Roaming God Charges

Imagine if we had to pay Roaming God Charges. If you leave your home and come to church or temple or prayer house, then there is a set fee that you have to pay- let's say $50 for once a week, $75 for 3 times a week, and $100 for 4. Nights and weekends cost more, naturally. Rollover minutes are only available on a family plan, but you'll need to have 5 or more sign up to be considered family. That way, you'll only pay a bundled charge. But, if you want to access God from outside your "range", you're gonna pay roaming charges in order to dial a signal.

Or, imagine it as "pay as you use." Access to God -- whether through prayer, vision, or voices -- is $2.50 for the first minute, and $0.25 every minute thereafter. If you don't dial God, then you don't pay.

Or, imagine this: God is a central hub where you need to plug into, in order to recharge. The farther you stray, the weaker you are. If you're completely out of range, then you lose. Low battery. Lost signal. No bars. Darkness.

Thankfully for us, God's "mobile" -- everywhere, anywhere, accessible all the time.

In this Sunday's OT reading from II Samuel 7:1-11, 16, God tells Nathan to tell David that God's priority is not on building a temple. The great thing about a tent is that it roams much more easily than a grounded building. God has been moving through, within, around, and with the people for generations. Wherever they traveled, God was with them. And no roaming charges. Zilch.

God says to David "I have been with you wherever you went". No roaming charges. Accessible all the time -- wanted or not.

At the seminary, we've been in deep conversations about online programming. There are discussions in all sorts of avenues with many different partnerships about the grand possibilities of expanding theological education to meet the needs of an increasingly globalized world. Instead of making people go to seminary to "study God" and the history of the church, more and more, theological education is being brought into the local congregations. Instead of defining seminary as an onsite, one location of learning, we're going mobile. We're going global. We're virtual. Classes are offered online and webstreamed. We do distance learning, we have extensions and satellite locations. We creatively move toward different models of theological education in which the institution of learning is flexible, transformative, mobile, moldable into something unique, i.e. contextualized.

It's not to say that we scoff at the onsite community. Everyone says the residential program is an invaluable experience. And it is, but it isn't the only way. Just like accessing God isn't a one way model. Do congregate in a place of worship, for a temple was eventually built for Yahweh. But, look, it wasn't the first thing, and it wasn't the only thing, and it surely wasn't the final thing to focus on. God is mobile. No temple or structure confines God.

Moreover, as a people of God, we are on the move with God -- mobile, accessible, free-ranging. WE are on the move WITH God: Via con Dios. Wherever God is, there we are. As Christ is embodied in us, then where we are, God is. Mobility. Free of roaming charges.