Your God Is Too Small

"Your God Is Too Small"

Mark 5:17

"Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region."  (Mark 5:17)

Maybe you've heard of J.B. Phillips.  He became the Vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd in London in 1940.  The Nazi's bombed that part of London incessantly during WWII, and he found himself trying to bring comfort to his people, especially a rather large youth group.

In order to instill them with courage, he began translating Paul's letters into modern English.  With the encouragement of C.S. Lewis, Phillips got his translation published under the title, Letters to Young Churches.  In 1958 his whole New Testament was published, and became one of the most popular translations used by national youth organizations like Young Life.

Phillips also published several books.  One of his most popular was titled, Your God Is Too Small.  In the introduction to that book, Phillips wrote:

Many men and women today are living, often with inner dissatisfaction, without any faith in God at all.  This is not because they are particularly wicked or selfish or, as the old-fashioned would say, "godless," but because they have not found with their adult minds a God big enough to "account for" life...big enough to command their highest admiration and respect...

It's a great book, in which Phillips describes in detail how we find all sorts of creative ways to minimize God, and try to get God to fit in with our lives, our society, our world.  If we constantly try to get God to fit in with our own theology or viewpoints, we are ultimately trying to control God--keeping God in a box, so to speak.  We let God out now and then to do our bidding, and then jam God back in the box to await our next crisis.

That's what's happening at this point in the story of the Gerasene wild man who confronted Jesus.  I will be using this story throughout this sermon series to tie in with the chapters from the book I've asked you to read, The Deeper Journey by Robert Mulholland.

There's a middle part of the story that I'll deal with in another message, that's been left out here.  Briefly, what happens is, Jesus pulls the demons out of the wild man, and throws them into a nearby herd of pigs.  The pigs run down the hillside in a wild frenzy, jump over a cliff and drown themselves in Lake Galilee.

The pig keepers ran back to town, as well as here and there around the countryside, and told others what had happened.  Many of those people came out to see for themselves.  What is odd about this part of the story, the people take a look at the wild man, now calm and in his right mind, and ask Jesus to leave their region.  They don't seem to be mad or freaked out about the pigs or pay any attention to their dead carcasses floating up on shore.  Instead, the gawkers are afraid because of what Jesus did to the wild man.  So they ask Jesus to "get the heck out of Dodge."

Isn't that odd?  You would think they would invite Jesus back to town, and start lining up all the other broken people so he could heal them.  That's what happened in other places, on the other side of the lake.  But not here.  What's the difference?  I don't think it has anything to do with Jesus.  I think it has to do with the perspective of the people who are looking at Jesus and trying to decide what they think of him.

I confess this is all conjecture on my part.  The story isn't full enough, or detailed enough, for us to know why the people of Gerasa reacted as they did.  But humor me for a few minutes.

First, ask yourselves, if the people who came to stare didn't like the way Jesus acted--didn't like what Jesus did--then what does that tell you about how they thought he should act?   Why would restoring a madman back to mental wholeness be so threatening and anxiety producing?

If the people had been told that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, the Savior, or even, the Son of God, then our question is even more revealing.  How is a Messiah, a Savior, the Son of God--God in the flesh--supposed to act?  Certainly God is not supposed to disrupt our lives.  Even if that disruption upends our lives to the point of restoring us to total sanity.

We want God involved in our lives, but not too much.  A number of years ago, I tried the on-line dating thing—match.com, christiancafe.com.  Stuff like that.  I would put on my profile that I was a Christian, and that my Christian faith was foundational to who I was as a person.  A number of women responded.  But when they found out I was a minister, wow, was there some fast backpedaling.  Even though the women had written in their profiles that they wanted a faithful, Christian man, evidently they didn’t want someone THAT faithful.

I get the sense that the people of Gerasa maybe wanted an involved Savior.  Just not THAT involved.  They wanted to fashion their Savior as one who gave them their own space, and didn’t demand too much.  The people wanted to know they were cared about by God, but only when they felt they needed God to be caring.  Not all the time.  Not smothering.

In all relationships, there are strategic areas in which a couple needs to find their own balance.  One of those areas is the closeness/distance balance.  You see some couples and they are together all the time.  In fact, where one is, there is the other.  They text each other every 5 minutes or call.  There is just no individual space.  They just can’t stand to be apart.  Other couples you see have entirely separate lives.  It’s like they’re roommates.  They both have a high need for distance.  To feel their own autonomy.  To not lose themselves in the other.

We do the same thing with God.  We want to be in charge of this closeness/distance dynamic.  And most people, whether they admit it or not, whether they see it or not, want to keep God at a safe distance.  They don’t want to be smothered by God.  They don’t want their lives to be meddled in all the time by God.  They don’t want to be defined by their relationship with God—they’d rather be defined by who they are as an individual.  In J.B. Phillips words, they want a "small God."

But in order to do that, you have to create a God who will comply with your wishes.  God can’t be God as God wants or wills to be.  God has to be the way you create God to be for your own individual autonomy and comfortability.

If God doesn’t comply, or want to fit into your design for God, you will find yourself, as the Gerasenes did, sending God away.  If God won’t keep God’s distance, or act like you think God should act, then you will forcibly push God “back across the lake” so-to-speak.

