Preached on Sunday, October 22, 2017
Each year, the Birmingham News has an insert section in their paper titled:
“Best of the Best … where readers pick Birmingham’s top people, places and things.”
This section includes awards in 110 different categories such as:
Best Radio personality Rick and Bubba
Best TV personality James Spann
Best Mall The Summit
Best Barbeque Jim N Nick’s
Best Hamburger Hamburger Heaven
Do you agree with all of these?
Not everybody did ... as indicated by the 4 Runner-ups listed for each category.
Best College showed Alabama ... followed by Auburn, UAB, Bhm S. & Samford.
No surprise there! Everyone has their favorites!
What all this shows is that there was no universal agreement about anything.
There were multiple choices in each category and there were fans of each choice.
Well, I got to wondering what the voting would have been like
if the Birmingham News had offered the category of … Best God!
How do you think the voting would have gone?
How many different choices would have come in?
Votes for “Best God” would probably have included:
The God of Heaven and Earth and of all created things (by Christians)
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (by Jews),
Allah (by Muslims)
The Holy Cow (by Hindus)
The Buddha (by Buddhists)
The God of Fire or Rain or Sun or Earth (by Indians and Pantheists)
No God (by Atheists)
And given our godless society, I’m sure there’d be some votes for: money or fame or power or drugs or sex or gambling or shopping or hunting or fishing or football!
Somehow I think that the category of Best God would be just like the other 110 ...
in that there would be a #1 pick and then 4 others named as Runner-ups.
You see, many people would think that this category was just like the other categories ... in that there were multiple choices available to pick from!
But the truth is … there’s really only one choice in this category!
And the reason there’s only one choice is because there’s really only one God!
Yes, there’s only one true God ... and everything else is a false god.
And it’s this truth that God has been trying to get us to understand ...
from the beginning of Salvation History.
When God called Abraham (1800 BC) to gather a tribe & travel to the Promised Land,
He revealed Himself as ... the God of the Israelites ... which made it look like He was just one more god of the many gods that the people worshipped at that time.
People acknowledged a god of: the sun, the moon, the mountains and many others.
And 600 yrs. later ... when God revealed Himself to Moses as ...
“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”, it gave great continuity to His presence,
but, people still believed that the God of Moses was just one of many other gods.
This was strikingly portrayed in the great movie classic, “The Ten Commandments”
with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brenner as the Pharaoh of Egypt.
The movie showed how the God of Moses sent 9 plagues upon the Egyptians to move Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage, and he remained obstinate.
But with the 10th Plague and the Angel of Death striking down the firstborn of all the Egyptians, including Pharaoh’s firstborn son, Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go free, and we see this pitiful picture of Pharaoh holding his dead son in front of this huge statue of a man-beast, that the people had hand made as their god,
and begging this supposed god for three days to bring his son back to life.
When this doesn’t happen, Pharaoh decides to go after the Israelites and bring them back into slavery. But when he finally catches up to Moses, Moses and all the Israelites have safely crossed over the Red Sea on dry land. When Pharaoh’s Charioteers then enter the channel, the sea closes on them and all are killed!
We see an exasperated Pharaoh return to his palace
and slink down in his royal throne defeated.
Whereupon his wife chides him asking, “So the God of Moses is better than your God?”
And Pharaoh admits, “The God of Moses … is God!”
The Egyptians, like many other cultures thought there were many different gods, with varying degrees of power, and so each country and each people chose a god and tried to please their god to be assured of their protection.
But now here comes the leader of the Egyptian people, having just witnessed the total annihilation of his army in the supernatural event of the parting of the Red Sea and he has no other choice but to admit that “The God of Moses … is God!”
What a powerful declaration!
What a profound truth ... from the Pharaoh of Egypt seated on his throne!
That’s what God was trying to tell the people all along … ever since Abraham …
that there is no other God … that there’s only one God!
Yet then, like now, plenty of people continue to believe there is a choice in gods.
Writing around the year 1000 BC, the Psalmist expressed this understanding
in Psalm 96 that we prayed today,
“For great is the Lord and highly to be praised; awesome is he, beyond all gods.”
See, first God had to get the people to see that He was ... the best God,
And then He had to get them to see that He was ... the only God.
Later, writing around the year 600 BC, the Prophet Isaiah points this out ...
as he did in today’s First Reading, stating God’s proclamation:
“I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me.”
So how many choices do you have for Best God? One!
There is only one choice, because there is only one true God!
It’s the same God who has been with us all along.
Our God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David too.
I have a print hanging in my room that reads,
“He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Michael.”
It was a gift to me from my sister … and I love reading it.
It says it all … doesn’t it? If there’s only one god …
Then the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob is my God too … and yours too!
Who is He? … the God of Heaven and Earth and of all created things.
And how are we to relate to this one true God?
Our Responsorial Psalm today tells us:
“Give to the Lord glory and praise; give to the Lord the glory due his name!”
Are we doing this? And if so, how often are we doing this?
Once a week … when we come here? Or a few days a week or once a day or more?
There’s a beautiful prayer we Priests pray each Sunday morning ... it goes,
“Lord, may our lips praise you, our lives proclaim your goodness,
our work give you honor and our voices celebrate you forever.”
Wow! What a great prayer and intention that is … to praise the one true God in every way we can … with our lips … our lives … our work … our voices … forever!
You see, if we do that, then others will notice and they’ll be drawn to do the same thing and then person by person the whole world will come to glorify God.
In our Gospel today, the Pharisees are questioning Jesus ...
regarding the rank of Caesar in the grand scheme of things …
and they ask if it’s lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar.
Jesus simply says:
“Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Notice how He brought God into their question!
He says yes, it is lawful to pay taxes to the government, that’s how the society works, but he adds … you must also give to God what belongs to God!
And what belongs to God? Everything! He’s the creator and governor of all.
That’s the very definition of god …
A supernatural power that brings into being and governs all creation.
God has clearly revealed Himself to us as this throughout history
and his title and role will never change.
God has always been #1 … He remains #1 today … and He’ll be #1 for all eternity!
This is very different from all other things.
Right now Alabama is ranked #1 in the country … but that can change.
We watched in sadness as it changed at the end of last year.
That’s because coaches change, players get sick or injured or cut for discipline or bad grades, or graduate ... and then too, people’s opinions change.
But God does not change with time and His ranking is not dependent on opinions or polls.
God is always #1, as He said in Isaiah,
“I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me.”
The Best God is the one we’ve had all along.
He’s held that position for all eternity and will continue to hold it for all time.
So let’s give to God what belongs to God … our endless glory and praise.
And let’s turn away from sin ... because every time we sin ...
we’re choosing something other than God ...
making God less than #1.
Rather, let’s live good lives that draw people to acknowledge the one true God …
The God who will always be ... #1!
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