Our godlike power to destroy—and Moses’ vision of a different kind of power
On Sunday morning, I delivered a sermon at Pacific Spirit United Church. Bible stories, I said, tell us a lot about how the characters see God. Adam and Eve see a punishing parent. Pharaoh sees a dangerous political rival. Moses, in his mystical moments, sees a flow of endless compassion.
On Sunday afternoon, I learned how the journalist Thomas Friedman sees God. “We have made ourselves God-like,” he says in a New York Times opinion video. “We can now destroy the planet just as much as God did in the age of Noah.”
To be fair, the video is slick hyperbole about the promise and power of AI. And I don’t really know if Friedman believes a word of it.
Still, his image of God the destroyer will resonate with some Times readers. So, they may simply accept the metaphor as a hint that deadly power is divine. As if those who wield such power do the will of God.
Please, let’s not accept this hint. That’s what I think my sermon says. Yes, the Bible tells stories of a destructive God. But let’s read these stories critically. And, alongside them, let’s read stories of a kinder God, and stories of a less anthropomorphic God. And then think about which stories inspire us.
Here is the sermon just as I spoke it:
Nobody likes “the God of the Old Testament.” Okay, that’s hyperbole. But that phrase, “God of the Old Testament,” often evokes some very negative imagery. This is the God who deals harshly with Adam and Eve, the first human beings (Gen. 2:15–3:24). When they break one rule, God says, “I’m kicking you out of the house. From now on, you’re supporting yourself!” That is not how any of us would do it.
The God of the Old Testament—we can update the language to God of the Hebrew Bible. This God wages heavy battle against the Egyptian Pharaoh—an evil enslaver. God sends ten miraculous and magical plagues that batter the innocent animals and plants and people of the land (Exod. 7–12). Why does God do that? To make sure Pharaoh knows what a powerful God this is. But couldn’t this powerful God just have teleported people across the Red Sea and into a safe camp in the wilderness? That’s how we would do it.
But not everyone is like us. We all know that people have perpetrated terrible things in the name of this God. Punitive criminal justice. Unchecked political power. Complete disregard for the human and environmental consequences of their actions. When we see people bragging that God wants this, we say, “not my God!”
Why are these stories about God even in the Bible? Because the narrator is not really telling us about God. The narrator is telling us how the human characters experience God.
Think about Adam and Eve. They seem to have adult bodies and adolescent minds. They have no impulse control, they don’t know how to hide what they’re doing, and they shirk responsibility by blaming each other. They resent authority figures who tell them what to do. If God sets expectations, then God is punitive. That’s how Adam and Eve see God.
Think about Pharaoh. He is a cartoonish villain, but a very real one. He is a thief. When farmers grow food, he takes away as much as he can get away with. To build storage cities for his grain, he enslaves an entire community. His life is a quest for wealth and power. If God says, “This is not the way to live,” then Pharaoh must defeat God in battle. Each time Pharaoh meets God, his heart hardens a little bit more. That’s how Pharaoh experiences God.
In the Hebrew Bible, Adam and Eve and Pharaoh are relatively minor characters. The star of the story is Moses. Let’s take a look at how he sees God—at his experience of “the God of the Hebrew Bible.”
Moses has two life-changing mystical experiences. At Horeb, when he sees the fiery bush, he glimpses divine infinity. At Mt. Sinai, he learns that the essence of this infinity is love. Today’s scripture readings from Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Matthew point us to Moses’ vision of infinite divine love.
The reading from Deuteronomy tells a story about the death of Moses. And it ends with a beautiful eulogy of praise.
No other prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom God knew face to face (Deut. 34:10).
This is an allusion to a story in the book of Exodus (33:18–23; 34:5–7). On Mt. Sinai, Moses says to God, “If you are going to lead us through the wilderness, then we need to know who you really are.”
And God says—and this is obviously meant in a metaphorical way—God says, “No one can see my face and live. But I will pass all my goodness before you, and you will see my back, that is, my aftereffects.”
And then someone—the Bible isn’t clear if it’s Moses or God—someone calls out, “Eternal, Infinite, Compassionate, Gracious God, Patient, Full of Love and Truth.”
This is the essence of the divine as Moses understands it, as he tries (not always successfully) to live it, follow it, and teach it. Infinite, never-ending compassion.
Psalm 90 picks up this same theme. The Hebrew calls this psalm Tefillah l’Moshe,Ish ha-Elohim, a prayer of Moses the man of God (Ps. 90:1). Here Moses praises the God who is present generation after generation—past, present, and future.
Moses’ praise grows out of his experience at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-22). There, God reveals to Moses a particular divine name: yod hey vav hey. In Jewish tradition, we consider this an ineffable name, so we don’t pronounce it. But, in English, people usually pronounce it “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.”
In Hebrew yod hey vav hey means “was, is, will be“ or “infinitely eternal.” Some say it’s also the sound of a breath. The sound of inspiration, divine inspiration, the spirit, the energy that infuses all creation. When Moses becomes aware of this energy, he feels called to turn his life towards working for justice. And the first task is the liberation of his community from slavery.
Psalm 90, I imagine, tells us more about Moses’ experience of the divine spirit. It’s a kind of cosmic consciousness experience. Moses knows—he just knows—that the creator existed before creation. The Creator will continue to exist after our world vanishes. From the Creator’s perspective, a human life lasts just a moment.
And yet. This compassionate Creator gifts each of us with consciousness. With a precious intuition of infinity and a desire to make our lives meaningful. To build something with our hearts and our minds and our hands.
So, Moses prays—this is how the Psalm ends—Moses prays. “Holy one, in your compassion, let each and every one of us feel your love. Let it fill us so that we may do our work in the world with joy. And find meaning in our lives.”
Moses feels that love and finds that meaning. So, he reaches back towards God with love. And he encourages the people he leads to do it too. Moses says, v’ahavata et Adonai Elohekha, b’khol livavcha, u’vchol nafshekha, u’vchol me’o’dekha. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Deut. 6:5). And the gospel writer Matthew brings forward Moses’ teaching beautifully. Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “This is the most important commandment of all” (Matt. 22:37-39).
No wonder our Jewish and Christian traditions share this teaching about a world filled with the spiritual energy of love.
May our communities lean with love into what we share and deepen our connection.
May the youth in both of our communities build lives filled with love and meaning.
May the hard-hearted leaders whose decisions affect both our communities turn towards this love.
May mystics and activists like Moses, and like you, and like me, lead the way with love.
Photo of Crow flying over Mountain View Cemetery by Laura Duhan-Kaplan
