No Image

Psalm 123:1-4
Deuteronomy 4:15-24
Luke 15:1-10

“Since you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves…” And the Deutetonomy passage goes on to list the basic religious icons—human figures (male and female), animals, fish, the stars, sun, and moon. All of them are God’s creation, not God. So many religions focus on images, but not Judaism (or Islam). Christianity is more complex. We inherited this insight that a creator god must be greater than any single aspect of Creation, and must reside outside of the created categories. But then we have such a wealth of images, of God in many guises, Jesus, the figures from the Bible, saints over the ages. Two of the other passages from the lectionary contain a couple of those images: Psalm 123 opens with an image of God enthroned. Luke tells the parable of the Good Shepherd, carrying the found sheep on his shoulders, the subject of a thousand Sunday School classroom prints.

Now the Deuteronomy passage is after from the Old Testament. The New Testament puts things on a new footing, with the incarnate God. One interpretation is that God decided people were ready to relate more directly to the Creator, not just experiencing flames and clouds, and even that only through privileged intermediaries like Moses. Or that they could only get so far with the fire and smoke, and God decided it was time to try something new. The Bible tracks a progression in the relationship of people and God. Break the ties with the old ways of relating, then move back to something similar but now made new.

One talks about having a personal relationship with Jesus. To have a personal relationship requires the personal form—you could never have the personal relationship with the voice in Horeb’s fire. The personal relationship with Jesus is of course a modern formulation and it suggests everyone’s on the same level, just friends. But what kind of relationship could it be, even if God deigned to become flesh. God is still also the being of no form, and in incarnation Jesus was an elusive character, often saying his peace and then withdrawing, and making references to the things he knew which his hearers could not. He didn’t make it easy to be with him, and didn’t really seem to encourage it.

Even with the image of Jesus in front of you, you can’t lose sight of the fundamental truth of God’s infinitude, which must ultimately end up in an ineffable form. The Trinity matters, because it makes the “relationship” part of it just that, part of God’s being, pointing to something much more than an individual’s contact with God.

I’ve never felt drawn to the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus. It may be a failure of my faithfulness, a fatal gap, but I prefer the mystery of the God of no form, something to chase after always. I suppose one can enter into an awareness of God through any of the Trinity’s doors, the God door, the Spirit door, the Jesus door. At various times in my life I have come to that conclusion, but it is hard to stick to that given the voices screaming about the nature of salvation. To me, one knows Jesus not as a “person,” but in the way He comes to us, embedded in the pages of the Bible. God resides in the narrative, in the stories handed to us. In fact, every person is composed of their stories, and we understand others by the stories we tell of and know of them. I don’t want to replace the stories of Jesus in the Bible, the canonical text, the stories every Christian has read and holds as a touchstone, with personal narratives of private dealings with Jesus.