Annual Congregational Meeting
Genesis 6: 5-8; Jonah 3: 10; Psalm 139: 1-18
“Does God Make Mistakes?”
Rev. Tom Willadsen
“Does God Make Mistakes?” The Reverend Doctor Thomas C. Willadsen, Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church, Sparks, Nevada, February 11, 2024, Genesis 6:5-8, Jonah 3:10 Psalm 139:1-18
Five years ago I was a member of a group of Christian church leaders who met every Monday morning to pray for our community. We would visit, usually there was coffee, catch up with one another and conclude our time together praying for individuals and situations we knew about. The last time I met with this group before moving out of town, one of the men shared something that was on his heart that was really troubling him, because God doesn’t make mistakes. That sentence “God doesn’t make mistakes” fascinated me. My brother says that sometimes ideas roll around in my head like a BB in an empty tuna fish can—this was one of them. God doesn’t make mistakes.
On December 17 of last year in the Faith Forum of the Reno Gazette Journal, 13 writers responded to this question: “Does God make mistakes?” The BB started rolling around a lot faster in my head.
I am a huge fan of the Faith Forum. I think it’s a great service to the community that such a wide variety of faith practices—and non-faith practices—are on display every week. This particular Sunday three of the writers did not speak from a religious perspective. Some of the religious texts that the writers cited were the Koran, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Bible—both Old and New Testament–the Book of Mormon and the Talmud.
One of the reasons I find the weekly forum fascinating is that each writer speaks from their own tradition and each comes from a distinct worldview. All 13 have a difference definition of God, for example, [Three deny God’s existence.] and each has their own understanding of what constitutes a mistake.
What is a mistake
What is a mistake? Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis could turn a wrong note into the basis for a completely new tune. A wrong turn in a marching band formation is obvious to thousands of people.
Each of us has our concept of God and all of our imaginations are human and limited. One of the writers pointed out that we anthropomorphize God, imagining God in our own image. Another pointed out “the ways of providence are often unknown to us.” What we may perceive as a mistake that God has made may be exactly what God intended. Clearly, this is not a question one can answer with a simple yes or no. And my hope is that my remarks today with start you thinking in new ways, I imagine myself putting BBs in all of your tuna fish cans.
One of the things that grabs me about the idea that God doesn’t make mistakes is the way it stops conversation. “What you’re saying can’t be true, because God doesn’t make mistakes.” In the case of my colleague, what he was struggling with was his nephew, who was 20 years old at the time, who was transitioning to becoming his niece. My colleague wanted to support this person whom he’d known since birth. He saw this person’s pain and the confusion it was causing his family. But God doesn’t make mistakes. That sentence froze him. God doesn’t make mistakes.
To Err is human
OK. You won’t find that sentence in the Bible. You’ve heard Alexander Pope’s famous phrase “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” So we’ve got that going for us, God, the Divine, is forgiving. There’s no word there on whether God errs.
God’s Will
This notion that God doesn’t make mistakes leads some people to believe that everything that happens is God’s desire and intention. If it happens, it must be God’s will. That can be a very, very painful idea. Eight years ago I presided at a funeral for a 19 year old woman who was killed in a traffic accident. Her parents had divorced, her mother and siblings were members of the church I served. Her father was a member of a different church. I began the meeting with the families to plan the funeral by saying, “I do not believe it was God’s will that Moriah died this way. The God I worship and serve is broken-hearted, and grieves with us.” One of the families found this approach comforting; the other family was shocked and offended that a minister would say that.
When I was in 5th grade, the older sister of one of my classmates was killed by a drunk driver. People from his church comforted his mother by saying, “This was God’s will.” My friend’s family stopped going to church. Fifty years later those words continue to cause enormous pain.
I believe that God is alive. We will soon sing a hymn whose title is “Christ Is Alive!” To be alive is to change. In fact, I believe that God’s love is constant—and God is constantly changing. There’s a magnet on the refrigerator that says, “If nothing every changed, there would be no butterflies.” Or, as the Kinks sang, “Life is only a moving picture, nothing in life is a permanent fixture.”
God changing is not the same as God making a mistake
I know, I know, God changing is not the same as God’s making a mistake, but take a look at these words from Genesis:
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.”
You know what’s coming, the Flood. God’s plan is to blot out almost all of Creation. Only Noah and his family and the animals on the ark will survive. The word “mistake” is not there, but I think one could make the case for God calling a cosmic do-over, because of the direction creation took in the first five chapters of the Bible.
Then there’s this happy moment from the Book of Jonah:
God changes his mind
“ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.”
I’ll remind you of the story, God had sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn the city that God intended to destroy it because of their wickedness. The people got the message, repented and averted God’s destruction. God changed God’s mind. Again, God didn’t say, “Oops, I made a mistake,” but God responded to the people. A dynamic, living God, responded.
Psalm 139, Jim just read the first 18 verses, is a powerful statement about God’s love for humanity and intimate knowledge and connection to each individual. God’s thoughts are more than we can comprehend. God is in all places such that there is no place any one can go to away from God’s presence: if we fly up to the sky, if we lie down in Sheol, that is, the abode of the dead, God is already there. The psalmist marvels at what God has created, then speaks two verses that have been in the news cycle constantly for the past several years:
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
Verse 13: For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Has been used to argue for restricting access to abortion in the United States. God, the Creator, knows each individual before birth. If God knows us in utero, clearly, some argue, abortion must be criminalized. The Bible says so.
Verse 14: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
Has been used by people of all kinds, of all kinds, to affirm that the way that God made them isn’t just acceptable, but wonderful! I praise you, O God, for the way you made me! Can there be a more powerful affirmation of one’s identity and self-understanding?
I am really, really trying not to be political here, but I have to comment on this:
Generally, people who want to restrict access to abortion are on one side of the political spectrum, and people who want to affirm every gender identity are on the other side of the political spectrum. I don’t know why that is. Here in Psalm 139 are two verses sidebyside that those who are politically polar opposites turn to to back their beliefs.
I want to return to my colleague being frozen by the idea that God doesn’t make mistakes, therefore his nephew could not have been made by God born male, but feeling female. That would be a mistake. Not possible.
Here’s what I wish I’d said in that moment: I’ve had several years to make my words more concise and articulate.
Maybe your nephew is precisely the person God intends. Scripture says we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Maybe the mistake is yours, for not being able to imagine that God is thrilled with your nephew becoming authentically who God wants them to be, as they transition to becoming your niece.
And the Living God is with you, and them, and your family. Feeling all your pain and confusion and joy. God is with you. Chris is alive. God’s love is constant and constantly changing. Amen.