The Story of God by Chris Matheson Page A

21:17) Another good law—strong and fierce and hard. He’d already stated that children should respect their parents, but he hadn’t made clear what the punishment would be if they didn’t. Now he had:
Death.
Again, God had brief second thoughts. Was there something … hmm …
unreasonable
about this law? No, not at all.
Authority
mattered and parents were earthly authorities—or fathers were anyway (maybe it was okay to insult mothers?), and anyone who criticized authority should be killed. This seemed obvious to God. “How should they be killed?” God asked himself, stroking his chin—then nodded, knowing theanswer: Throw rocks at their heads. (Deut. 21:21)
    God was on a roll now. “When an ox gores a person to death, the ox should be stoned,” he told Moses. (Ex. 21:28) Again—
obvious.
The ox had done something wicked and needed to be punished for it. But again, God hesitated for a second. Was an ox capable of the kind of moral transgression that required “punishment?” Why not just slaughter it? Why stone it to death? “Because,” God announced, “some oxen choose to gore people to death!” Along the same lines, all those animals that were choosing to have sex with humans, or even thinking about it? They needed to be stoned too! Damned slutty goats, damned lascivious donkeys! They all had bloodguilt upon them! (Lev. 20:16)
    Now God began to feel a different impulse. “Enough about
them,”
he found himself thinking. “I want to talk about me, I want to tell Moses what
I
want!”
    God had been working on heaven for awhile and it was coming along fantastically well; a work-in-progress, sure, but you could see how utterly amazing it was going to be. Now God turned his sights to earth. It had been so drab up to this point; God wanted it to be brighter, more colorful and spectacular. “I know exactly how I want my temple to look.” God told Moses to demand that people bring him gifts: Gold, silver, copper, linen, fur, oils, spices, incense, pretty rocks—the works. (Ex. 25:2)
    God had created the Grand Canyon and Mount Everest, not to mention Saturn (none of which he seemed to know existed, but never mind that), so in a way he felt a bit weird asking for incense and rocks. But that feeling didn’t last long. He liked these things. They were the finest things earth had to offer and he would use them to have the humans create a shrine to him that would be absolutely breathtaking. God knew that Satan would describe his taste as ostentatious and showy. He didn’t care at all. “Let him think I have the taste of a fruity old queen,” he said. “What do I care?” And it was true, he didn’t, not in the least. He liked gold balls and pomegranate blue fabric and cherubs andlots of incense—and so what? (Ex. 25:18, 28:33–34)
    It felt so good, so
liberating.
God had worked hard creating the universe, then spent a lot of time and energy coming up with perfect laws for his humans to live by. Which was all rewarding, sure—but what about
him,
what about
his
needs? God felt that he was, in some deeply symbolic sense, “coming out of a closet,” and it felt wonderful. All along, God now realized, he had wanted two things: Fabulousness and spectacle! Now, finally, he was getting them.
    God was feeling more and more comfortable with expressing himself now. (“I was so repressed,” he fretted briefly before shrugging it off. “But not anymore!”) “I’m even going to tell Moses exactly how I want meat grilled! I will tell him what kind of flour to use and what kind of oil—I will even tell him what kind of wine to serve it with!” (Ex. 29:40, Num. 15:7)
    God was happy. His people were finally giving him what he wanted: A fancy shrine and well-cooked meat. All was well. Or as well as it could be, given that humans—even
his
humans—were essentially evil and