Link to Part 1
Part 2: There must be identifiable ways in which God speaks or a “modality” that shows us God speaking.
Recap from where we left off about communication as direct communication in Part 1:
- direct communication is words spoken
God has spoken his words and we have accounts from people hearing
- direct communication is also more than words (body language, tones, passion, etc.)
God doesn’t have a “body” so how do we hear if God’s communicating?
direct communication is “revealing” – i.e. it shares personhood in a process
- this is God’s primary objective
- the problems of direct communication for us
+ intellectually we find it hard to allow for the possibility of God speaking
+ historically the Bible has been used for reasons other than God’s
+ deeper communication, into revealing, is challenging work
We’ve already glanced at the problem: God doesn’t have a “body” per se, like you and I. Does that necessarily mean God doesn’t speak and can’t be heard? Or has God in history addressed that issue? Are there identifiable ways in which God speaks?
Looking from a human perspective, it’s difficult to imagine communicating taking place without some physical form. I have a hard time thinking outside of these standard ways of communicating: picking up my cell phone to call someone requires a body/physical interaction, typing into this blog or IM-ing requires physical touch, and writing a note or sending a birthday card requires my hands (and money). When I worked as a nurse with neurologically diseased and partially/severely paralyzed persons who couldn’t communicate in our ‘standard’ ways, I could watch their eyes, get a blink for yes, or help them adapt with what they could do. Still a body and physical interaction was able to take place in some way between us.
Perhaps that’s the clincher though. Adaptation to what is available to us. As a nurse one of the most important jobs I had was to find ways to help these patients be able to communicate with their outside world. Someone who didn’t know their challenges and hadn’t worked through those challenges with them, or who hadn’t spent time watching their normal behavior – would not understand how one of the nurses knew what a person was “saying” or “asking for.” It didn’t make sense to them.
I had learned to identify their “signs” and “behaviors.” Our communication efforts with them were based upon a couple of assumptions found to be true. First, we assumed that they wanted to communicate with us. Second, that we could mutually find ways for that communication to happen. Third, that they would want to find the means to do more than exist, but find ways of sharing with us who they were, what they liked, what they were thinking, and how they felt – personhood or the revealing side of communication. So, our team of medical staff set out to find and invent modes for them to communicate.
One patient was able to move one toe and one finger. Our medical team made a computer control pad that could be attached to their toe. One patient was deaf, and so our team worked with this patient to learn American Sign Language. One patient was mute and blind but could smile and nod their head. We found modes of interaction that worked. They were able to reveal to us who they were because each had a very different personality, liked very different things and expressed emotions or feelings in different ways.
I want to make two points. They are both about the modes in which God communicates, and I would simplistically call them “adaptive modes” God uses. First, is about the physical modes God employs to communicate personhood. That will be in Part 2A (God’s communicating in general) and 2B (a human body in Jesus Christ). Second, is to stay tuned for how we’re made to adapt to those modes on a soul level for Part 3.
I'll get back to this subject this week. Sorry things have been crazy, and I haven't had the time. Part 1 and beginning explanations are in Nov. 2006 blogs.
Reconciliation: Statue by Josefina de Vasconcellos, “two former enemies forgiving”(6) Reconciliation.
“Reconciliation may be seen as part of a process of restoring a relationship gone wrong … by substituting for one of peace … This may be the relationship between individuals or between nations or between God and human beings.”(1)
“Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militias have been accused by human rights groups of carrying out genocide against black African residents of the Darfur region.”(2) In Sierra Leone a man begins, “Once upon a time, a bad spirit came and turned the heads of the children against their own parents. With the help of guns and drugs coming in, the children fought amongst each other.”(3) St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church is involved with the Children’s Rescue Center in Sierra Leone, one spot of hope in an otherwise devastated country.
In the years following apartheid (South Africa), the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation has struggled. The past is being ignored. Reparations, media spotlight, and real change have faded.(4)
Humans have been known to do some awful things to one another. We can name places: Rwanda, Cambodia, Germany, our communities, our homes, and our churches. Yet, we tend to cover over rather than work to reconcile and change for the future.
“That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure … Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own … All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.”(2 Corinthians 5:11-21, The Message)(5)
God intends that we would be reconciled between things that are not right and things that are. This ‘ministry of reconciliation’ is challenging. In fact, the Apostle Paul in Corinth, 60 AD, has to do a lot of explaining. When we were far apart from God, God came close through Christ, and offered us an outstretched hand. Reconciliation is the message of God’s love for everybody, from the worst of all possible situations to the best.
This Christ-style love compels Paul to shout from the roof-tops: God wants reconciliation. Specifically, it is God who made it a costly priority to bring us closer, reconciled. Therefore, Christ’s love obliges him to keep offering reconciliation.
As disciples of Christ, we now follow in those footsteps through our service, words, and existence pointing to reconciliation with Christ and one another.(7) “Where else but in church could I hear … with news of more bombs going off in Iraq and of an older parent preparing to see her forty-something daughter die, that God’s comfort means eternally righting the world—and learn, with assent, that we are called to that tortuous work?”(8)
Reconciliation is possible - through the power in Christ to reconcile the world. We can become a new creation in Christ. We cannot forget.
Notes:
[1] "Reconciliation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Jan 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reconciliation&oldid=102907688.
[2] “Analysis: Defining Genocide.” BBC NEWS, 1 Feb. 2005,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3853157.stm.
[3] Braima Moiwai “Children of War and Hope,” Tambou/Tambour, Fall, 2002, http://www.tanbou.com/2002/fall/ChildrenOfWarHope.htm.
[4] Wandile Zane, “The Challenge Is To Change Ourselves,” The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, April-May, 1998, http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artzware.htm.
[5] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message Remix, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2003), 2 Corinthians 5: 11 – 21.
[6] Rebecca Kennison, “Designed by Josefina de Vasconcellos, the statue of Reconciliation in St. Michael's Cathedral in Coventry depicts two former enemies forgiving each other.” 21 May 2001. In “Reconciliation.” Photographer. Picture taken in West Midlands, England. Dual-licensed under GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:CC_some_rights_reserved.svg.
[7] Walter Klaiber and Manfred Marquardt, Living Grace: An Outline of United Methodist Theology, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), 185.
[8] Michael Vander Weele, Context: Marty E. Martin on Religion and Culture, Volume 39, Number 1, January 2007, B: 1.
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