Daniel T. Hans
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: May 24, 2009

"Your God Is Too Small"

Last Sunday, in preaching on Your God Is Too Big, I cautioned about overestimation. Frustration arises when we overestimate God, expecting God to do things God does not intend to do, holding out for the miraculous and the extraordinary, and, consequently, missing God in the natural and in the ordinary.

I

This morning a word of caution is given about underestimation. Underestimations leave a trail littered with failure and frustration.

One nation’s underrating of the strength of another nation’s response to an action can lead to war. An employer’s under-valuation of a worker’s abilities leads to frustration when that worker is given tasks that are neither challenging nor creative. Parents’ underestimation of their children’s abilities to make decisions leads those parents to make too many choices for their children, locking the kids into an emotional dependency.

A college co-ed recognized the importance of not underestimating people so she wrote this letter home to her parents.

Dear Mom and Dad,

There’s been a riot at school; I was cut under the eye but the plastic surgeon thinks he can fix it without too much of a scar. I was expelled from school, but don’t worry, I’m living in town with a gas station attendant. By the way, I’m pregnant.

Love, Molly

On the bottom of the page was written OVER. You can imagine the haste with which those parents turned over the page and read on.

Dear Mom and Dad,

There wasn’t a riot at school; I haven’t been cut under the eye; I’m not expelled; I’m not living with a gas station attendant; and I’m not pregnant. But, I did get a D in chemistry and a D in history and I wanted you to get things in perspective.

When I was a kid I loved to fly kites. So, when my kids were very young, I thought they might enjoy flying kites. My experience with two kite flying ventures with my kids reminded me that a proper estimation of the power of the wind is essential to success when flying a kite. On the first kite flying outing, I grossly underestimated the wind as I launched a kite tethered only by a cotton string. The first gust of March wind snapped the string and sent my kids and me racing across the golf course in pursuit of our plummeting kite.

Immediately, I replaced the cotton string with 10 pound test fishing line. This time, although the line held firmly, the venture again met with disaster. The flimsy plastic kite was torn to pieces by the force of the wind.

My less-than-adequate preparation for kite flying did not meet the demands of the wind; and, in my kids’ eyes, I was a very boring, if not incompetent, playmate.

II

In the eighth chapter of Matthew, we meet two people who claim they want to follow Jesus, to have their lives fly by the wind (the Spirit) of God’s leading. Yet, both men underestimate the One they seek to follow. Both men fail to grasp the demands Jesus places upon those who follow him.

The first man says: I will follow wherever you go! Jesus replies: Will you follow me even wherever I go without the comforts of life? Foxes have holes and birds nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus cautions him against making promises without first gauging the character and the call of the one to whom the promise is made. Small gods ask small commitments. This would-be follower views Jesus as a diminutive deity.

In his book Your God Is Too Small, Anglican bishop J.B. Phillips challenges our small, parochial, self-serving concepts of God. 20^th century theologian Paul Tillich warned about having a small god when he spoke of the God beyond God as a counter to a faith that co-opts God for nationalistic, ideological, and personal agendas. Tillich cautioned against making Jesus our personal cabana boy.

Tony Campolo, professor of sociology, ordained Baptist minister, and popular author and speaker, makes the distinction between the cultural Jesus and the biblical Jesus. The cultural Jesus is the small savior we have created in the image of our comfortable and affluent culture. The biblical Jesus is the large lord we encounter in the Bible – a calling, demanding, uncompromising Lord. Campolo warns against underestimating Jesus. He says: Nothing is more controversial than to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Nothing is more dangerous than to live out the will of God in today’s world. It changes your whole monetary lifestyle.

Challenging whether a person can truly follow Jesus and also pursue the self-indulgent lifestyle marketed in our society, Campolo expands the WWJD concept. WWJD means What Would Jesus Do. Campolo changes it to What Would Jesus Drive. Campolo adds: Luxury cars symbolize conspicuous consumption instead of compassionate concern for the suffering of the world. Let me put it this way: If Jesus had $50,000 and knew about kids who were starving and dying, what kind of a car would he buy?... Our culture has conditioned us to want more and more stuff that we don’t need.

Then Campolo gets really nasty and says:

Please, if this offends you, be offended. Reject Jesus if you want, but don’t take the biblical Jesus and turn him into something he is not. He is the Jesus who asks, "Are you willing to lay it all on the line to follow me?" (World Vision magazine)

We need to be careful not to misinterpret Campolo’s challenge and conclude that a person who drives a hybrid car is a better Christian than the one who drives a luxury car. We are not justified by our car; we are justified by our faith. However, Campolo’s pointed words make us think about the decisions we make and the loyalties we claim and what they say about our devotion to God by following Jesus. Does Jesus care about what we drive, what we wear, where we live, how we live? The Bible consistently tells us that he does care about all of this and he cares for our sake, as well as for the world’s sake.

The Gospel-writer Matthew and Tony Campolo are both saying that while small gods ask small commitments, the biblical God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, calls for big commitments. Don’t underestimate the demands of God. Don’t underrate the cost of following Christ.

