“This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.”  Jn 9:16

They actually thought God lived in a box. Sure, the ark was expensive. Gold in and out, with majestic cherubim spreading their wings over the cover and the mercy seat. It contained the actual stone tablets with the Ten Commandments God had engraved with His own finger and passed to Moses. Really impressive! So the children of Israel brought it with them into battle against the Philistines, reasoning “If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies” (1 Sam 4:3). They lost anyway. The two sons of the High Priest were killed. The ark of God was captured. We might want to rethink the God-in-a-box approach…

After forty years of separation from family and homeland, in 1989 Taiwanese were allowed to return to mainland China. Many brought their family idols with them. They purchased them their very own seats on the train—of course nicely decorated with velvet cloth and flowers. Very manageable. Convenient. They hung a sash around their necks to carry it around. Still a bit too heavy for the elderly, but all in all quite a practical way to take god with you. 

The Pharisees put God in a box. Not the kind with four corners and a lid, mind you, but a nice, neat container nonetheless. So when news spread that Jesus had opened the eyes of a man born blind, they knew immediately this was impossible, that anyone who believed such a thing must be ridiculed and reviled (Jn 9:28).  Whoever testified of such foolishness—even the man whose eyes were opened—must never be allowed into the temple again. Can’t have people with such extreme views mingling around with the faithful now, can we! 

Truth is, we are looking at a human predicament that spans time and culture. Since the beginning, we have struggled with these two sides of a coin: we are either making ourselves to be more like God, or trying to make God more like us. Fortunately for us, God did an extremely out-of-the-box thing. He became like us. He looked like us. He walked, and talked like us. He slept like us and He sweat like us. The Son of God sat next to us on the train! Yet despite all the similarities, despite being subject to frailty and a broken world, even then He could not be boxed in. Turns out the disciples discovered rather quickly the gap between Jesus and them was huge, growing greater by the hour. 

You might be thinking, I’m glad that I am not like the Pharisees. And I’m glad that we know longer think of God as being contained within the ark of the covenant. And of course it is unthinkable that we would ever make God to be anything like the bearded statues that the Chinese ferried about with great pomp and circumstance. 

Rather than praying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men…” (Lk 18:11), I suggest we ask “God, please show me how I am like these other men”. How am I like the children of Israel? How I am I like the Taiwanese? How am I like the Pharisees? I hope we end up in the place of the tax collector whom Jesus praised, crying out instead, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (18:13). 

You see, we live in a day when you can put a whole library of information in your pocket, a time when AI can collate data taken from a million sources and distill in onto a screen we hold in the palm of our hands. If we think we will escape the temptation to make God pocket-sized, we’re living in a Fantasyland. If we think we are somehow superior, more advanced, or educated, or spiritual, it’s time for a reality check. We still want our God manageable, predictable. Although He says He’s a Lion, at least He’s a tame Lion, right? 

I’ve done it too. I have quite a collection of boxes in my closet through the years. I even have an array of bows and ribbons I have used to adorn my boxes to make them more appealing, presentable, and impressive. But today, I want to say I am done with it. No more. I have made You too small in my eyes, O Lord. From this day forward my declaration is: 

“I will make room for You

To do whatever You want to, to do whatever You want to…

Shake up the ground of all my tradition

Break down the walls of all my religion

YOUR WAY IS BETTER” 

Let’s do it. For His glory, and for the sake of a hurting world, let’s let God out of all our boxes. Amen.