How Big Is Your God? That's the question for today. OR put another way, "Is your God too small?" Does your belief about God box you in, narrow your thinking, keep you from exploring new truths, new understandings?
During these Sundays in Lent we have been encountering people whose thinking about God has been enlarged, expanded, made new. Two weeks ago we met Nicodemus, a Pharisee and high official in the Sanhedrin. Nicodemus' curiosity brought him out under the cover of darkness to learn more about Jesus. Remember what happened? Jesus challenged his thinking about God. In fact, he put such new thoughts into Nicodemus' head that when the crucifixion occurred, Nicodemus responded in an extraordinary way. He brought 100 pounds of spices to anoint Jesus' body - and this time in broad daylight!
Then last week, Jesus encountered a woman at a well. We weren't told her name, only that she was a Samaritan. As such, she, like Nicodemus, had well formulated ideas about God. Again, Jesus challenged her ideas. But that's not all he did. He also accepted and valued her as a person, despite the fact that she was a Samaritan - an unheard of thing in that day. "Could such a man be the Messiah?" she exclaimed, as she ran to tell the townspeople about Jesus.
Today we encountered a man blind from birth. The disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned this man or his parents?" Now that question may sound odd to us, but it wasn't odd in those days. Sickness and sin were inseparable in the Jewish understanding of God. Since there was only one God, and since God is in charge of everything, then it naturally follows that God caused the blindness. Moreover, since God is a just God, he must have sent the blindness as punishment for sin - if not the man's own sin - after all he was blind from birth - than surely his parents' sin.
The disciples' question was legitimate. The answer they got was unexpected. It was an answer that challenged their long held beliefs and thinking about God. Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This man was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him."
Now at first that sounds like a strange response. I can almost hear the man saying to himself, "Well thanks a lot God, I've had to suffer with this blindness all these years just so you could teach us some new truth about yourself!"
On the other hand, once the man could see, I'll bet he felt like the most honored person around. Not only did a new life open for him, but through his healing many people would come to know that sickness is not always related to sin. Think how liberating that good news would have been to the man himself - who had lived his whole life believing otherwise. Think how liberating it would be to those who came after him.
The trouble was it wasn't good news to the people around the man. They had a terrible time accepting this new idea about God. In fact, they did everything they could to discredit the healing that had taken place. They didn't want to think anything new. So first they tried to say it was a different man who had been healed - not the one they had seen begging every day. Then the Pharisees tried to divert attention to the fact that Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath. That was forbidden because healing was considered work and it was a sin to work on the Sabbath. Therefore Jesus must be a sinner, and no sinner could do the works of God. ...You know, even the man's parents refused to think about what had happened. They told the Pharisees they didn't know how their son had been healed. "Go ask him," they said.
The bottom line? Everyone was so stuck in their former thinking that they were blind to the new things Jesus was trying to tell them about God - the new things Jesus demonstrated right before their eyes.
Meanwhile, the man who had been blind not only received his eye sight, he received spiritual awakening. As those around him forced him to defend himself, he started to open his inner eyes. And when Jesus finally engaged him face to face, he came to believe.
Like Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the man born blind opened himself to new thoughts about God. Like them, he didn't keep God locked in some box as if everything was wrapped-up and finished. And like them, he received the greatest reward. He received Jesus Christ into his heart.
But now, let's return to the question with which I began this sermon: How big is your God? Or put another way, "Is your God too small? Does your belief about God box you in, narrow your thinking, keep you from exploring new truths, new understandings? Does it keep you from receiving Jesus Christ more and more into your heart? - and by extension, keep others from receiving him?
If you read the bible in its entirety, and if you study history, you know that the People of God, and that includes us, have undergone a continual development in our understanding of God and how God acts in the world. The biggest development occurred, of course, with Jesus.
As Christians we believe that in the fullness of time, God acted in a unique way by coming among us in the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that in Christ we received the most complete understanding of God. That in Christ God corrected many misunderstandings about who God is - misunderstandings like the connection between sin and sickness that we learned today. But we have also learned that just because we have Jesus we can't let our brains shut down as if God were finished. Our thinking about God needs to be continually challenged. Otherwise we get caught in the same old traps as our ancestors. Our thinking gets just as stuck.
I mean, who of us hasn't thought of God as an old man with a beard. A king sitting on his throne ruling the world. A Santa Claus figure: rewarding those who are good and punishing those who are bad. ...But are these images accurate? Do they hold up when compared with Jesus?
There are many more images of God - images that had gotten lost or diminished - images that Jesus reinforced. Like God as a shepherd, leading us to streams of cool water to refresh our souls. God as a nursing mother, holding us to her breast and feeding us. God as a mother hen, sheltering us under her wings. God as a weeping father, waiting for us to come home. God as a career counselor, directing us to the right job, the right calling. All those understandings of God are biblical. There are many more. Once we are introduced to them we can embrace them as they respond to our needs.
So! How big is our God? Ever so much bigger than we can ever imagine. At no time in our life can we ever understand all there is to know about God and what God wants for us. The world keeps going. It keeps developing. And with it, new opportunities, new challenges keep presenting themselves. As they do, we keep asking, “Who is God in relation to all these things? How is God acting today? What is God asking of us?
Friends, God's light and truth continue to be revealed - that is if we are willing, like Nicodemus, and the Samaritan woman, and the blind man, to be challenged, to be engaged.