Thus, Jesus, as God, is too disruptive to their status quo life.  Jesus, as God, doesn't allow the people to have God on their terms.  That’s a huge part of our religious false self—creating our own version of God so that we can have as little or as much of God as we want.  The religious false self wants a small, manageable God.

Something else that may be going on may have to do with power.  The first part of the story that was read last week told about how the people had dealt with this wild man.

No one could restrain him—he couldn’t be chained, couldn’t be tied down. He had been tied up many times with chains and ropes, but he broke the chains, snapped the ropes. No one was strong enough to tame him. Night and day he roamed through the graves and the hills, screaming out and slashing himself with sharp stones.

All the peoples attempts to constrain the wild man, or tame him had failed.  All the behavior modification techniques didn’t work.  Probiotics didn’t help him.  Drug therapy was a total failure.  And I’m sure there was an exorcism or two that was attempted, again a failure.  Locking him up in the rubber room or strapping him into a straight jacket didn’t even work.  Everything that was humanly possible was tried on the wild man, and nothing worked.

It appeared even Jesus wasn’t being very successful at first with the mad man.  Jesus had been trying to exorcise the demons, but they resisted.  Jesus took a different tactic of just talking directly to the demons.  Jesus eventually was able to throw the evil spirits into the herd of pigs.

But the point is, Jesus—as God—was able to do what no other god or person was able to do.  Jesus' power called into question human power, as well as the powerlessness of the false gods.  Evidently, no one wants a God around whose ability overpowers any other power.  Something (or SomeOne) that powerful is uncontrollable.  No one wants an uncontrollable God around.  Or a God who shows us up by doing things we tried, but can’t do.  We don’t want a God showing us up.  That’s too tough on our fragile human ego.

And we don’t want a God around who is more powerful than our idols—especially the idols of science, medicine, psychology and technology. All these idols basically try to convince us they are the be-all and end-all of what is possible and what is impossible.  But what about God?  What about God, who can prove a strength bigger and more powerful than our idols?  What does that say about our idols?  We don’t want a God bigger than our idols.  We want a small God who fits in within the confines of our idols.  Our religious false self tries to fit God within the boundaries of our idols.  If God breaks out of those boundaries, we send God away.

Lastly, by healing the wild man, Jesus may have forced the people to look at a deeper and more systemic illness that involved them all.  Here’s how it works.

When I was in seminary, one of the jobs my ex-wife and I had was as houseparents in a residential treatment center called Maryhurst.  It was for delinquent and broken teenaged girls.  Most of the girls were streetwise and angry lawbreakers.  The court system referred most of the girls to Maryhurst.

But there were some girls who were hauled in by their parents.  The parents would drive onto the campus, drop the girls off, say something like, “Fix them, so our family can be happy,” then drive off.

What we found out, the more we dug into the family situations, was that it wasn’t the kids who were sick—it was the whole family.  In family systems theory, the girls were simply what is called “the identified patient.”  That is, the girls were the ones who were being forced to carry the family’s dysfunction and anxiety.  The girls were the blame carriers for marriage issues, family problems and other issues.  Yes, the girls acted out, but it was the whole family that needed to be treated, not the girls.  Fixing the girls wasn’t going to make the family situation better.

In fact, once the girls were taken out of the family situation, one of the other kids started acting out.  The family “needed” in a sick way, someone to blame for all their problems.

Now, let’s transfer that to this situation with the mad man.  What if the whole town was like the sick family.  I’ve lived in a town like that in my first pastorate.  The madman was simply an "identified patient" in a sick town culture.  In a weird sort of way, the town needed someone to blame, needed someone to carry their dysfunction.  So it isn't just the crazy guy who needs to be healed.  It's the whole weird town.

But what happens when the identified patient gets well?  The identified patient becomes the systems distinction about what it means to be healthy or sick.  We can point at the sick person--the identified patient--and say, "At least I'm not like that!"  But what happens when there is no distinction anymore?  Who's the real sick one?

Thus, Jesus wasn't just dealing the death blow to the false self of the wild man; he was at the same time trying to deal the death blow to the false self of the whole sick community.  They, all too clearly, recognized that and asked Jesus to leave, unwilling to let Jesus go so far as to finally kill their communal madness.  Jesus healing the wild man, at the same time, calls into question the madness of the whole community.

The Gerasa community had everything neat and tidy, using God to define that neatness and tidiness.  But Jesus turned all that on its ear.  Jesus was not the kind of God who would allow a sick system to stay sick.  So the community has a decision:  either we allow for a larger God, and allow that God to heal us all; or, we remain in our sickness and keep our small God that will allow us to remain sick.

Here's the thing.  God has to be free to be God as God wills to be God.  If we don't let God to be free, to be God as God sees fit, then we have created a God to act as we think God should act.  And that God is not free.  That God is too small, because that's God by our box size.  Letting God be God as God desires is too scary for most of us.  Because then we lose control.  God may act in a way that we don't think God should act.  God may not heal.  God may not restore.  God may not intervene.  God may not substantiate our own private theology.  God may not come to our every beck and call.  God may do whatever God wants because that's what a large and free God can do.  Are you willing to let God be that large?  If not, you might find yourself asking God to leave your region.