Father
Placidus, a Benedictine Monk, has an unusual way of seeing things. When a friend asked him what he had been reflecting
on lately, Placidus said, "I'm contemplating the deficiencies of God. There are three. God is bad at math; He leaves 99 to save one.
God has a bad memory; He is always forgetting our sins. God is wasteful;
He makes 120 gallons of the best wine, and that's a lot
of wine for one party."
Seeing God this way is a counter-intuitive, disorienting experience. Jesus reveals the majesty, power, and
greatness of God in ways that are less than what we expect.... When we see God through the eyes of Jesus we begin to let go of our kid-glasses that fashion God into some kind of cosmic superhero who is
bigger, better, stronger, and faster than all the other gods ("My dad can
beat up your dad").
Jesus reveals that the "super hero" god that many
of us worship is a false god--an exaggerated vision (born of fear) of
our own making. Often that view is supported and
legitimized by institutional religion, which gives it an air of
sacredness, truth, and superiority.
To
contemplate God in and through the life of Jesus is to meet One who is
OTHER--One who is radically and mercifully different than what we are
conditioned to expect. Unless we are made ready by life (usually through
unwanted suffering), we usually meet this vision with resistance. We resist it,
not because it is so much more than we expect, but because it is so much less.
The best way to describe God's otherness is not in terms of God's
mega-greatness (as egos are prone to), but to describe it in terms of
deficiency, weakness, and smallness--something only poets, prophets, and
mystics dare to do. The all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing
(omniscient), all-present (omnipresent) God comes off as a scrawny,
limited, not-so-wise, antihero when we contemplate God through the eyes
of Jesus. Re-read the Gospel accounts in light of Isaiah's prophesies:
He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
(Is. 53:2-3)
Maybe God's greatest deficiency (from our perspective) is God's weakness.
This may prove to be the hardest of all the "blessings" to contemplate.
With great resistance and only begrudgingly do we allow God to be weak
for 33 years, but as soon as Jesus is resurrected we insist on clothing
him with super-hero, mega-god powers.
We need him to be the God who is
bigger, better, stronger and faster than others. Our super-hero egos
cannot tolerate a weak God, but this is precisely what we are given in
Jesus. Does the resurrection change the character of Christ? No--It
affirms God's character for all generations. God is not weak for 33
years so that God can be something else for eternity. In the
resurrection God's weakness is that much more true--eternally true!
Theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it this way, "If Christ is weak and
humble on earth, then God is weak and humble in heaven." Wow!
To
be truly transformed by the blessing of Jesus we must contemplate this
weakness. We must let the blessing of God's weakness offend and
scandalize us if necessary until it finally comforts and transforms us.
Eventually we are drawn into the mystery and paradox of God's power so
that like Paul, we can contemplate the "weakness of God" (1 Cor. 1:25)
and truly declare, "power is made perfect in weakness" (1 Cor. 12:9).
As you pray the Examen this week, contemplate
the deficiencies of God as well as your own. Which deficiencies are
easiest/hardest for you to give thanks? Ask God to relax you into his
weakness (and your own) and ask for the faith to let it transform you.
It is the promise of the Gospel.
Do you believe this? I don't know if I do.... It sounds sort of blasphemous!
Commit to eating a meal this week using your "weak" hand, and I will too. It will provide an opportunity to think about it! Love, Mom
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