Steadfast Love.

At first we expect God to be a kaleidoscope of colors and flashing lights.

But God, when we encounter Him, is a gentle guiding light and full of love and mercy.

God is kind and trustworthy.

When we are little children we are innocent and trusting.
But in the playground we are attacked by bullies.
(Bullies are people who are afraid of being bullied.  They defend themselves by attacking others who are weaker than themselves in order to look tough and unassailable.)

Fear begets fear.

So when we encounter God we are surprised that He is not aggressive.
"Why doesn't He attack evil and destroy it?"  "Why doesn't He force them to stop?"

But God is non-violent.
He will persevere in a non-violent fashion until we give up and accept His Love.

We mistake gentleness for weakness.
We think violence makes us look strong.
But people who are really strong are gentle.

We have huge armies.
If we were really as peace-loving as we make out we would not need them.
But we keep them because we really think we must be more violent and ruthless than anyone else.

So our peace and our benevolence is a lie.

When the ancient prophets encountered God and He revealed His holy name, "'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness'"  Exodus 34:6b (NRSV)  They tacked on the end, "'yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation.'" Exodus 34:7b (NRSV)  This last statement was later repudiated in Ezekiel 8.

So people attack the weak in order to look strong and invulnerable.

Bullies are people who are full of fear.

Big, strong men will quake at the sight of a homosexual.  They will run and hide. They will not consort with him lest people call them poofters.  Their fear is so great.  The terror is too much for them.  They may even become violent.
What men fear is humiliation and rejection.  He won't be one of the boys.  He will be cast out and kept at arms length.

Of course this may not actually happen but his fear is so great that it makes no difference.

But God has no such fears.
He is gentle and supportive, steadfast in love.


[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.]