Perspectives

Relationships… (please remember that I like to think, but thinking is in my head, that I really both know what I write about and incarnate it…)

Incarnate. God with us, you shall call his name Immanuel: so begins Matthews Gospel; ‘I will be with you to the end of the age’: so ends Matthews Gospel, the Gospel that is self-consciously written as the fulfilment of all that has gone before. All of the before was to lead to ‘God being with us’ and it was never to end but simply to increase.

The incarnation was not something done TO us. I have tried to stay clear of that in my relationships. Maybe there is a time when we need to do something TO someone as there is no alternative, but sadly most often the TO aspect is a strong me (powerful) / they (object of my power).

The incarnation did have some element of FOR us. The cross certainly did, and the cross is part of the journey from the incarnation. Jesus, being in the form of God; Jesus because he was rich became poor for us. Yes there is a FOR us element there, and I am thankful for that.

But really the incarnation is a WITH scenario. ‘I am one among you’ so undercuts the Imperial model – that system that claims it is FOR us but really is only doing something TO us in order that we can be there FOR the Imperial system.

WITH is a challenge. I am pondering why I have many who offer friendship but I am not truly friends to anyone. I think there is something here that I am missing. WITH. I guess a WITH scenario opens up all kinds of possibilities. Maybe I should explore that… or if not I could continue to write about it.

‘No, no and never will I compromise,’ I retort.

I have my ideals; I am sticking to what I know to be right.

Sure Mr. ‘Righteous’ (also known as Mr. ‘Aloof’, and probably a few other titles such as Mr. ‘Arrogant’…), but there is something bigger, better and more wonderful, the land of compromise.

I consider God is quite the compromiser. I think that cos I err on the side of immanence, God with us; not on the side of transcendence, with God sooooo different, a divide, God up there, beyond me. Of course it is an err(or) on my part but give me a break, I am not sure that there has not been a few errs as well in you dear reader!

God compromises – evidence s/he seems to come close to me. If that is not compromise… Jesus ate with ‘sinners’. God does not ride on some high-horse, but chooses the donkey and comes through the east gate while Pilate comes in with all the pomp, ceremony and power through the western gate.

What a compromiser we find in this God, and yet we need to grasp that those compromises are redemptive and therefore eschatological. That is the challenge I need to rise to, to engage with people and situations in such a way that I make a small contribution to those people and situations helping them / opening the door for them to move in a direction that is more in line with the glory of God, and whatever contribution I make or presence I bring is in the direction I want the world to go.

And it should not be too hard for me to compromise. There is no ‘transcendence / immanence’ debate around me! There is no ‘I am so beyond you…’ Even Jesus said he was ‘one among us’.

I guess that God would love us learn how to look at situations, be in / with those contexts, come out with feet dirty and as a result are not able to pat ourselves on the back but the situation was just a little different afterwards.

Mistakes and compromise… going beyond, way beyond law… mistakes – an aspect that defines humanity; compromise – a calling for those who have met the God who compromised to redeem them so that without judgement they engage, and in that engagement something redemptive and eschatological takes place.

Don’t… ‘You shall…’ A few laws. I am reading at the moment in the ‘cheeky’ book of Deuteronomy. Cheeky cos it keeps talking about the ‘Place that shall be chosen’. Really? Moses are you sure… or you Babylonian based editors, how did you get that slid in there so that we read it as if Moses had this always in mind, and if he had it in mind then so did God?

Laws to set boundaries and then we can be smacked really hard for straying outside of them, or were they always written in pencil (I know there is something in there about ‘written in tablets of stone’ but just for now let me suggest ‘pencil’) and are pretty helpful as some notes to refer to, but then one day will become unnecessary.

Laws given to Israel, Israel who represents all of us, imperfect, but supposed to set an example to all of us. Laws that are OKish but pencil writing. After all before we come to all those laws that instruct us to make sure that any murderer does not escape and go free… before we read about that… we read that God did not punish the first (the FIRST, hence quite an example here) murderer but looked to protect him – Cain. Now that really does not seem an action that pays much attention to the pencilled in writing. Carry it through and the next time that Cain and Abel come on the scene is when the two ‘sons of the father’ appear in the New Testament. One goes free, the other does not. Barabbas goes free!! [Note to self: and so do you Martin, so don’t complain.]

Laws quickly help us determine what is right and wrong. They then have to work hard when it comes to ‘mistakes’, hence the many exceptions in the OT laws, ‘you are to do this, but if this has happened then do…’

And laws are not too smart about really helping us to choose a path that leads to life.

Yes, let’s give them a few laws, but it sure would be good if they could choose the life path instead of trying to get everything right and fit within those boundaries.

A little note about these posts to anyone who drops by. I have often thought should I stop, after all blogging since the late 90s is quite a long time. Two aspects keep me going… I get an email / connection that says keep on going, and I also realise that most of it is for me. I call them ‘perspectives’ but they could well be entitled ‘personal pontifications and half baked thoughts’. They are essentially for me, they are my thoughts out in the public arena. I seldom ever re-read what I wrote, sometimes I have found someone saying to me, ‘your post this week on…’ and I have no idea what is in there. I am thankful for those who comment one way or another, and give me space.

A final comment on these posts is that a reader should not assume I am somehow ‘incarnating’ what I write about. They are thoughts, and some of the thinking is along the lines of ‘maybe when you grow up (mature) you might like to consider this, Martin’. Today’s post is like that.

One of God’s wonderful gifts to humanity is the ability to make mistakes. Yes we are in the image of God, but God is not in our image. What a creative idea – let’s make them like us, but let’s add to them this ability, which will need to become a reality for them, of making mistakes.

Getting it right is not all it’s cracked up to be. Nor is it the goal of Scripture. Even the eschaton (the end) is not the telos (end point, arrival point, like the train destination). End of ‘sin’, but maybe even not the end of ‘mistakes’.

When I was 46… Martin loves to repeat stories to endless boredom… I prayed ‘if you don’t mind I would like to live to 92, as I know I need to make a whole lot of more mistakes to learn something to be of a contribution to others’. Some people probably only need a few years and mature by the time they are mid-20s and then have a resource to give away. Others are slower learners. [Note to self re prayer: you might need to add a few more years to the request, 20 have already gone and not too much has been learnt.]

I really don’t cope well with making mistakes. I overcome that ‘not coping well’ with an unhealthy dose of denial. Hey, no comments please, it has got me thus far and I decided the other day that my closest friend is me, and Gayle overtakes that position every now and then. I think though I probably need to get on my bike and learn to make mistakes, learn a little from them and get on with life.

(If I embraced) the idea of making mistakes as a gift from heaven it would really lighten the load and open the door for an exploration. I could try stuff and then move on.