I once heard a preacher claim that God could be found in a chocolate chip cookie. As fond as I am of chocolate, I didn’t buy it. Toll House can capture the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier of all? Alert E-Bay! But maybe the preacher was just trying to say that in experiencing the good gifts of life, even cookies, we could also find God’s goodness and be thankful. Put that way, what might be silliness starts sounding profound.
I thought of this sermon as we at Trinity start taking our cameras out into the world and snapping pictures of God’s presence. Are pictures of chocolate chip cookies in or out? There are some theological issues to consider here.
I came up with this plan, only realizing now that we are embarking on dangerous territory. Our quest is for images of God—something prohibited by the 10 Commandments (review here). That’s because images can become idols–we substitute what we want God to be for the God we are meant to worship. There are lots of ways to do this, even unintentionally, for idols can come disturbingly close to the truth. We look for signs of God’s love, for example, remembering the One who has created us out of love. But God’s love isn’t just to prop up our self-esteem. While God loves us as we are, he intends for us to be more. Love is always at the foundation, but that love calls us to repentance and growth, not self-congratulations. Likewise we give thanks to God for the good things we enjoy—from chocolate chip cookies to fancy cars. Yes, we should enjoy the stuff of this world, but we are also stewards, responsible to God’s plan to share this goodness. At what point does our enjoyment, even thanksgiving, become self-indulgence? Can we be too busy enjoying what we have to be concerned about those who have not? But take the stewardship message too far and we can get all judgmental and enjoy nothing in our quest for righteousness. Idols all over the place! Maybe we should put the cameras away?
But wait, there’s more!
The Second Commandment doesn’t get the last word on the use of images–theology has another argument to make. Consider that Jesus himself is the image of God. If only we could see him in our world now, we would see clearly what God is blessing and what God is judging. So, to helpfully illustrate this point, through the centuries Christians have created countless pictures of Jesus. Seen in medieval garb, as a carpenter, or all shiny and other-worldly–all these images say something about how the artists understand the Gospel and its implications. Even our needlepoint cushions illustrating the Gospel story are part of this effort, with their depictions saying something about what we believe. Pictures of Jesus lead to pictures of what he talked about, specifically pictures of the ongoing work he left behind. If we can illustrate it, we can see that the story is more than theory. By this argument, pictures of God’s plan are not impossible, but, in fact need to be plentiful because they point us to the ongoing work of salvation.
What we approach, cameras in hand and keeping both arguments in mind, is the mystery and presence of the God who is Trinity, both intimately present and omnipotently beyond our knowing. We are woven into the divine reality as beloved creation, co-workers in the plan of salvation, and as sinners in need of redemption (not always in that order). That’s a lot to photograph! It may indeed be true that we can see God’s presence in anything, even cookies. Consider how this plan is both beyond us and includes us:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us this ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
If the whole world is the object of God’s love, and we are the ministers of that message, then we should have all sorts of things to picture. But for every picture you take, you probably should take another for balance—a reminder that the plan is huge, and the plan is small; fitting for a God who is both present and beyond us, both Redeemer and Judge. Now let’s get the cameras out and start looking!