also, that you love each person in the whole wide world as you love us. We worship you according to the precepts of our religion. We know you from what we read in the Bible. And at the same time, we know that other peoples in the world also call on you. Other peoples use different names for you. Other peoples use different scriptures to learn about you. As we practice our own religion, may we also hear the voices of our brothers and sisters across the world. May we hear with respect. And may we also learn from what we hear. For you are an infinite God, and no single human or religion understands you completely. Though you are called by many names, you are One God. Praise be to you!

And Lord, we pray for the sick. May they experience the power of your healing love. Fill them with the grace of your healing power. We pray for the grace of your healing power for all who are ailing in body or soul.