A Non-Theology of God

I normally do not take requests for blog topics. This is my personal space to write whatever is on my mind. But a friend posted a question on Facebook in response to my blog about unboxing God. (The Unboxed God) In that blog I explained what God is not. He wanted me to write a blog about who God is.

The request seems reasonable, but it is fraught with danger. Not the least is the danger to me. I might start thinking that I understand God! That is spiritually deadly for a minister. Furthermore people might believe what I write and therefore think that they also understand God.

Talking about God is called theology. Theology is articulated in doctrine, which becomes dogma, creed and catechism. People learn “truths” about God, and they think they know who God is. They think that holding to beliefs about God is faith in God. It is better to know that we don’t know than to fool ourselves into thinking we understand God.

That is not to say we should not try to speak about God. We have to try. To keep silent about God does not help people know God. That is why I am a preacher. It would not do for me to stand up in front of a congregation and remain silent.

So what do I say? Sometimes I use the traditional words of Christian theology - words like perfect, holy, good, infinite, eternal, and love. I even capitalize them to make them sound more divine: Perfect, Holy, Good…. These words aren’t untrue, but they are not exactly true either. It is like saying that “eternal” is a really long time or that the universe is “really big.” 

When someone asks me about God I want to reply, “Why are you asking? If you truly want to know, see for yourself! Open your eyes!” It feels like someone asking me to describe a tree while standing in front of a tree. Just look for yourself! God is so obviously present and clear for me that I forget that most people do not notice God.

How do you get the blind to see that which is invisible? I refer people to Jesus. He is known for giving sight to the blind. He made God visible. The apostle John wrote: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:18 NIV) I let Jesus make God known to them.  

I try to lead people into the Presence of God through the teachings and living Presence of Jesus Christ. I try to nudge them, cajole them, bump them, push them, or shock them into noticing the obvious. I do whatever I can to show people God.

But describe God? It is impossible. Furthermore it is unnecessary. It is a sideshow for religious people, a substitute for spiritual experience. Why not experience God directly?  To know God all we have to do is give up everything. Give up our selves. Give up our lives. Give up our religion and our theology. When we stop trying to capture God in words and ideas, then we can know the Reality of God. 

The Unboxed God

God is so small. Not the real God, of course, but the “God of our understanding,” to use the popular Twelve Step phrase. If I can understand God, then my God is too small. True God is by definition beyond human understanding.

Over sixty years ago J.B. Phillips wrote a book entitled, “Your God is Too Small.”  He talked about "God-in-a-box." He explored common concepts of God such as "Resident Policeman," "Grand Old Man," "Meek-and-Mild," and "Managing Director."

Earlier this year Rob Bell wrote a book entitled “What We Talk About When We Talk About God.”  He is a mega-church pastor who hopped out of the mega-box. Both authors, though separated by two generations, make the same basic point: most people’s God is very small.

I will use the lower case g to refer to this god. For it is not God at all. This is the god that atheists rightly reject as nonexistent. It is the projection of our egos onto the fabric of the universe. This is the Santa Claus god, the Tooth Fairy god. It is the god that Freud described as illusory. It is rightly disbelieved.

When this small god is seen through, then God appears. Sometimes. Most people just adopt a more sophisticated “god-in-a-box.” It is just a slightly bigger or more sophisticated box. A liberal box. A politically correct box. A philosophical box. A spiritual box. But still a box.

Open the box and throw away the box. If you find any godlike objects in that box, throw them away as well. Theological idols are still idols. What remains is Spirit. “God is Spirit and those who worship God must worship in Spirit and Truth,” said Jesus.

But Spirit can also be idolized. It becomes the spirituality box. The anti-religion box. The “Eastern religion is better than Western religion” box. The “spiritual-but-not-religious” box. It is a more subtle box, and for that reason more deceptive.

When the box is removed, we see that we were the ones in the box. God could never have been boxed. We see that we were nothing more than the “box of our own understanding.” Our little self is seen through. We are not who we thought we were, any more than God was who we thought God was. Boundaries disappear. God is. Unboxed. 

Eyes of a Stranger

Jesus said that two commandments summarize the spiritual life: Love God and love your neighbor. The second one is found in nearly every culture as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. In other words, treat others as you want to be treated.

