…the fullness of [Christ] who fills all in all.
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
God is often quite confined in our thinking. I mean if there is a god, if there’s God, then wouldn’t that be larger than all the world, more than anything we could ever think of? Probably all that is universally received as the best, like goodness, love, happiness as in blessedness or well being, and a whole host of other things that together we could think of, are not only exemplified in God, but absolutely perfected in God in a way that makes God indeed, Other.
Surely much of Christian theology which in large part is the consideration of God, might in and of itself unwittingly and surely inevitably limit God in ways that Scripture and life do not. That is something, just as anything about God actually, which is well above our pay grade. We can only try to catch a glimpse, and stammer whatever our reaction might be, probably being more distrustful of what seems so coherent except for basics like God is love, and God is good.
If something of what has been said about God as I tried to say above reflects the least bit of reality, then it’s surely more than reasonable to say that God is bigger than so much that we make so big here on earth. Let’s start with our differences, whatever they may be. Political and religious, the two forbidden areas of conversation, at least in part of my culture. And whatever other differences there are. God is bigger than that, than all of it.
We tend to confine God and God’s working to just certain entities and people. Yes, we do well to turn to Scripture where we find that Christ’s presence in the church is a key if not the central part of what is happening now. But take some of the rest of that writing and Scripture as a whole, along with all of life, and we surely will begin to surmise that God is bigger than our differences. That God is at work in ways that we can’t understand beforehand, and barely begin to comprehend afterwards.
Let this be a rebuke to all of us whenever we think we have anything figured out, and settled. I believe that Christ is the center of all things, and that God is preeminently present in him and through him to all the world, and that this manifestation comes especially through the church directly and indirectly, but possibly (I would say, likely) not confined to that. This should help us beyond all that divides us, to what is the most basic of all. Even while we try to understand what all of that might mean for life on the ground here and now.