Glee's "Grilled Cheesus" episode (post 3 of 3) - Sue's story

Sue Sylvester was another key player in “Grilled Cheesus” and her character seriously deepened this episode!  We learn that she’d prayed for her sister’s healing when she was younger and then prayed harder, before deciding that because God didn’t answer and make her sister “normal” He obviously wasn’t there.  How familiar is that situation??  So many people pray and because God doesn’t act in the way that they want Him to, they conclude that He isn’t there or doesn’t listen or doesn’t love us.  God is so much bigger than us and we have to remember that He can see all of time on earth in one glance, understanding every situation and action and how they interrelate in a way we never could.  He doesn’t cause bad things to happen but sometimes He allows them to happen (for reasons we may not understand).  He so often brings amazing good out of tragedy or hardship and improves our characters in a way that could never happen with the adversity.  I know that it’s the difficult times in my life that have really shaped me for the better, not the times when things have gone easily and well.

God always answers prayer, just often not in the way that we want or expect Him to.  If He’s God though and knows more than us (not difficult!) then we can be sure that His ways of doing things are ultimately better.

Sue’s conversation with her sister near the end of the episode is very profound and powerful, yet easy to overlook.  Jean is clearly happy, despite her disability, and believes that “God doesn’t make mistakes.”  Sue clearly still wants to be able to believe and when Jean offers to pray for her, she says “that would be nice” in a genuine way that is surprising for her, knowing what an old cow she normally is!  At the very end she has the opportunity to report Glee Club for singing “One of Us” but chooses not to, instead seeming to consider the lyrics of the song.

To me, the underlying message of “Grilled Cheesus” is that people want to believe.  The problem is that they don’t know how to or what to believe in.  As Mercedes points out when they’re praying for Bert in the hospital “we’re from different denominations and religions, so we figure one of us is bound to be right!”  There are many different religions, different groups within those major religions and then allsorts of pick-and-mix-make-your-own religions.  The amount of choice adds to the confusion and uncertainty.  How can anyone be sure they’re making the right choice?

Jesus’ message is unequivocal and I always struggle to see how anyone can say he was just a prophet or even a good man.  He claims that “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)  He did say a lot of generally good, wise and helpful things, but about half of what he said was about himself and who he was, i.e. God.  If that’s not true then he’s definitely not a prophet or a good man, he’s a complete fruitcake!!  There is no middle ground – he’s either Christ, the Son of God who died to take away our sin and enable us to have a wonderful direct relationship with Father God, or he’s a total lunatic and everything he said should be disregarded (because even the occasional wisdom of a lunatic can’t be very wise)!

Some people felt that “Grilled Cheesus” mocked Christianity/God/Jesus but I thought there were lots of positive aspects in the episode.  As well as those already mentioned, Mercedes song, “I Turn To You” and Rachel’s “Papa” both speak about vibrant and strong belief in and relationship with God.  Rachel prays that God “gives Bert back to us”, which happens at the end, when the writers could have chosen to kill him off instead.  Quinn shares that she’s “had a hard year and has turned to God a lot for help.”  As the President of the Abstinence Club who became pregnant she exposed the hypocrisy that is sadly present in many religious people.  However, through her experience and despite her huge mistake, she seems to have matured and come to a better understanding of grace and redemption.  The writers could just have easily have had her turn her back on it all and written out that part of her character.  We all make mistakes but God is quick to forgive when we’re truly sorry and want to sort it out.

I loved that the Glee Club sang “One of Us” at the end, as it’s one of my favourite songs and so thought-provoking.  If you believe in Jesus then you know that he was “one of us”, although he obviously didn’t ride on a bus!  I’ll finish these posts on “Grilled Cheesus” with one of the questions from the song lyrics - “If you were faced with Him [God] in all His glory, what would you ask if you had just one question?”

Why not ask God your question and see if you get an answer?  If you’d like to ask a whole load more questions then why not chat to any Christians you know or check out if there’s an Alpha course near you that you can go to sometime - http://uk.alpha.org/  It’s a non-pressurised opportunity to hear stuff about Christianity, bring your questions and arguments and perhaps even get some answers :-)

Glee's "Grilled Cheesus" episode (post 2 of 3) - Kurt's story

Kurt is another central character in “Grilled Cheesus” but his view and journey is strikingly different to the others’.  Kurt is the only character to vocalise that he doesn’t believe in God at all and the rest of the kids are incredulous when he says it.  His main reason seems to be tied up with his sexuality:

“Most churches don’t think very much of gay people…”

“[God] makes me gay and then has His followers go round telling me it’s something that I chose, as if anyone would choose to be mocked every single day of their life.”

This would become an unreadably long post if I open up the can of worms that is homosexuality and the church, so apologies but I’m just not going to go there right now, suffice to say that God loves everyone and that’s not dependent on their sexuality!

His other key reason for his lack of belief seems to be that you can’t prove God exists, although Mercedes points out the equal and opposite truth that you can’t prove God doesn’t exist.  I’m sure I’ll go into more detail about “proving” God in future posts but just consider this for now – how do you know the wind exists?  You can’t see it, right?  You can’t hold it or really touch it.  But you know it’s real!  You can hear it, feel it and see its effects, can’t you?  Well, those are also ways that I know that God exists – I see things that He does, I can feel His presence and I hear Him (as in I talk to Him and He talks to me – that possibly sounds freaky, but isn’t two-way communication normal in any relationship?!).

