Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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They had purposely darkened with soot all interior walls in the great cathedral. Every beautiful stained glass window had been covered over, so that not a glimmer of light could shine through. At the very center of the building, where the two main aisles formed a cross, lay the body of Louis XIV, France’s “sun king,” with one lit candle by his head. No one, entering that huge cathedral from any door, could be distracted. No one could fail to focus on Louis and think about his greatness. And thousands came to pay their respects. The day came for the funeral mass, and a bishop stepped forward to speak the eulogy. He reached out his hand, snuffed out the candle, and said, in the darkness, “Only God is great!”

It is a lesson we are apt to forget. The scriptures remind us in a thousand places of God’s greatness. “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; all that is in the heavens and on the earth is thine: thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” Our ancient rituals also remind us. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory….” And our hymns. We just sang, “Majesty, worship his majesty.” But in the confusion and the sorrows of life we are inclined to forget God’s greatness. Years ago J.B. Phillips wrote a book which took many Christians by storm, and is still a devotional classic. It was the title that grabbed people: “Is Your God Too Small?”

It is correct to speak of “the trials of Job,” but not “the patience of Job.” Job was not patient. One catastrophe after another had ruined his life, and he was angry. He had trusted God, done everything he thought God would have him do (down to the last detail), and his reward (apparently) was enormous, unspeakable suffering and pain. He rails against God and is only disillusioned by the so-called friends who come to help him. He keeps insisting that God should come down and debate him. He knows in a fair contest he could prove that his treatment at God’s hand has not been just. And then, finally, God appears. (Be careful what you pray for!) “You’ve been questioning me,” God says.. “Now gird up your loins and I will question you: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who made the measurements, who stretched the rule, who laid the footers and the cornerstone?” “Were you there when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings sang for joy?” And God’s reprimand goes on for four chapters: “…who shut in the sea with doors…and said ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped?” “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?” “Did you give the horse its might? Did you clothe its neck with mane?” “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?” And so on, and on -- for four long chapters. Until Job stops arguing. “…I have uttered what I did not understand,” he says, “things too wonderful for me….I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

God confronts Job with the limits of his knowledge and his capacity. It’s not a put-down. It’s simply the truth. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord, neither are my ways your ways.” Or, to say it another way, God is god, and we are not. It reminds me of Karl Barth’s famous statement: “There is an infinite qualitative difference between man and God.” And yet God, without giving us all the answers, is enough.

We stress the greatness of God, and try to remember it, because it makes a difference in who we are and how we live. For starters, it makes us humble – not bereft of self-esteem, but reasonably humble. We are what we are, and we need to know our place. Think of John the Baptist telling his hopeful followers, “I am not the Messiah.” Surely there must have been some small temptation in John, when they were clearly hoping he would take up the mantle of leadership in Israel, to accept their title, messiah. But John knew who he was. He was the front-man for Jesus. Important, but not Messiah. A lot of preachers, and some other Christians with visions of grandeur, need to learn that lesson. When we begin to think that we are Messiahs, ones who save people, we set ourselves up for a terrible fall. Jesus saves and he alone. Our job, by word and deed, is to point people to Jesus. And that is all. But that is plenty.

When we truly understand how great God is we stop foraging. The “consumeritus” that infects us all, is a child of our insecurity, of our belief that we need to see to our own welfare. Several news stories lately have indicated that Americans are growing fatter and fatter. Why? Why do people put into their mouths more food than they need? A more disturbing truth (and this you will not hear on the news) is that we Americans are not only fat with fat – we are fat with things. We can’t stop acquiring. We have basements and attics full of stuff. Why do we take to ourselves more than we need or can use? Because our God is too small. We can’t trust him. That is, we can’t put our faith in him. Because we do not believe that God will take care of us everyday, one day at a time, as Jesus promised, and give us more than we could ever need or want. And so, like squirrels, we forage and store away… and, as the poet said, “we lay waste our powers.” It is the same lack of confidence in God – and his ultimate justice --that keeps us from forgiving and curdles our lives in bitterness. It is the same lack of confidence that makes us worry and fret. A too-small God is a terrible thing.

But, if we have a glorious, victorious, majestic, all-powerful, Biblical God (a God who, by definition, we cannot reduce to our size), we will not always understand him – like Job. Nor will we be able to control him. Someone said if rats had a god it would be a large rat. We have to be careful that our God does not become simply a large version of us. For if that happens, then we degenerate into the chummy, palsy God we hear so much about today. A God we can fully understand is no God at all. A God we can prove can be no bigger than our ability to prove things. Someone asked Sara Maitland if it were possible to prove the existence of God. “Of course,” she said, “you can prove the existence of God; it is quite an amusing thing to do any afternoon between lunch and mowing the lawn. And at the end of it, what sort of God have you proved the existence of? The sort of God that you can prove the existence of.” And she asks, “Was it for this that Abraham went out from Ur of the Chaldees, a very pleasant place to bring up the children?” Of course not. Nobody follows a God no bigger than himself.

May I be so bold as to suggest that those of us who are experiencing the aging process, in a very special way, need a big God, one who can and does keep his promises. It has been said that there are four stages of life: First, when we believe in Santa Claus; second, when we don’t believe in Santa Claus; third, when we are Santa Claus; and forth, when we look like Santa Claus. Some of us are in that last stage. “Change and decay in all around I see. Oh, thou who changest not, abide with me.” Even that, something or someone who doesn’t change, is beyond our comprehension. Yet we need to know that One..
In the long run, it’s not so much our search for God that makes the difference, as God’s search for us. That’s why Jesus reminded his disciples, at that first communion table, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” Jesus adds a new dimension to this age-old question of God’s greatness and man’s inability to understand. In Jesus we have a new mystery. How can it be that this God of such power and majesty manifests himself in such generosity, and tenderness, and mercy….a God who comes to serve, who washes our feet? “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” God tells Paul. Explain that! In Christ, greatness is a new and different thing…in God and in us. But still only God is truly great.