We Molded Him Small
A plastic Jesus, a friend who left, and an article I've hesitated to draft.
Driving to work the other day, I couldn't stop thinking about a plastic doll.
A friend of mine sat in a church in Tennessee, and the pastor handed out little Jesus figures. So people could remember who he was. My friend took one, looked at it, and walked out. He hasn't gone back.
I've been trying to write about this for a while now, and I keep stalling, which isn't like me. I think it's because I couldn't find the concept/idea that truly holds it.
Then I found them for sale online. Fifty in a box. Fifteen dollars, half off.
Somebody designed that. Somebody approved the sash. Somebody decided the face should smile like a cartoon and the arms should open like a toy, and then somebody ordered fifty of them for a foyer table.
And here's what gets me. It'll work. People will take one. They'll feel something. And they'll go home with a plastic man in their pocket and never once be undone by the living one.
I'm angry at the men who built the shelf. Why? Because they are not held to account.
Pastors, I'm talking to you. You know better. You've read Ezekiel thirty-four. You've preached about shepherds who feed themselves while the flock scatters, and you did it well, and then you walked past the merch table on your way to the green room.
You are handing out a Jesus people can hold, because a Jesus people can hold never asks anybody to repent.
I've drafted the full article. It goes up on The Berean Table.
But I needed to say this part in my own voice first, without the footnotes. That doll made a man walk out of a church, and he was right to.