God Is Not Nice — Transfiguration Thoughts

I like to think of God as nice.

Nice as in helping out with some extra wine at a wedding when the host’s supply runs out. Nice as in “Suffer little children . . . to come unto me.” Nice as in forgiving everybody’s sins, Jacob’s, David’s, an adulteress’s, mine.

But God is not nice, not always. God is also – fierce.

In Hebrew Scripture, for example, a chariot and horses of fire descend to the earth as the prophet Elijah is taken up to heaven in a powerful whirlwind. It’s all the loyal Elisha, standing by his mentor till the end, can do to hold his ground and keep his eyes on the disappearing Elijah. You’ll find that story at 2 Kings 2:1-12.

In the Christian New Testament Jesus invites three of his disciples to accompany him to a mountaintop, where they are subjected to an unearthly theophany.  Jesus’ garments dazzle. Moses and Elijah appear. A cloud appears. (Christians refer to this event at the Transfiguration.)

The disciples, naturally, are terrified. In his fear, the hapless Peter blubbers out an offer to make little dwellings for Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  But right then the voice of God booms from the sky, rendering Peter’s project inconsequential.

What I like about the nice God is, it’s very human. I can understand it. What discomfits me about the other God, the God of whirlwinds and dazzling garments and big voices echoing from the heavens is – it is beyond my ken. It is reaching into my world from an alien place that may or may not be hospitable. And that God is frightening.

Like Peter, I want to tame the fierce God into niceness – build little dwellings for Jesus, Elijah and Moses. Domesticate them. Make the universe a safer place for the likes of me.

© 2015 Barbara Falconer Newhall

If you would like to know what the folks in some of the churches in your neighborhood will be reading next Sunday, you can follow the links to these lectionary readings for the last Sunday after the Epiphany.

2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9 

Read Barbara Falconer Newhall’s riffs on life as an empty nest mom at BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com.  Her interfaith book, Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, will be published this month by Patheos Press.