I like the way Jesus puts it: Love your neighbor as yourself. Embedded in Christ’s teaching is a deeper intuitive truth. If we look at our neighbor closely, we see ourselves. We recognize ourselves in others. Perhaps we could go as far as to say that our neighbor is our self in disguise.

When I look into the eyes of my neighbor I see myself looking back. It is like looking in the mirror. The details of the face look different than the one I see in the mirror, but behind those eyes I see myself. If we truly look into anyone’s eyes, we see a consciousness which is indistinguishable from our own.

Only the details of our personal histories separate us. If I had been born to his parents in his country, I would be him. If I had been raised in her culture, I would think like she thinks. We have different life experiences, but there is no important difference between my neighbor and me.

Sometimes people say, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” That is not really accurate. It is closer to the truth to say, “There I am.” That is why the Hebrew Scriptures exhort us to treat the stranger and the foreigner as ourselves. Beneath the ethnic, racial, gender, cultural and religious differences, the other person is me.

This is also true of my enemy. That is why Jesus taught, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies.” I am my enemy living incognito. We hold different views on important matters. We have been taught by our cultures, governments, and religions to hate one another. But on closer inspection, hatred of enemy is just a form of self-hate.

God made us all in his image. That image is what I see in the eyes of the neighbor, the stranger, and the enemy. To hate anyone is to hate God. To love the other is to love God and myself. To see this truth for yourself, just look deeply into the eyes of the next stranger you meet.

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The Enemy vs. The Inner Me, a painting by Duy Huynh. Here is his website

Christmas Morning

It is Christmas morning, and it is quiet. Sunny, clear and cold. A beautiful white Christmas. The only noise I hear is the fire crackling in the woodstove as the hot coals greet the newest piece of wood I placed upon them. There are no cars driving along the road outside our home. Everyone is where they want to be ... or have to be.

My wife and I opened presents this morning. They were a few simple, thoughtful gifts. Exactly the way we had planned. Then we picked up the house to prepare for family. Putting the extension in the dining room table, setting the table, putting the presents under the tree. Jude is doing some cooking now, and I am doing some writing. Working on another blog and a newsletter article.

I texted a couple of my kids this morning. “Wake up! Santa came!” It is what I used to say to them when they were children. Often I accompanied this Christmas greeting with a little bit of snow, just to help them open their eyes. They would come downstairs in their pajamas to the smell of Monkey Bread and see stockings stuffed with toys and goodies.

We no longer do the stockings. But perhaps someday we will again. I dream of a Christmas when grandchildren (perhaps little Elijah) will wake up in our home. I will wake them up early, while it is still dark, with the assistance of a little snow, if necessary.

Later today our boys, their wives and three of our grandkids will be coming to our house. (Our daughter, her husband and our grandson Elijah are in western Pennsylvania, and cannot make it.) I will build an open fire in the fireplace in the dining room for the occasion. We will return thanks to God for the food and for His Son. Then we will eat the best meal of the year.

I don’t know why I love Christmas as much as I do. I guess it is the child inside me that comes out. Perhaps it is also the Christ inside me who comes out. It is his birthday after all. He will attend where two or three or nine are gathered in his name. In any case it is a blessed Christmas day today. 

What If Christmas Were Canceled

We had to cancel the outdoor Live Nativity at our church on Sunday. The weather forecast called for an ice storm all day and evening. So we preemptively canceled it on Saturday. Gene Kelly may have enjoyed singing in the rain, but no one wants to sing Christmas carols in the freezing rain.

What would have happened if the first Christmas had been canceled? What if God had said, “The weather is too bad, and it is such a long trip to Bethlehem? There is no room at the inn anyway. Christmas is canceled.”

What if the Almighty had looked down from heaven and declared humankind a lost cause? No need to send his Son. In his foreknowledge God knew that man would reject his Son and kill him. So what’s the point? Why not cancel the whole program? Why not cancel Christmas?

No angels, no wise men, no star of Bethlehem. An empty manger, an empty womb. Another boring night for the shepherds watching their flocks by night. No Sermon on the Mount. No miracles. No parables. No Good Friday. No Easter Sunday. No gospel.

