1st Week of Lent
Reflections on JONah 3:1-10 / LuKe 11:29-32
Dealing with the Bi-Polar God
by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ
There’s a new restaurant somewhere in UP Teachers’
Village that caters to people who are Bi-Polar.
What is bi-polarity? A
psychological syndrome marked by extreme mood swings ... sometimes being
extremely overjoyed and manic or sometimes being extremely down and depressive.
A colloquial term we use for
bi-polarity, though less grave in intensity is called “moody ness.” Who amongst us are the moody types? Perhaps we can go to this restaurant ...
which by the way is aptly named: Van Gogh Bi-polar (of course, after the great
starry starry night Dutch artist). The
place promises to serve health food that help keep people afflicted with
bi-polarity or extreme moodiness be more balanced ... or normal.
Why talk about bi-polarity and mood swings? Classic theology tells us that God is
impassible – that is the UNMOVED MOVER, the monolithic God who is unaffected by
pain, sufferings or any forms of emotion.
It is easy for us to affirm an image of God who is impassible ... for in
truth, He is truly beyond what any being can experience. We are to assert the utter transcendence of
God. But if we do so ... isn’t it also true
that God can seem so distant and unaffected by us? How can this God care? How can that God love?
But then, our readings today seem to project a God
who is indeed affected by the experiences and travails of his people. In the Book of Jonah today, we see a God who
changes his mind and relents. After
seeing the people of Nineveh putting on sackcloths and turning from their evil
ways, God spares them ... He relents and forgives and withholds his blazing
wrath versus his people. Is this the
impassible God or does God have mood swings after all? Does he need Van Gogh
Bi-polar food? But then, look at this
... if God can be too affected by the goings on in the lives of people, such
that he relents and changes his mind ... isn’t this undermining his power and
firmness ... his being an unmoved mover ... his being God? God can be swayed ... worse God’s emotions
can be manipulated.
We know all too well that we are to be careful
assigning human attributes to God. God is beyond the qualities we can attribute
to him.
The question
remains? Is God bi-polar? Is he on one hand firm, unchanging and
unchangeable ... and on the other hand,
can he be passionate and emotional ... ever involved in the life of his creatures. Which is which? It’s easy to say: Moody sya! Bi-polar siguro ang Diyos!
One thing that is
surely precarious is for us to assert one image of God at the expense of the
other. Yes ... we can say that God is
loving. God is kind. A
heart contrite and humbled, he will indeed not spurn. God
is merciful ... but we cannot affirm so without saying that he is totally
against sin ... that his judgment against sin is unmoved and absolute.
I think no matter how
confusing and mysterious it may seem, we are asked to affirm all positive
traits we can attribute to God. I think
this is what the Gospel is trying to assert for us today. There is a God who is utterly transcendent
and mysterious ... whose wisdom is greater ... untouched and unfathomed by any
human person ... and definitely greater than that of Solomon’s. And isn’t this what we are trying to discern
... and understand ... a piece ... a tinge ... a foretaste of God’s wisdom ...
that is just simply transcendent and beyond us.
But then much like the
story of Jonah (but greater than Jonah), there is a God who consistently toils
and sends us his powerful word ... the word that is so passionately involved in
the life of his creatures ... the word so powerful and influential that makes
the barren ground spring to life anew and become fertile ... that which has the
power to penetrate our barren hearts and make them spring to new life again.
Is God therefore
moody? I think it’s not about God
shifting from one mood to another. I
think it is a matter of affirming the qualities of a God who is EVERYTHING to
EVERYONE all at the same time. He is transcendent yet ever involved in the
life that we live.
And so ... why don’t we
pray to experience this wonderful God of ours ... mysterious ... yet by choice
... involved.
