April 22, 2015

“When you're a kid, the glass is small.  It gets bigger as you grow up, but they still put the same amount in, so there's a lot more that needs to be filled up.”
Thomas McCarter

None of you know of Thomas McCarter.  I didn't know of him until he knocked on my door Monday morning looking for assistance.  He had recently been released from jail and was looking to get on the right track; meeting this month's rent would certainly help and he was $40 short.  He had been sent to me by another downtown church that, for whatever reason, was unable or unwilling to offer assistance.  Thomas McCarter and I talked.

I asked him the standard question, “Do you attend church anywhere?”  Not because any help I give is based on whether or not a person attends church, but because I want to know if they are working with their own congregation as well as every other church in town.  And, if they aren't attending anywhere, it's an easy way to invite them into our congregation.

In that conversation he expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with the church.  Things he had been told as a child no longer seemed to hold true.  Things he was being told now didn't match his experience and, more importantly, things he was being told now seemed to reflect not the immensity of God but the petty biases of church leaders and their own small god.

And that's when Thomas gave the above analogy.  As children, we are given small cups because our little hands aren't able to handle bigger cups, nor are we dexterous enough to manage a larger cup filled with more liquid.  I also suspect there's a desire on the parents' part to limit the amount of damage a spilled cup can do.  As we grow, however, we are given bigger and bigger cups.  The problem, he thought, was that the amount of God we are given by churches tends to be the same amount of God we got as a child – easily handled, easily controlled and easily cleaned up if dumped out.

We have grown up.  There's more to our lives than there was when we were children.  We have bigger cups.  Are we allowing the immensity of God to fill our cups?  Do we give thanks for having too much to drink?  Do we not worry about God spilling out from our edges?

Or would we rather have a God we can easily handle, easily drink from without too much effort and who doesn't make too much of a mess if dumped from our cup?

Thomas McCarter may not ever show up at church, but he had a great observation about how some churches can be.  That observation led me to ask a question:

Does your church fill up your cup?

Amen.