Many people think it would make no difference if Jesus had never been born. Some believe the world would be better off without Christianity. Atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote a book entitled, “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” People like Hitchens think the world would be better if the Christian religion never existed.

On the other side, D. James Kennedy wrote a book entitled “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?“ subtitled: “The Positive Impact of Christianity in History.”  It relates the contributions that Christianity has made to human civilization. Sure the Church has committed its share of sins, but its good works far outweigh its faults.

Personally I cannot imagine my life without Christ. My life is bound up with Christ. It is no exaggeration to say that Christ is my life. I can honestly say with the apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

For me there is no life without Christ. With Christ is life eternal and abundant. Thank God that he decided that Christmas was worth the price. Christmas was worth the Cross. Love was worth it all. It always is.

Prepare Him Room

Joy to the World is my favorite Christmas song. “Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing….”

I would sing it every Sunday during December if I could. But I limit myself to singing it as a congregational hymn on the Sunday before Christmas and as the benediction of the Christmas Eve service. I also make sure it is sung when our church has a Christmas Carol Sing.

Joy is one of the keynotes of the spiritual life. When the apostle Paul listed nine spiritual qualities of a Christian’s life he started his list with “love, joy, peace.” Those are the three dominant qualities that I experience in God.

Joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness happens. Joy is. Happiness occurs when we believe things are going right in our lives. Joy is unconditional. Joy is always present. It is the substratum of life even in the most difficult of times.

The other day I was driving with my wife. I blurted out that I am happier than I have ever been in my life. That is not what I meant to say. I meant to say that I experience joy more now. Joy, peace and love flow like an ever-present river through my life.

Jesus describes the Life of God as a fountain of living water springing up to eternal life. It is a good description. Joy comes from within. It is not produced by anything that happens in the outside world. It rushes up from the eternal depths of the soul and flows up in a fountain of Spirit. My cup runneth over.

It has not always been this way for me. In the past I have been mired in what Bunyan calls the Slough of Despond. But one day I noticed that God’s peace, joy and love are always with me. Why not pay more attention to them, instead of living in the vicissitudes of life? In fact, why not live there permanently?

So I did. I moved in. I left my cramped living quarters of human thoughts and emotions and moved into God’s space. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God and his Father’s house. I prepared room for Him and found that he had prepared a room for me.

That is the meaning of Immanuel: God with us. We have the choice to live in God’s eternal Presence or in our own shabby finite dwellings. I choose God.

“No more let sin and sorrow grow, Nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.” Too many people experience life as curse. They suffer unnecessarily. Life is joy. Heaven and earth sing it. Rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy. All we have to do is sing along.  

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Art is “Joy to the World” by Emelisa Mudle,  Watercolor on Canvas. Here is her site.

Opening Presence

I am no Grinch. I like presents as much as anyone. But I like giving presents more than receiving presents. That does not mean I like buying them. I do not enjoy shopping. I would rather go to the dentist office than the shopping mall.

My wife does the Christmas shopping. The only shopping I do is online. Furthermore, we have agreed to give each other only one gift for Christmas. Okay, maybe two. But the second one has to be small and inexpensive.

I am one of those people who is hard to buy for. My wife has been asking me for gift suggestions for weeks. My kids have been asking her what to buy me. Finally I gave her an idea: some SmartWool socks. (It gets cold up here in New Hampshire.)

I thought that was a great idea. She was not impressed. I guess socks are not a fun gift. I am sorry, but there is nothing else I really want or need. As time goes on, the less important it is to get presents. All I really want is a house full of kids and grandkids at our home for Christmas dinner. Their presence is my present.

The spiritual dimension of Christmas is even more important. Christmas is not about opening presents. It is about opening to Presence. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to give them a present at Pentecost (one of the Jewish holy days). It was the gift of the Holy Spirit. He delivered on his promise.

Every day I open the gift of God’s Presence. Every day I am aware of the Presence of God. To receive this daily gift all I have to do is open my heart, and God is there. God is powerfully, undeniably, wonderfully present. A gentle grin comes over my face. Joy fills my heart. God is Present. God is Presence. Open Presence.