III

The second man in our passage says to Jesus: I will follow you as soon as my father dies and I fulfill my responsibility to bury him – in other words: just as soon as I take care of some unfinished business. (This man’s father may not even be near the point of death at this time.)

Jesus replies: Some business is always unfinished. Make your decision now. Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Small gods can be put on hold. This would-be follower views Jesus as a delay-able deity.

A high school boy went to a Christian camp one summer and asked God to make Himself known to him so that he might believe. In the silent stillness of the night, the boy sensed God say to him: Follow my Son Jesus and you will know me. The boy replied, Yes, Lord, just as soon as I finish high school, then I’ll take a serious look at Jesus. Later the call came again, Follow me. Again the boy answered, Yes, Lord, but first let me get through college. Again the call came and again the boy replied, Yes, Lord, as soon as I get established in my job and get my kids raised. Well, it has been many years now since he last sensed the call: Follow me. In the face of great opportunities and new challenges presented to us, God gets tired of hearing our replies: Not now! Maybe later! Some other time!

Beware of underestimating God’s call by putting it on hold or putting it off for lesser calls. In the late 1990s a woman in her mid 50s stood before the Presbytery to tell about her call into the ministry. She read an excerpt from a journal in which she had written she believed she was being called by God into church work. The date on that journal entry was 1967. Over 30 years earlier she sensed Jesus’ call to enter the ministry. Now, after three decades of putting God on hold, she was finally responding. At that meeting, she expressed her gratitude that the call never ceased its echo in her heart. It’s never too late to respond to God’s call in our lives.

I think about a friend of mine from Connecticut. As a teenager, he wondered if God was calling him to go into the ministry. But he concluded: No, not me. As a young man, he was extremely successful in business and made a lot of money. He enjoyed the good life but the good life began to control him. Specifically, alcohol began to control him. After losing his business and nearly losing his marriage, he got into recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. While in recovery, he began to hear, once again, God’s call to the ministry. This time he listened and followed.

God doesn’t call all of us into church ministry; but God does call some us into ministry and God calls each of us into some form of Christian service where we can use our gifts and abilities to make a difference for the better in people’s lives. Some of us put God on hold until a more opportune time; others of us put God off until trouble or tragedy strikes. With small gods we can do that. However, with Jesus, the summons is: Follow me now in the unique way I am calling to you, before too much valuable time slips by. There is much to be done for the kingdom of God right now by you.

In Jesus, God shows Himself to be neither a diminutive deity nor a delay-able deity. In Jesus, God shows Himself to be a Savior and Lord who, as one of our church hymns puts it: "demands my life, my soul, my all" and wants our "all" right now – for our sake.

IV

Repeatedly in the Gospels and repeatedly in our lives, Jesus says: Follow me. How do we respond? Do we dodge the call until we think it fits what we already want for our lives? Do we delay responding until all the details are clearly defined? The Celtic Christian leader from Scotland, George MacLeod said: Follow truth wherever you find it; even if it takes you outside your preconceived ideas of God or life; even if it takes you outside your own country into those most insignificant and alien places like Bethlehem. (The Book of Creation – Phillip Newell, 29-30)

Jesus says: Follow me. We might reply: Well, that’s just Jesus speaking. I want to hear God speak to me directly. When Jesus speaks, God speaks. Jesus said that whoever has seen him as seen God the Father and whoever has heard him as heard the Father. The best image for visualizing the Trinity is not a triangle with one point superior in hierarchy to the other two. Rather the best image for the Trinity is a circle with no one point superior to another. Like a circle, the Trinity is an interconnected and continuous relationship within God – a relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thus when God the Son speaks, God the Father speaks; and when God the Spirit leads, God the Son leads.

V

Earlier I told you about my first frustrated attempt at flying a kite with my kids. From that first experience I learned that small winds need only small kites and weak strings, but big winds require a greater commitment to this kite flying pursuit. A couple of months later, while at the beach, my kids and I tried flying a kite again. In strong beach winds, the cotton string and even 10 pound test fishing line are inadequate. Likewise, in beach winds, flimsy kites made of paper or plastic won’t work. So, this time a nylon kite with double-sown seams attached to 30 pound test line was launched.

The venture met with success because this time I did not underestimate the demands of the endeavor; and, I think, I reestablished myself in my kids’ eyes as a fairly competent dad, at least for a short time!

If we are serious about attempting to follow Jesus, don’t underestimate the cost of such a commitment. Don’t under-value the strength of faith needed for such an endeavor. The human tendency is to embrace a small view of God. We think God came to us in Jesus as a nice religious-additive to life.

We want a gentle little Jesus who would never place demands upon us, never call us to set aside our comforts and never interrupt our best-laid plans. We want a custom-made Christ who promises much and requires little. It is a small god who can be packaged to suit our purposes and put on hold to fit our schedules.

I invite you to take a moment in silence right now to ask yourself:

How big is your God and how strong is your commitment to this One who calls us to follow him and who is so committed to us that he would go all the way for us, all the way to a cross?