God's Best Attribute

Psalm 89:1-2

Lent is a season of unhindering—a time to clear the decks, refocus, reorient, and retool our practice of faith. It is a time to reawaken to the presence of God in our midst. It is a time to rethink and reevaluate who we believe God to be, and, therefore, who we are in the presence of God. Let me begin with a simple profession of faith—what makes God God is steadfast love. This statement is a slight tweak of the Apostle John’s profession that God is love, but that slight tweak makes a lot of difference (as is so often the case in theology). Steadfast love is a deeper definition of the being of God, fixing the power of God more clearly in mind. To fully grasp what this means, we need to consider both terms used here—steadfast and love.

STEADFAST

What does it mean to be steadfast?

First, it means to be unquestionably present. To be steadfast means that others can count on your being where you say you will be. It makes you reliable. It ensures your trustworthiness. It also means that when you are with someone else, you are fully present with them. You eliminate all distractions. You set aside all other interests. You communicate that there is nowhere else you want to be and nothing else you want to do—you are here, you are now in the presence of the other. As we examine the scriptural witness, we find again and again the promise of God to be so present. We hear it in God’s conversations with the prophets, “I will be their God and they shall be my people” (cf. Jer. 32:38; Ez. 37:27)—i.e., God will always be with those whom God loves (which Christ revealed to be all human beings everywhere). Christ reiterated this promise as he charged the Apostles with their mission, “And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20c). We can trust this promise to be true because God is steadfast. God will be present; God will be with us—without distraction, exception, or fail. 

Second, it means to be consistent. To be steadfast means that you do what you say and mean what you say. Christ counseled his followers to let their yes be yes and their no be no (Mt. 5:37)—in other words, be consistent. We need people we trust to be consistent. We need to know what to expect when they make promises and assurances. We need to be able to trust them when they say they will follow through. Nothing is more frustrating than to have someone assure us they will do something we asked them to do, and then we find out it never got done. More than one roof-rattling argument started with that circumstance. God is completely consistent. God never wavers from being what God reveals himself to be. God never varies from God’s chosen response to humanity—God meets us in steadfast love—abiding, waiting, redeeming, correcting, etc.—always in complete line with everything our witnesses tell us of God. 

Finally, to be steadfast means to be trustworthy—which should be clear from the above two illustrations. God is trustworthy because God is always present, and God is always whom God tells us he is. We can rely on that to be true—always. 

LOVE

But it goes still further. God also assures us of how God is present, consistent, and trustworthy—God embodies love—God is love. 

One of the most profound paragraphs in the Bible is the opening paragraph of John’s gospel. But being poetic theology, we can get lost in the words, especially the words on the Word (heck, just describing it becomes convoluted!). Actually, it is simpler than it seems—when John uses the Word to describe the revelation of Christ, he means “love,” for love is the defining principle in everything God is and does. From creation through the history of Israel through the advent of Christ through the history of the Church to this very moment on this very morning, all that God is, does, and speaks is love. Nothing happens in or through God that is not love. 

And God completely delineates what love means with regard to God in the person of Christ—to love is to be selflessly centered on the other, whoever the other happens to be, emptying oneself so they might be full. This stance is compassion on steroids! The Apostle Paul sings one of the great hymns in scripture in Philippians 2 wherein he spells out all that Christ does in this self-emptying, other-centered love—the Son of God enters full communion with humanity, sharing every nuance of what it means to be human, all that makes us human, and every peak or valley we walk through as we live. We can never take this singular work of God for granted, nor assume power or prestige in the presence of God, as if God’s self-emptying lowered God into our service—quite the contrary! This move does not nothing but undercut completely human arrogance and pride, for it reveals fully and inescapably how desperate a state we create for ourselves—we cannot save ourselves; we are helpless; and we are totally dependent on grace to redeem us (reread the story of the prodigal younger son coming to his senses—that is us [Lk. 15:17-19]). So, the recognition that God still stubbornly sticks to being who God said he would be in spite of us should do nothing but lead us into endless praise—we live!

Which brings us to the most profound understanding of what it means that God loves us—and another image from the parable of lost boys—the waiting father. Pride is a horrible thing to overcome. We fight its loss as if it were our heart being taken from us—we equate, through pride, that pride is our very being. We want to be self-sufficient, self-made, self-reliant, and anything else we might stick a “self-“ in front of, immediately proclaiming loudly that we are IT (Vladimir Putin comes to mind…). The miracle of the love that is God is that God does not simply swat us from the scene. Instead, God waits for us—endlessly. God awaits the awakening of the younger son—that coming to one’s senses when one truly sees things as they are and, most importantly, who we are. God gives us all the space and time we need to make that discovery. 

But all the while, God cleans up after us, redeeming, reclaiming, restoring, and reconciling all the hurt, mess, damage, and insult that lay in our wake. 

That is love—or, as John also sang, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us…” (1 Jn. 4:10). 

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So, God is steadfast and God is love. In that is the fullness of our hope, the surety that all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

And there is our goal for our Lenten discipline—whatever form it takes—to awaken to God’s steadfast love, to find it with us, and then to conform our lives to it. Doing that will be more than enough of a wondrous practice of faith, awakening us to the fullness and completeness of God with us.