Writing as I do, in the season of Lent, a time traditionally in the Church for
penitence and reflection, surveying the unfolding worrying world events around us,
I find myself not wanting to read or hear the latest news, lest I read and weep.
I am taken back to Co-vid times when I first came across the concept of VUCA.
This idea sets out the notion that we are living in times that are increasingly
Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. The world stage just now it seems is
back there again.
This was brought home when reading the new novel by Rachel Joyce, THE
HOMEMADE GOD, when she says on p.176,77 “There are moments when the
present comes to you as out of nowhere: the past falls away and the future doesn’t
seem to be in the mix yet, so you are left in a new place that is like nowhere at all.”
In this new place we find ourselves in the world, my faith draws me back to the
common good that I find rooted in Christ. Cultivating a shared vision of the
common good is a deeply local task. The key to human flourishing is not located
beyond the stars (if only we could build ideological spaceships to capture it).
Communities thrive when we turn our gaze horizontally toward our neighbours and
the world around us, when we believe that contained in every person is an endless
galaxy of beliefs and experiences, of joys and sorrows, of fears and comforts.
Before we can love our neighbours, we must desire to know them. We must allow
ourselves to be drawn into the vast expanse of their infinity just as they are
drawn into ours. This work not only changes what we believe about our neighbours,
it also transforms how we relate to them. They are no longer enemies to fight;
they are people to love. They are no longer social media handles or digital avatars;
they are complex humans who are motivated by their deep values and their felt
vulnerabilities.
It would be far easier to remain aloof and simply read about our “neighbours” in
books and surveys or make assumptions about them based on their doorsigns.
However, our shared flourishing is impossible unless we choose to enter into a
common life where we are formed by and toward one another. Cultivating a truly
common good requires entering into humble proximity where our beliefs and
assumptions about one another are challenged by the lived experiences of our
neighbours.
There is a relational reciprocity here of giving and receiving, of acting and being
acted upon. This reminds us that we are always dependent on our environment,
never above or beyond its formative power. We are enmeshed in tangled webs of
interdependence where we are at once being formed and forming others.
Recognizing this humbles us.
So as we move through Lent once more – a time of penitence, reflection, rejection,
suffering, crucifixion and resurrection I find the fact that Jesus, God’s only Son,
was born as one of us, to save us and our world to be deeply moving.
Rather than standing outside the waves and ripples of cause and effect, Jesus
enters the rotations of a world that he set in motion. Christ exists as both creator
and creation, divinity and human. Christ does not come to us in a cloud of glory or
place himself on an earthly throne. Instead, Jesus humbles himself into Mary’s
womb and is birthed into the world he created at the beginning of time. He places
himself in John’s arms and is plunged into the Jordan River. He empties himself in
taking human likeness and walks with his creation even to the point of death (Phil.
2:7–8). God so intimately enters this world that the world is transformed by God’s
touch, and God, in return, is moved by the world.
Christ chooses to become dependent upon creation—upon oxygen in his lungs and
food in his stomach, upon friendships to nourish his soul and human feet to carry
forth the gospel into the world. Christ is wrapped up with creation so intimately
that he weeps and mourns at the death of his friend Lazarus. He grows tired and
weary after a long day. Righteous fury boils within him when he sees houses of
worship used for profit or human beings maligned and abused. Jesus also laughs
and entertains his friends. He dances and sings at a wedding feast after turning
water into the sweetest wine. He places his human body between people in need
and those ready to throw stones. He takes time to sit with the children and the
least, teaching that the kingdom of God belongs to them. God humbles himself to
be with us – and does so at the greatest cost to himself.
I wonder what it would mean for us and our world just now if we could love our
neighbours (no matter how close or distant we are from them globally) in humility,
recognising the countless ways we belong to one another and are moulded by the
people around us. That would be a radical act of love – a profound act of humility
which would follow the example of God in Christ.