I was thankful that Kurt didn’t change his position during the episode and suddenly “see the light”.  So many of the other characters were suddenly coming out with a faith – Christian, Jewish, grilled cheese, etc. – that he was an important representation of people who don’t believe in God and I appreciated his honesty.  While there was a slight softening in him towards church/prayer, his journey was much more about realising the value of family and friends.  At the beginning of the episode going to see The Sound of Music is more important than having a family meal.  By the end he’s painfully aware of how precious his dad is, declaring “I don’t believe in God, Dad, but I believe in you and I believe in us, you and me…I’m so sorry I never got to tell you that.”

It’s far too easy to take people for granted, especially those who are closest to us.  Our family and friends can be some of the most precious gifts God give us.  He “sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6) and He created marriage as the best way to protect people physically and emotionally, as well as provide stability for a couple and their children.  (Sadly marriages and families don’t always work as they are designed to though and can be places of terrible heartbreak and abuse.)  Also, on the night before Jesus’ death (when you’d expect someone who knew they were about to die to say what they felt was really important) he said “as I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

People have the idea that a church is a building, but the Bible talks about church as a people, a body, a family.  You don’t “go” to church, you “are” church!  Mercedes demonstrates this when she says “Hi Church” at the meeting she takes Kurt to.  Obviously churches, like families, aren’t perfect but they are meant to love and support one another.  People shouldn’t go to a meeting, they’re supposed to meet with each other!

Kurt’s song – “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” – was the least spiritual of all the “spiritual” songs in this episode, only apparently talking about holding his Dad’s hand and how important that’s been to him.  However, the truth is that God is our heavenly Father and can do the equivalent of an earthly father holding our hand, as the writer of Psalm 73 acknowledges, saying “I am always with you [God]; you hold me by my right hand.”  And unlike Bert, Kurt’s dad, who will one day die and leave him, God promises us that He “will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)

Glee's "Grilled Cheesus" episode (post 1 of 3) - Finn's story

“Grilled Cheesus” was a Glee episode that completely took me by surprise!  A whole hour of a thought-provoking and realistic look at faith and God wasn’t the usual superficial and shallow Glee I’m used to!!

Having said that, I groaned out loud when Finn made his Grilled Cheesus and dreaded where they might go with it, but that part turned into a fascinating look at the absurdity of superstition.  Finn treats Grilled Cheesus (aka his personification of God) like a “3-Wish Granting Genie”.  He believes that his god is like a prayer slot machine – you put your money (prayer) in and you get what you want out.  It’s an exchange – for example, he asks to get back his quarterback position because “I’ve dedicated a week of my musical life to you.”  Wow, amazing sacrifice Finn! 

The bottom line is that God doesn’t owe us anything.  Why would He?  Also, we can’t make Him do certain things.  He alone sees and knows all things – when we pray He understands the far-reaching and complex implications of granting our requests in a way that we couldn’t possibly try to.  God always answers prayer – yes, no or wait – but not always in the way we expect Him to.

While it seems crazy to us that Finn would believe a grilled cheese sandwich could have any power, people actually do that sort of thing all the time with a statue or ornament, a crystal, a picture, a memento from a “holy” site, etc.  God is so much bigger and better than that!  He knows that we’re inclined to do that sort of thing, which is understandable because we like things we can see and touch.  However, He warns us against it saying “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Deuteronomy 5:8)  He knows how easily we are distracted from Him by other things.

There is no power in a created god.  How could there be?  And what good is a god you’ve made yourself anyway?  It can’t be any greater than you or have any more power than you because you’re the creator and it’s the creation.  People struggle with God because He is so much more than us and they can’t get their heads around Him.  Hurray!  I love the fact that I can’t fully understand God, that there is always more to know about Him, that He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20)  It thrills me that through God I can be more than I already am, and expect to see and do more amazing things than I would ever be capable of myself.

So, Finn loses his faith when he realises that his cheese sandwich doesn’t have any power and is sad because he thought it was “cool to have a direct line to God”.  It’s such a shame he doesn’t know that we already have a direct line to God, without having to go through the medium of a cheese sandwich!!  When Jesus died on the cross He took our sin upon himself, offering us the opportunity of reconciliation with God and opening the way for direct communication with God.  There was a simultaneous and awesome physical sign which illustrated this truth because, as He died, the huge curtain in the temple which divided the normal people from the Holy of Holies (where only priests could go occasionally) was torn in two from top to bottom.  There was no longer any physical or spiritual divide between us and God!!

I was initially sad when Finn started singing “Losing My Religion” but then I realised that it was a good thing because his “religion” wasn’t worth having.  In fact, religion is pants.  To quote Bono from the band U2 “religion is what happens when God has left the building.”  Religion is man-made ritual and rules.  What God wants is relationship!  Jesus didn’t suffer ridicule, rejection, a near death flogging and a slow painful death on the cross for rules and rituals.  The only thing ever worth dying for is relationship!!!

So, in the end Finn eats Grilled Cheesus.  You might be able to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8) but you definitely can’t eat Him, lol :-)