We are called to be weird in “the world as it is,” because “the world as it is” has yet to become “the world as God wants it.” That is the theme we are exploring through the season of Lent. This week it is not difficult to see examples of how short we have fallen from the world God wants. The level of violence and environmental destruction this week could not be farther from it.
How might we, as Christians, embody the world as God wants it in a time of war? I confess a feeling of immobility, frozen with my horrified eyes locked on the screen, kind of a deer in the headlights. I believe with my whole heart that God loves this world and in recent days humans are making a right mess of it. In two weeks Aaron Miller, the author of “Weird in the World” will be with us and the chapter of his book for that week is Lament. I can’t help but think he will have some words of guidance for us on the Christian call to lament, probably the most active and powerful response we can have to weeks like this.
But this week, Incarnation is our weird way of the week. Jesus was and is the incarnation of God’s love in human form, but stunningly, the church, and Christian people are called to follow his lead and be that love incarnate – in the flesh. That means God is not just an idea or even a feeling. God is embodied in food and shelter, and showing up physically for one another. Service is not just “helping out” but is an embodiment of God.
God loves this world so very much as to be in it in real ways, and you are one of those ways. As you agonize over the world as it is, that is God incarnate. As you show real mercy, that is God incarnate. As you bear pain because you love so much, that is God incarnate. As you witness to the beauty of the world around you, that is God incarnate. As we painfully, joyfully, haltingly, elegantly open our hearts and lives to the world, that is being just the right kind of weird in the world.
Blessings, Will