It almost felt as if I was eavesdropping. There was no one else around. And it would have happened whether I was there or not. I couldn’t see the whole process but it sounded something like an earthly negotiation. One end gave a little and the other end pulled with all its might. As I stood on the edge, that place where the snow covered sand greets the ice, I stopped and waited and listened. A series of crackles and pops, breaks and snaps sang out like a whispering symphony of the sea. The tide pulled and tugged below the surface and the ice shouted back. What appeared to be smooth on the top was slowly being forced to make way for the inevitable flow of water that was to come. And right there at Ropes Beach watching and listening to the pull of an unstoppable force, it felt like I was witnessing an ancient dance, a ritual that has no end and no beginning, it was the force that cannot be ceased or slowed or even avoided and this force is change.
Change finds us, it finds us and depending upon the condition of our hearts and whether we are willing or ready or open, change can either break us or melt us just enough to join its ongoing current. But as much as I believe that change is unavoidable, I find it difficult to embrace anything that seeks to rattle my world or unsettle my heart. So when we resist what is coming or cannot take it in, change can propel us into odd behaviors.
When I was nine and my parents divorced, the change was too much. There was so much out of my control that I took up the habit of awaking in the middle of the night to organize my closet. Looking back it makes perfect sense. The change barged its way into my life and crushed the foundation below me. I was like the ice breaking. And so I threw my energy into feeble attempts at controlling whatever part of my world I could. I would spend hours organizing things by color and season, fabric and length and just when it felt right, I would begin this process again. Change finds us, it finds us wherever we are and depending upon the condition of our hearts and whether we are willing or ready or open, change can either break us or melt us just enough to join its ongoing current. And it wasn’t long after that time that my aching heart and sorrowed soul began to melt.
It was a time in my life so full of change and so racked with pain, that it could easily be dismissed as a time when God was nowhere to be found. But in fact it was a time that not only softened my spirit but a time when I gave into the force that was clearly stronger than me. It was the force of change to be sure, but there was a holiness that came out of it, a special quality and a sacred center that surrounded me and moved me out of it. It was a force that I now believe is God. And since that time and so many seasons fraught with change of all kinds, I have found myself wondering where is God in change? Is God the author of change or at the center of it? Surely not all change is of God, but if change is an energy and a reality, an unstoppable force that we must face fully, I wonder, does God change too?
You might not be surprised to learn that I am not the first to ponder such a question. The faithful throughout time have argued that God is unchangeable and further that while God might be present in whatever happens God’s being never changes. Philosophical theism generally ascribes to God the attribute of “immutable” - or the idea that God cannot, should not and does not change. This way of thinking contends that whatever or however God is now, is the way that God was for all of history past and the way God will be for all time. This idea is rooted in the writings of Plato who in his work Symposium, argued that the only way for God to be perfect was for God to be unchanging. He writes, God’s “beauty is first of all eternal; it neither comes into being nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes…it is not beautiful in part and ugly in part, nor beautiful at one time and ugly at another, nor beautiful in this relation and ugly in that, nor beautiful here and ugly there… it neither undergoes any increase or diminution nor suffers any change.
For Plato, what was most beautiful about God was that God never changed. But Charles Hartshorne, a theologian and philosopher wonders why change necessarily makes God imperfect. Why is it that God can only be perfect if God is unchanging?
Plato argued that if God is perfect then nothing can be added to God. But if this is true, the core of our Christian faith is challenged. If God cannot be added to, how then do we make sense of our often-repeated statement that God is love? How do we make sense of the statement God loves, if our love and affection for God cannot be added to God? Isn’t that what love is? Love is a force so powerful that it moves, it grows, it changes.
As human beings, we understand that loving completely requires that we both give and receive. So why should this not also apply to God? We love God and send our whole selves to God in prayer, worship and service, but how can we say that God loves us, unless God receives our love and is deeply affected by that which we send to God?
If God is love, and everlasting, and eternally present then God must be the most related of all related beings and the most sympathetic of all sympathetic powers in the universe and in order to relate to each and every one of us, God, it seems to me, changes. God adapts based on the messes we make the failings we create and the sins we commit. I wonder if God’s love comes to us not as a prepackaged mass-produced gift that has never grown or adapted or changed, but as a force of life crafted for each and every heart.
Maybe it is our universal human need to plant our feet so deep in God that we cannot be shaken or moved or tossed to the wind. Perhaps we need a God who is a rock that cannot be torn down and cannot fall apart. Or maybe with all of the change around us, with all of the turmoil and upheaval in the world, we simply need a God that cannot be moved or changed at all. But as much as I join this yearning for stability and refuge, sanctuary and a firm place to stand, I find it hard to worship a rock. It seems to me that the real steadfast nature of God is found not in God’s inability to be added to or altered or influenced, but in God’s nature as everlasting. Our scripture today from the Prophet Isaiah sings out, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
Perhaps in our hunger for God, maybe in our pining for God’s love, we have confused everlasting with unchangeable. When Jesus called his disciples to commitment he never invited them to keep on doing what they were doing. He never said don’t change your life or where you spend your time. He told them that he loved them, but his love everlasting meant that they were invited to change.
As I stand here in this holy place, I stop and wait and listen. A series of crackles and pops, breaks and snaps are singing out like a whispering symphony. There are pulls and tugs below the surface. What appears to be smooth on the top is slowly being forced to make way for the change that is to come. As I watch and listen to the pull, it feels like I am witnessing an ancient dance, a ritual that has no end and no beginning, it is the force that cannot be stopped or slowed or even avoided and it is change. And friends it is God, it is the Lord, the everlasting God. May we worship our God who finds us and when we are willing and ready and open, God will melt us just enough to join God’s ongoing changing current. Amen.
Plato The Symposium. Translated by W. Hamilton. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967) 93-94.