Stick Figure Theology (vol. 1)

Sunday July 26th's sermon was something a little different. I used Stick Figures to illustrate Process Theology. Which is to say, as I talked through the sermon I also drew stick figures to (quite literally) illustrate the points about God's nature, human power, and the import of forgiveness, grace, and hope.

So instead of Monday's normal Wordle document, I'm posting the actual pages that I drew to correspond with the movements of the sermon.

Here is the flip chart page that greeted church folks on Sunday morning, announcing the title of the sermon while displaying the full extent of my artistic abilities.

During the Children's Sermon I asked the kids to help me illustrate the four classical descriptions of God. That is, that God is All Loving (thus the big heart in the upper left-hand corner), All Powerful (Jacob suggested "A little mustard seed growing into a big tree...or God throwing a car", so we ended up with God throwing a care in the upper right-hand corner), All Knowing (a big brain in the lower left-hand corner), and Everywhere (my own son Henry suggested "God standing at the corner of a street"; not bad for a three year-old, right?).

After reading the sermon text (2 Samuel 11:1-15, in which King David commits adultery with Bathsheba then sends her innocent husband to the front lines of the war to die) we took up the question of Theodicy (thus why you see the word written in the middle of the page). Which is to say, we asked, "If God is all these things, then why do bad things happen to good people?" To a certain extent that becomes our guiding question for the rest of the sermon.

This is you. I know, I know, the resemblance is uncanny. The stick figure in the middle of the page is you at this very moment, not only in your life, but if you believe it, in the history of the universe. Everything on the left of the dotted line is the past. Everything on the right is future.

The red and blue arrows on the left represent everything from your past that has led you to this very moment (from the seemingly insignificant, like your alarm clock going off this morning; to the existence altering, like the Big Bang that happened when God first spoke creation into being).

All the arrows on the right represent the choices and possibilities that exist in your immediate future. The BIG RED ARROW represents where Process Theology introduces God into the equation. In the technical sense, the BIG RED ARROW is God's Initial Aim -- God's best hope for us in each and every opportunity. God lifts up that vision for us. And even if we do not go down that road, if we follow another choice or possibility (represented by the second stick figure) then God doesn't simply give up on us. There is grace. There is mercy. And there is the constant presence of God in our lives. No matter who you are or where you are. God continues to lift up the very best for us. Which is good news.

This isn't you. This is stick-figure donkey. It's another way of illustrating the way God leads and directs our lives. It is the parable of the donkey. So the story goes, there are two ways to move a donkey -- with the stick (thus the person standing behind the donkey, trying to push it forward) or with a carrot (the second stickfigure, holding the carrot in front of the donkey). "The stick" represents all the events and actualities in our past that have propelled us into this moment. "The carrot" is the vision of the future, the best possibilities, the way that God directs us forward into the very best and brightest of the future. God isn't coercive in God's use of power (pushing us around moment by moment, or whipping us forward with the stick) but rather persuassive, drawing us forward moment by moment.

In the end, this is what it is all about. In a single word: Hope. The hope that we know through a God who loves us and never ever gives up on us, but continues to open the very best possibilities to us. And the hope that God has that we will listen; that we will step boldly into God's future. So that together we are co-creating the kingdom of God along with our all-loving God. Which is reason to celebrate, to join hands, to sing and dance, and give over our very best.