The prophets and preachers of the new cosmology like the late Father Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Sister Miriam MacGillis of Genesis Farm, Diarmuid O’Murchu, and John Philip Newell to name just some, have highlighted how anthropocentric is so much of our Christian theology and spirituality. So I admit wrestling a bit with Barth’s statement that the gospel can be summarized as “Jesus is God’s ‘Yes’ to humanity.”
On the one hand, the focus on humanity by Barth makes sense if we understand that unlike humans, whom the cosmologist maintain are the self-reflective consciousness of the universe, the other-than-human earth community has never appeared to have forgotten its source and sustenance nor the gospel (good news) of life. As a result, the other-than-human earth community has never forgotten to offer its own “Yes” to the Source of All Life through its fecundity and generosity. Humans, however, despite our unique capacity for conscious reflection have put the well-being and future of the planet at risk due to our lack of consciousness and conscience. So perhaps Barth (whose work preceded the new cosmology) was right in singling out humanity, since the fate of the earth is only precarious because of humanity’s irreverence, selfishness, greed, and irresponsibility. In other words, because humans have a propensity for saying No to God and creation, they need God’s Yes all the more. Maybe then, if we can truly hear the divine “Yes” in Jesus, rather than hear it as justification for arrogance, we might stop saying “No” not only to ourselves but also to the earth and universe in which the manifestation of the divine resides and is present.
A thousand years ago the Rhineland mystic Hildegard of Bingen described the incarnation as “Divinity aimed at humanity.” Perhaps she too knew that it was not the natural world but rather humans in particular who needed the physical embodiment and manifestation of the divine in Jesus to wake us up to the divine presence in all creation, to the sacrament of the earth and the cosmos of which we are but one part in the communion of saints.
In this spirit I offer you these words of Evelyn Underhill, the English Anglo-Catholic writer, scholar, and practitioner of Christian mysticism. She writes:
“To pray for the coming of the kingdom of God
is not to pray, ‘I hope it comes one day.’ Rather,
it is to pray, ‘Here I am, send me.’ “
Of course, this is to say more than Barth and Hildegard meant. But we who know more today about the human abuse of the planet, might add an addendum to Barth’s synopsis– “and all of creation,” whereas to Hildegard’s understanding of the incarnation we might add that the kingdom on whose behalf we are offering to be sent includes the whole earth community.
On the other hand, it seems to shrink the breadth of God’s “Yes” by limiting it to humans. After all, one of the critiques of Christianity by proponents of the new universe story is that it has been selfishly focused on human beings alone (and in some expressions of Christianity, on their “salvation” — narrowly understood) so that the well-being of the planet by which, together with God’s generosity and sustenance, we live and move and have our being, has been seriously threatened by human conduct.
REFLECTION:
How does Underhill’s shift in understanding what it means to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom (dream, will, kindom, realm) speak to you?