“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 :-)
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