I
had the opportunity while in Seattle to attend four lectures by John Dominic
Crossan at the University Congregational Church. Crossan’s topic was on Paul, the Apostle Paul
that is. Crossan is a man who is both
passionate and very knowledgeable about the early Christian communities.
Among
the many things he said one was that perhaps the most valid mission of the
church today is what he called “mission by attraction.” I suppose he means that we must become what
we preach. However, it seems important
that we don’t fall into the mistaken idea that when we are pure, clean,
righteous, holy and good liven’, that people will rush to be with us. I am sure
that the contrary is true and we set ourselves up for hypocrisy. Surely the greatest attraction is to be real
and tell the truth about yourself and your life.
While
I was sitting at an oyster bar in a Seattle restaurant, I had a conversation
with the oyster shucker. He knew a lot
about Australia and particularly the early convict settlement at Botany Bay. After a time I said to him, “well, you must
come and visit us some day.” “I can’t,”
he replied, “I am a felon and even though Australia was first settled by felons
they won’t let me in today.” Now, that
comment didn’t push me away from him, in fact I felt more attracted to him
because he had disclosed to me a stranger, a truth about himself. I was curious to ask what crime he had
committed but in didn’t seem appropriate at the time.
I
think we have the mistaken impression that people only want to hear about our
“perfections” our successes and our wins, when in fact a true encounter with
another is always open to hear the truth about the other person.
Now
here is a big jump in logic and it has to do with spending the weekend soaked
in the Bible with Dominic Crossan. I
think people are more attracted to the Bible when we acknowledge that within
this collection of books, letters and sayings, written over a period of eight
hundred plus years, that there are in fact errors, inconsistencies, and human
failures and that some parts are relevant today and other parts are best
ignored. It is possible that we are more
attracted to honest imperfection than convoluted attempts to present a perfect
text. Perhaps it is because we know that
those moments of absolute “rightness” are rare and we crave more the courage to
live with the incomplete, the imperfect; the not yet; and the almost there,
rather than the hollow triumphalism of the absolutist.
There
is a Japanese art form called Wabi-Sabi, “it is the quintessential Japanese
aesthetic. It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” I
wonder if beauty has more to do with relationship, meaning and honesty than it
does with perfection. There is a rather quizzical passage in the Gospel of
Matthew that says, “Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” Some have argued that a better translation
is, “Be ye whole or complete as your Father……”
Now that makes more sense to me because I know that the only way I can
be truly complete is to incorporate into my life my imperfections.
The
Christian Church has spent centuries trying to convince the world that the
Bible is the revealed Word of God, true in every detail and divine beyond
measure, while what humanity craves most is an honest recognition of
imperfection, that is true to human foibles and frailties and yet in its
imperfection has the remarkable capacity to display the beauty of the divine,
the scared and the presence of God.
Christopher Page
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