Binary Busting God

Binaries can help us begin a conversation. It’s often where kids start. An activity is safe or not safe (“Don’t touch the stove, it’s not safe!”) or an action is good or not good (“We should always tell the truth”).

Maturity is supposed to be more nuanced. Reality is often messy. Truth is often layered and complicated. For example, it’s really helpful to learn how to touch the stove in order to cook your meals. And then there’s the two midwives in Exodus 1 who lie to the Pharaoh in order to protect the Hebrew babies… and God blesses them for their deception.

Often the shortcut, the rigid binary, makes it harder for us to see and appreciate the nuances in life and to admit the mystery.

So as we come to this passage today, we run into a binary-busting God. On the spectrum of being high and holy, totally other, and omnipotent on one hand versus being near, present, empathetic and concerned on the other, God chooses option C: all of the above. Listen in to this passage:

For this is what the high and exalted One says—
    the one who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
    but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.” - Isaiah 57:15

Let’s think about us for a moment - about the ways we’ve believed God is like this OR that. Are there ways that you oversimplify how God works or where God lives or what God does? What might it look like to allow God to surprise you by showing up in a way that you aren’t used to… or frankly, aren’t even sure you believe in?