A GOD TOO SMALL

For my lectio this morning I spent time with the sentence "[Jesus'] heart was moved with pity for them." As I put myself in the scene, and felt Jesus wrap his arms around me the way a shepherd might a little lamb, I started to notice a familiar disconnect. I've been confronting it more intensely recently in various books I happen to be reading. I'll try to unpack at least some of what I've been wrestling with.

Forty years ago J.B. Philips wrote a book with the catchy title "Your God is Too Small." Although I didn't read the book, I've never forgotten the title. It's only very recently that I've started to realize that the challenge in that title is not addressed just to others but to me. My God seems to be getting smaller every day! Here are two indicators that I've been faced with in the past few days: 

- The great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner reminds me that "God" cannot be thought of as one more object within my perceived world, alongside everything else in creation. The idea of "God" has to go beyond (transcend) the limits not just of my senses, but even of my limited intellect. Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us to bring this transcendent God within our experience, revealing something of God's inner mysterious Trinitarian life of Love. But the mystery of God still remains too big for me to simply latch on to. Beware of people who have God in their pocket!

The God of Moralism at work

-- The Franciscan Richard Rohr keeps throwing down various versions of a certain challenge all the time. Most recently I came across it in his "Immortal Diamond." Religion, he contends, always makes God into an object of some kind, and reduces God to the role of manager of a great System of rewards and punishments. "Moralism" offers you the goal of heaven if you obey the rules scrupulously. From the perspective of "moralism" God's love and compassion revealed by Jesus are suddenly restricted to a few people who follow the moral formula. As for the rest of humanity, well, sorry, Jesus, but they don't qualify. The system of "moralism" seems to be what religion has usually been reduced to. What, then, becomes of the Jesus of the gospel whose heart is moved with pity at the sight of all the tired and hungry people who are like sheep without a shepherd? 

Is this a perfect caterpillar? 

Jesus doesn't call me to moralistic perfection but rather to transformation, Transformation means letting go of my individualistic project of earning my way to heaven by following rules and measuring up to various minimum standards. The "Good News" that's presented from the pulpit is almost always from the perspective of "moralistic" religion supervised by a God who calculates and measures everyone's worthiness or unworthiness. Do I dare to push back and object that this God is way too small! Again, where is the Jesus of the Gospel?  

Only seldom do we hear about the foreboding challenge of "transformative" religion as opposed to "moralistic" religion. One big stumbling block to "transformative" religion is that the latter requires me to let go of my comfortable well-understood God. The total letting go required by transformative religion requires complete trust in a mysterious God who loves me and everyone unconditionally and infinitely and intimately. A God who does not follow our human rules. Most of us have never been invited by the Church to a personal intimate friendship with God, a friendship that can ultimately transform us into someone totally new.

Instead we are presented with at God who is way too small for that kind of intimacy: a God whomeasures, who gets even with people who screw up, who is concerned about the rules being followed. so that no one unworthy can share in the Eternal Reward that is due only to those who merit it. This is a human-scale God, a God who is way, way too small. No wonder so many good people are no longer interested in dealing with such a God.

Because of time constraints, let me leave the problem hanging here for a week, if you don't mind.

Meanwhile, try praying with the scriptures and receiving the Eucharist and encountering others with the idea of encountering a mysterious loving God who is incredibly bigger than the one you may be familiar with and are comfortable doing business with.

The God of Transformation at Work