Joel A. Brondos

Your God Is Too Big

J.B. Phillips claims to have written his book, Your God Is Too Small, for church members who were letting inadequate conceptions of God prevent them from catching a glimpse of the true God. Another author, Jan Linn, has taken this a step further in a popular work, What Ministers Wish Church Members Knew (Chalice Press, 1993). In behalf of contemporary grass roots theology, Linn with all seriousness posits maxims like God is and always will be bigger than what any of us ever thinks, and God is always larger than any human thoughts about God.

With regard to God, we may ask whether bigger really is better. In response to Phillips and Linn who commend the soverignty of a big God, we recommend the graciousness of a small God.

Our comfort is not that God is big. Our comfort (and even greater awe) is that the big God became small. He became small like us, taking on flesh and blood for our sakes. And He got even smaller than that. Humiliation can make us feel so small that we could sit on the edge of a dime and swing our legs, but His humiliation was even smaller in the eyes of the world which rejected Him.

He who became small for our sakes now comes to us in small ways (in the eyes of the world). A little water and a few words. A little bread, a little cup; His body and His blood. We are too small for Him to come to us in His bigness. It is gospel where He comes to us in the small ways of Word and Sacrament.

We ought not try to make these gracious means big by adding things to them -- and certainly not by looking for miracles as Herod did -- or moving testimonies. The Christ does not need these: "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man." (John 2:23-25)

God did not become small with the intent that we should make Him bigger by our rituals. Our greatest delight is in the small things which are so small that heaven and earth cannot contain them. That is to say: a smallness that is greater than greatness, a foolishness that is wiser than wisdom, and a weakness that is stronger than strength so that where people are looking for God in greatness, wisdom and strength, they will miss Him altogether. Not in the wind. Not in the earthquake. Not in the fire. These were too big for Elijah. But in the still, small whisper . . .

If you wish to make God big, you are free to do so. If you wish to confront the Lord God in His awesome splendor and majesty, you are welcome to it. (Compare each instance in the Bible where the Lord revealed Himself in His glory and you will find people on their faces in the dirt.) But as for me and my house, we will just congregate where two or three gather in His Name, where Christ the Lord who came in the flesh to finite creatures by becoming graciously small in a little town of Bethlehem, and who defends us by felling the old evil foe with one little word.

Posted by Brondos at April 2, 2004 10:32 PM