Ever since humans began thinking about God, they have wondered what description they could give. There is nothing, really, that completely describes God, so we use many names and many images. The Muslims say that there God has 100 names; and human beings only know 99 of them. The only creature which knows the 100th name is the camel, which is why camels always look so proud. They look upon us with contempt because they know all the names of God.

And if you read the Bible, you will find many descriptions of God, and many names, too. When we see the word LORD in capital letters, this is the way we translate the name of God which Moses used, which means, “I am who I am.” Lord with a capital L and the rest in small letters is the way we translate the word for God in Hebrew. The word is El, spelled, E L. I appears in personal names, for example, “Elisha” means “God is salvation”, and Elizabeth means “God is good fortune”. In Arabic God is called Al Ilah or Allah; and when I went to Tony Abou Takka’s funeral at the Maronite Catholic Church, they spoke Arabic and used the word Allah for God.

I could go on discussing all the words people use for God, there is something more important to say. God is not known by any name, but by what God does. At the beginning of this sermon I spoke of God as Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life. The God we worship is our creator who made us, our redeemer, who saves us and the generous God who has given us everything good, including our actual lives. When I went to Rajnesh’s funeral yesterday, the Hindu pastor referred to God as the one who made all there is and who gives life to all things. Whereever people worship God, God is the one who does things.

Isaiah the prophet reminds the people of Israel that God is one who does things. God, through God’s spoken word, created all things. Through the Word God provides rich food for God’s people, wine, milk, honey and bread. God makes a covenant, that is, God claims the people as God’s own, and gives them peace. God will have mercy and will abundantly pardon. God does things in ways that we cannot understand. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,” says the Lord, “so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”.

St Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians reminds his readers that God is the God who led the people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. When they were hungry, God fed the children of Israel in the wilderness with manna and quails. And when they were thirsty, God told Moses to strike the rock with his staff so that water gushed out.

There was a legend that this rock followed the people about so that they never went thirsty again, now St Paul compares that rock to Jesus Christ and compares the water to the water of baptism. God is a generous God, providing for God’s people in the desert; and now, by giving God’s only Son, we are saved, not from death by thirst, but from death because are separated from God. We can’t survive without the living water that Christ provides for us.

Like wild beasts in the desert, like the serpents or the destroyer, there are many things which threaten our lives. Paul singles out sexual immorality, putting Christ to the test and complaining. We could add greed, selfishness and jealousy. We could add sudden or unexpected death. All these things and many more threaten our lives and the lives of our families and our communities. They are real and they are terrible, but God always leaves a way forward. St Paul says that we will all be tested, but “no testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone”. This means that whatever happens to us, the very same happens to other people, we are not alone. It also means that when one person or one family is tested, it affects everyone. The testing you are going through affects me and the testing that I undergo affects you. We are in this together, and that is good.

But God does even more for us. When we are weak, God strengthens us. When we mourn, God gives us comfort. When we are poor, the riches of heaven are ours, and when we are hungry and thirsty, God gives us the true bread from heaven which satisfies and water from the river of life. Make no mistake, all our strength comes from God, and all our comfort. It may be brought to us by friends, relatives, members of the church or community, counselors or doctors, but in the beginning it comes from God.

Some people think that they can do without God. Herod, in today’s gospel, has already killed John the Baptist, and now he is after Jesus! Jesus is not angry or frightened; he is sad. And he remembers how the people of Jerusalem have been so deaf to God’s appeal, so blind to God’s love and so cruel to God’s messengers the prophets. Herod and Jerusalem do not know what they have refused.

Jesus, like the old prophets and those whom God sent to Jerusalem wants to bring them the love of God. God wants to gather his people together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings. Under there the chickens are warm and safe. They can feel their mother’s heart beating and her breathing. They can rest their tired legs and even sleep until they are strong enough to face the world again.

In the same way, God wants to renew our lives. When we are worn out with our sins and foolishness, when we have lost our way and God seems very far away, we can either try to find our own way out of our troubles, or we can turn to God and to the people of God and find among them the help we need. This is called repentance, because repentance means finding our way home. And the warmth and the closeness of God, the beating of God’s heart and the sound of God’s breathing; I call that forgiveness.

And salvation? This is when we have enough wisdom and strength and self confidence to realize that our true life is to stay with God and not to wander off on our own.

And when all creation is saved, when all God’s chickens are safe, then maybe then, and only then, will God stop doing, and simply be.