Jesus in a Box

Transfiguration Sunday

Luke 9:28-36

JB Phillips wrote a wonderful little book in 1961 (the year of my birth) called “Your God is Too Small.”  In the first part of the book, he reviews a number of small, inadequate, unreal and, he says, destructive images of God.  If you ignore the exclusive male-gender language, (it was 1961, after all) he says a lot of things that still ring true.  In the section titled “God-in-a-Box” he writes, 

“If the Churches give the outsider the impression that God works almost exclusively through the machinery they have erected and, what is worse, damns all other machinery which does not bear their label, then they cannot be surprised if he (sic) finds their version of God cramped and inadequate and refuses to “join their union.”  (p. 38).   

A prescient  description of today’s so-called “nones” (those who choose not to participate in “organized” religion)? 

From the dawn of time, we humans have been trying to cram God in a box.   We live with the delusion (which we regularly deny) that if we can just trap God in a temple, or idol, or tabernacle or cathedral or white clapboard church or website we will somehow be able to control God; that somehow God will do our bidding instead of the other way around.   In the Garden, the primal sin of Adam and Eve was not munching on some fruit, it was aspiring to be gods unto themselves.  We often do the same. 

We try to put Jesus in boxes too.  We reduce Jesus to a friendly, do-gooder, a great storyteller, a prophet who decried the social injustices of his day, a healer, or a teacher of moral truths.  He was all those things, yes, and more.  Much more.  Each generation tries to put Jesus in a box that makes sense to their own day and time (Buddy Jesus??).  Jaroslav Pelikan writes a wonderful survey of these boxes in his historical study called “Jesus Through the Centuries.”  It’s still worth checking out.  But, the Transfiguration story blows all those boxes to pieces.  In that moment, Peter, James and John saw the raw, untamed, uncontrollable power of God radiating from their master and revealing him as God’s Chosen One.  And what did they do?  Peter suggested putting up tents.  To build “dwellings” to capture the moment, put it in a box and tame it.  How silly that seems in the face of such awe-some majesty!

Phillips reminds us that God is never limited to the structures that we humans build – whether those are built out of bricks and mortar, or out of theological constructs, or beloved traditions.  God is at loose in the world.  Jesus is alive and present in the faces of the poor, the hungry and the foreigner we meet (see Matthew 25).    The huge God we dare to worship each Sunday radiates with an overwhelming and untamable love.  The Lord we dare to follow embodied that love and it took him to the cross…  and beyond death itself.   If we, but for a moment, could catch the fullness of that vision, it would change us…  and the whole world.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

As always, feel free to pass this along if you found it meaningful or thought-provoking or just mildly curious.  Thanks for reading!