In 1976 my high school Sunday School teacher, Dave Bjork (who was in his twenties and going to med school), gave me a copy of Your God Is Too Small, by J. B. Phillips. It’s a little book, and yet deceptively big—that is, enlarging and expanding of any concept of God that doesn’t match up to the colossal Divine Reality.
Phillips lists several ways we reduce Jesus to a nice, convenient “lord” who won’t disrupt us or cause us any discomfort. Chapter titles include: Jesus the “pale Galilean,” Jesus “meek-and-mild,” and Jesus the “second-hand God”—we just know him via others who know him; a friend of a friend. The key point Phillips makes is that these images of Jesus are not real—we’re not seeing the true Lord when we box him in or push him away.
Other chapter titles include: “God-in-a-Box,” reducing the Lord to match the parochial vision of one narrow tradition or another. Or “Parental Hangover,” a notion of God founded on a child’s idea of his father, for good or ill—and thus diminishing the true Lord to match a dim projection of parental influence.
Or “Grand Old Man,” envisioning the Creator as an elderly gentleman living in heaven—no doubt a fine chap back in the day, the way he helped our forefathers, but he can hardly be expected “to cope with the complexities and problems of life today!” (p. 24).
“Perennial Grievance,” finding fault with God for the various ways he has failed to act as we would like, and allowing the woes of the world to sink our view of him in a sea of disappointment. Or “Resident Policeman,” reducing God to a nagging conscience.
What is it in us that motivates such shrinkage? Mostly our pride that wants to re-imagine a god who won’t bother us so that we can carry on with lives that revolve around me-me-me.
Let’s hear it for Sunday School teachers who step up and sit down with teenagers to open their minds to the grandeur of God!
