God In A Box,” is kind of like, “Jack in the Box,” in that its fast food for the soul, it smells good, but in the end doesn’t end up enriching to soul but clogs it with grease.

Religion is noble when it seeks to know and have union with its source. Religion is toxic when it becomes ridged, dogmatic and becomes an end unto its own creeds. Creeds and be helpful, but posses only the authority we surrender to them. Creeds are lifeless with out willing participants, so lets animate life giving creeds and not regressive and dark understandings of God as creed.

 

Examples from ancient Jewish Scripture of a tribal war god image:

Jewish story’s involving the arc of the covenant, (A Box they believed God dwelled in) illustrates not a truth, but a primitive and violent god image they held close. The Jews in this these stories encountered a truly divine deliverance from slavery. Like us, they filled in the blanks, couldn’t stand in mystery, and where far from capable of accepting a god image that Jesus would proclaim thousands of years later.

These Egyptian slaves easily miss understood grace for specialness. They championed God correctly as being for the oppressed. Then quickly miss took this revelation. They shaped this divine encounter and interpreted that this god was exclusively out to help only their tribe, and not all humanity. Even though Abraham the patriarch of this tribe) understood that his family, this new god image was to a blessing to all nations. The Jews began to fashion a god that was more relatable, more like the gods the tribes around them understood. This god image was predictably human and petty, but had some subtle and profound paradigm shifts that would begin to unravel in human consciousness for thousands of years. Its important to separate these tribalism’s and fresh revelation that where in the mix at the time.

 

What needed (s) to be undone:

A violent god

a god animated by petty human emotion

a punitive and petty god

a controllable god

a god confined to space

a temperamental god,

a god that needed blood (human or animal) to be ok with creation

 

What was being birthed:

a universal god for all

a loving and benevolent god

a stable god that doesn’t need appeasement

a god that wants relationship with creation and humans

a non violent god

 

 

 

A new understanding of the creator was being birthed as the Jewish story gives testimony to. When understood in the context when written Abraham, Moses, and the prophets inch humanity closer to the Jesus revelation. Jesus becomes the bridge out of the darkness into the light. God doesn’t live in a tribal box, a tent, a building or place. Holy ground is anywhere we wake up to the presence of the divine. God is in the storm, in the silence, in our suffering, even in the darkest night of the soul. We occasionally become aware and become aware of this truth and encounter it in moments of ecstasy, peace and inspiration. The entire universe is contained within the divine. No need to scrap all the sages, prophets, holy books, etc… God is alive, inspiring, present and filling all creation. We must not get stuck in orthodoxy, but dangerously, reverently, spring forward into a generous orthodoxy. For a soul stirring exploration of the term generous orthodoxy listen to, Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast, episode on Generous Orthodoxy, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/id1119389968?mt=2&i=373983999)

Scriptures are a human story of people getting it all wrong and then having encounters with the creator in the most random spaces. Lets anticipate God to animate the most UN holy places, to shed is light in the darkness.

 

Jesus Teaching:

A time is here where all places are sacred, in Gods reality its being into tune with his spirit, not space and place.

(Regarding Gods box, building, or place) Jesus and the Samaritan women talk about holy space in John 4:19-24.

 

Practice:

Regard all people, places and situations as opportunities to discover scared space of worship. Open up in a poster that expects to be surprised and check in often on what spiritual fuel you are running on.

“Death paves the road to new life”

Jesus is born into social and political oppression that the original Hebrew’s lived. His first priority was to speak to the Jewish tradition because he is a Jew. He memorized the same laws, poems, teachings and faith of his people group I speculate that he felt the angst of violence preferred by Moses, and the prophets. Jesus affirmed his tradition when it was enlightened and speaks with fresh word and authority when clouded in regressive ignorance. His impact upon all of humanities God image has not gone unnoticed, this would be an understatement. As followers of Jesus we do have a faith that God became one of us in some mystical way in Jesus. I suppose in this life I will only guess at the oneness of Jesus and our creator he called, Father. As a man who is committed to understanding and flowing Jesus’s teachings I assert that his power and spirit is in our questions. Jesus is God with us in my tension, faith and in my own darkness. We are held and accompanied with all of creation in frustration, questions, hope, faith, love and even death. In faith we hold that behind all death is new life, and we get this model directly from Jesus. He embodied this teaching with his life and death. A seed must die, be buried, in order to grow into its fullest life.

 

Teaching:

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

 

Practice:

Daily and moment by moment be willing to die to ego, your illusion of being right, your pride and be willing to fall into the hands of the good father. In this practice we follow the example of Jesus in his life and death.