Brother Weeps taught that
the gospel of Jesus is not so much
that God comes to save us,
but that God saves us by coming to us
and by being with us as one of us. 

~ Dan Miller. All Rights Reserved. © 2019.

COMMENTARY: For those of us who come from the Christian faith tradition, the incarnation is at the very center of our spirituality. While creation is the primordial sacrament of God’s presence and generous love, Jesus is the preeminent sacrament of the extravagance and solidarity of God’s love. As a sacrament (or symbol) Jesus not only points to what God is like, but more so, embodies the Divine action of love. Or, as I like to say, Jesus is the withness and for-ness of God. I don’t find many of the atonement theories very convincing, helpful, or satisfying. What I do find helpful, meaningful, and evocative is the profound simplicity of the Hebrew word Immanuel: God is with us, and its implications.

It is this withness, by which or whom we are saved, that gives real and lasting life. What is salvation but the experience or enjoyment of the withness of God. When the angel Gabriel greets Miryam of Nazaerth at the annunciation, he does so with the reassuring and salvific words “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” The Franciscan John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) maintained that had there not been sin in the world that the incarnation — the enfleshment of God and the union of love with humanity– would still have happened, because the impetus of the incarnation was not sin, but love. It is in and through the withness and for-ness of God that the incarnation of love is most vividly shown and the life of life most fully given.

Most of us are familiar with the term anthropomorphic. For example, when we ascribe human qualities to the Ineffable Holy One, it is called anthropomorphism. We are probably unaware or less aware of its opposite, at least theologically speaking, which is theomorphism.1 I think theomorphic is a very timely and apropos word as our families, neighborhoods, houses of worship, geographical region, state, nation, and world are confronted by this pandemic. When so many persons have died. When so many persons are critically ill. When so many lives are threatened. When so many sons and daughters, spouses and siblings, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors are unable to be with their loved one in his suffering, in her time of need, in their dying and death, other kind, loving, compassionate people dare to act as stand-ins. And when, at the risk of their own lives, health care workers and volunteers move not away from but toward danger and personal harm, and are with their patients offering their attention, kindness, reassurance, and loving care, they are acting theomorphically. They are acting like the Divine lover and mediating the presence of God.

In this human and holy deed of care-giving, they are sacraments of the solidarity of God. Like Jesus, they reflect and incarnate what God is like. When they treat their patients as if they were their own grandmother or mother, grandfather or father, brother or sister, daughter or son, friend or neighbor, they are giving us a glimpse of God. Their “I-am-here-with-you” touch, their tender-looking eyes, their wholehearted presence and attention, become the hands, eyes, and compassionate withness of God. God needs and uses those who are made in the image of God to be the withness of God.

Think God is absent? Think God is gone? Think God’s lost the nerve and is AWOL? If we could dare to release God from the human-foisted burden and the cage of expectation of being the cure-all of every ill, the stopgap, the bellhop, the omnipresent superhero who insures life is perfect and to our personal liking, we might be able to recognize the divine presence in our midst. It is when humans are the most fully human (not perfect), when we are what human beings are meant to be: noble and natural, kind and self-giving, compassionate and inexplicably generous with our lives, that we best reflect the source and giver of life from whom we come and to whom we belong in freedom. The non-canonical Coptic gospel of Thomas portrays Jesus saying,”Split wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there.” I would say, “See the human act of compassionate withness, God is there. Witness the tender-hearted human for-ness of one person on behalf of another, you will find God there.” The God Jesus incarnated is dynamic, moving, and acting. God is in the withness.

1 NB! It should be noted that this term was used in the early church to describe a specific Christological heresy. I’m not using it in this narrow, limited sense. I am using its etymological meaning to make a theological assertion: Theo — God + morphic — form of, to suggest when humans, for example, are kind, generous, deeply sympathetic, compassionate, or loving, we are acting in the form, pattern, or way of God.

♦ Know someone who might enjoy THE ALMOND TREE? If so, please pass on the link or forward the reflection. If not, you need to get out more (after the social distancing order is lifted, of course) Thanks, ~ Dan