Sermon – Preaching in Holes: God in Real Time
Psalm 90; Numbers 27:1-11
8/23/2026
Eleven years ago, I was able to take a trip to Israel with a group of ministers to spend two weeks on a pilgrimage mainly exploring sites in northern Israel and Jerusalem. It was an incredible trip for many reasons. One of the things that I loved the most was standing in places where Jesus would have also stood, seeing the same sights overlooking the Sea of Galilee or from the shore at Capernaum. There were even aspects of old Jerusalem that would have been the same in Jesus’ day, things that he would have also seen. In fact, one of the views is from the Mount of Olives which is the picture on the hall wall outside the kitchen. Some places in particular all over the world have long, long connections with living history, and even thousands of years cannot stand in the way of touching a time long ago. Change comes so slowly to some places that you can truly feel that line to the past.
People, on the other hand, are a completely different situation. On that trip eleven years ago, my hair was still dark. When I was scooting around Israel, Sophia was not even born. So much was different in my life and for me as a person. My job was different; life was different; the world that I experienced was different; and my body was different. My children were all still in grade school. It all changes so quickly.
We have the two extremes: on the one hand, the earth itself usually changes more slowly and even very slowly, and on the other hand, creatures (including people) change very quickly in comparison. Either way, life does seem to be leading to change. The question I am raising today is whether God, the source of life, changes, and the more I think about this, the more fascinating this question becomes. Again, on the one hand, we like to assert that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Bible makes that exact claim for Jesus in Hebrews 13:8 when it expresses he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The first few verses of Psalm 90 sound a whole lot like God is someone who does NOT change:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations
Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had
formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to
everlasting you are God. You turn us back to dust and
say, “Turn back, you mortals.” For a thousand years in
your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.
On the other hand, time and again in Scripture, God responds to people and their needs or choices. God even changes his mind or relents from a decision. Things were going one way and then God chose differently. The daughters of Zelophehad are a perfect example. They were part of the great exodus through the wilderness out of Egypt, but their father died, and there were no brothers to secure their right to land that was promised to the people of the tribes once they reached the end. That’s when they (a group of sisters) appealed to Moses and to God for a change to the Law. Women would not have been able to claim land ownership in this patriarchy or male-dominated society, but God heard them and their needs. In the text, God admits they are correct in their complaint, and God’s actual law changes. While the Law and God are not technically the same, the Law does express God’s intent and God’s will. Part of me very much wants a perfect law from a perfect God that never changes because it already accounts for everything that we might ever need from it, BUT part of me truly appreciates that there is no way we could ever understand what it was like to live as an ancient people with an ancient law – just like they would be undone in today’s world. A law created more than 3000 years ago might mean something different through the course of so many generations. God’s grand purpose has not changed, and God’s nature is the same, but God seems to relate to us as we need. Or perhaps you believe that God still sees us as an ancient, nomadic, shepherding society in the Middle East. The very fact that we are not Jewish today, something we as people chose, is simple proof that God responds to us in our difference, in our change, and in our need. The followers of Jesus for decades after the events of Scripture still considered themselves Jewish and met in synagogues. Human actions and conflict drove a sad wedge between our traditions, and today we have next to no tie to our religious cousins. But what we do have is a God who lives in real time. To be clear, “in real time” is an expression today meaning that whatever is happening is happening live in that moment. This congregation loves sharing in worship in real time. When we first started recording our worship, I would post the services after the fact, immediately after worship, but that is not where the interest was. We wanted to be worshipping together with our sisters and brothers at the same moment, so the LIVEstream was born. We are together right now in real time. My point is that God is also engaged with us right now responding and in some way helping us both discover what it means to be in this relationship.
That same Psalm 90 that I read earlier and quoted just a minute ago does begin with a strong foundation of the eternal and unchanging nature of God, but by the end of the psalm, it is begging God to change. The prayer is that God relate to the people in a completely different way. Human lives are too short to live in oppression. We need compassion and forgiveness to rejoice and be productive to God’s glory. Their prayer is that God change God’s feelings toward them and bring them to a better situation. They want God to appreciate how the lives of the people are too short to live in perpetual judgment. They have learned their lesson. Take into account where they are NOW in their lives and see that day for what it is. Their heart says to not judge or hold judgment from the past but consider today and the time we still have to rejoice in God.
The idea that people would really prefer to have a static, unchanging God, a God restrained from fully experiencing each unique day seems a disservice to the biblical witness. Maybe some people pray the exact same prayer every time they pray, and if God never changed in any way, you could probably do that, but the vast majority of our praying is related to what’s going on in any particular circumstance. Today, we might hope that God might do such-and-such. Tomorrow, we might hope that God might do the opposite or at least something different. As our understanding of God or the Bible changes, our needs from God also change. The same is the case as we age and have different lives and different needs, but because God exists as a living entity in real time with us in any moment, God is able to meet us where we are, and that is never the same place twice.
This is about whether God is static or dynamic – whether God has only one way of being God or is able to adapt to situations and needs. Maybe in a world that changes much less from generation to generation, it is more comforting to have a God that also seems to change less, if at all, but even way back then, our fathers and mothers prayed for God to do new things, to be different toward them, and to change their relationship based on what was happening at that time.
God is still God, still the same God, and God does not stop being God. There is an eternal, changeless nature to God, but there is also room to experience God in new ways each and every day.
We have seen some remarkable advances in technology. When I was a child, we visited the Hall of Presidents at Disneyworld where we saw and heard these automated figures speaking about things from their presidencies. You could go to that attraction time after time after time, and it would always be the same. They would always say the same things. With artificial intelligence, that idea is thrown out of the window. I saw recently where the president was at an interactive exhibit with Teddy Roosevelt at which they had an interactive conversation. While it is only an image and a computer construct, it is clear which exhibit would be more interesting. The feeling that someone hears really helps.
Something we desperately need today is a God that is directly invested in the events and needs of this day. We do not need the needs of the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries addressed right now, let alone the 12th century BC/BCE. We need a God who cares what’s going on in this day and is loving us in the needs of this day. This is why we still pray – because we believe God listens and hears and responds. Prayer is meant to help us grow in love for God, but it is just as much our heart searching for God’s hand in our lives in real time. We are in this together, today and in each and every day. To God be the glory. Amen.