GOD ON ZOOM [Sa, 3-20-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

GOD ON ZOOM    [Sa, 3-20-21]

 

Helen saw real people last week. It befuddled her.

Helen is really into celebrating the birthdays of friends. Ever since she found out that she and two friends have birthdays on consecutive days, she planned to have a group birthday party. All three are either in The Crumble Bums or the CBBHA [Crumble Bums Better Half Auxiliary], so she planned to have a group CB/Aux birthday party. Then the pandemic isolation got in the way. But all our friends are in the “two shots plus two weeks” group now, so she decided it was time.

Allyson, one of the three, baked a cake, and Helen went to her house to divide it into fifths and then deliver it to the homes of the other three. In each case, it was the Crumble Bum of the house who came to the door.

She said, “There was something so strange. Eventually, I realized it was because they were so tall. Yes, they were up a step higher, since they were standing in the doorway and we were on the porch, but still… I did not remember Ron and Charlie and Tony were so tall. Then I figured it out: for a year, I’ve seen them only in a tiny Zoom box on a computer screen. They are so much bigger in person!”

That’s the way it is with God, too. J.B. Phillips had it right a long time ago when he wrote Your God Is Too Small. Or as theologian Paul Tillich put it, “As soon as you say God, you’ve lost God.”

We have so many little boxes in which to view God that we forget the immensity of the divine presence. The most prevalent little box in which we keep God in recent times is the bible.

People who say “I believe in the Bible” are saying “I don’t believe in God,” for—as I heard recently and wish I could give credit to the originator of the phrase—“God didn’t stop speaking when the book got published.”

The bible is a route to go to God, but it is not God. When it is a little zoom box to keep God in, it leads us away from God.

Another little zoom box for God is prayer.

One of my friends preached a sermon entitled “I Don’t Believe in Prayer.” He went on to say: I believe in God, and I believe God can use my prayers, but saying I believe in prayer is saying I have the power to change things. No, I don’t. God does, though.”

We can’t start with the bible or prayer or any of our other little zoom boxes or God will always be too small.

Use the bible. Use prayer. Use nature. Use science. Use theology. Those little zoom boxes are good things. They keep us in touch with reality and truth—yes, with God-- when we can’t see face to face. But let’s remember that God is a mystery to live in, not a little zoom box to be stored in. God is much bigger in person.

John Robert McFarland

And happy Spring to you. May it be renewal for us all.