The Daily Practice of Incarnation
“Kinship and kingdom are the same thing … God’s dream is that we find kinship and connection.” (Father Gregory Boyle)
Over the past weeks I have been reading Barbara Taylor Brown’s book An Altar in the World, in which she writes about ‘the daily practice of incarnation’ – a life of embodied faith that recognizes the importance of the body in God’s revelation to us. Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples the night before he died did not comprise a doctrinal executive summary – but a way of being together “that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself.” In the practices of sharing communion and washing each other’s feet, he imparted something “so essentially untidy that there was no way they could ever gain control over it … [and] would require them to get close enough to touch one another … so that they could not [avoid] being drawn into one another’s lives.” [1]
Jesus modelled a way of life that calls for proximity – not just with those who look, think, and do as we do, but with our ‘others’. When Jesus sat down to eat, he didn’t do so in the company of people who agreed on all matters of religious doctrine, political creed, social status, or lived experience. Jesus’ friends comprised an unlikely lineup of people – imperial colluders and revolutionary agitators, prostitutes and shamed women, Pharisees, workers, and property owners. He ministered to lepers, the ritually unclean, the demon possessed and the mentally ill – those feared and rejected by mainstream society and excluded by Mosaic Law. In his final hours, Jesus even shared a table with the one who would betray him.
In the rigid society of his time, Jesus’ message of truth to power and revolutionary welcome was dangerous enough to have him killed. If we are to take Jesus’ example seriously, then we too are called to disregard prevailing systems of power and success and to welcome in – in fact, to prioritise – those who are sidelined by our society. The Church has often proven far more adept at bickering over doctrine and gatekeeping access to God than it has at implementing the welcome of Christ. Yet, if the stories Jesus told and the way he lived are any indication, to do so is to miss the point.
Jesus embodied a way of life that throws open the doors and invites everyone to the table. It is a great deal harder to deny the other’s humanity – or ignore the image of God, reflected in them – when we are close enough to look them in the eye, to bump their hands as we eat. And perhaps that is the whole point. Cultural norms change, history unfolds and bring with it social transformation – all of which has profound impacts for the life of the Church. However, Jesus’ emphasis was not to impress on his disciples a body of systematic theology that could withstand shifting climates of interpretation. Instead, he entrusted to us patterns of life together that draw us into the ongoing, beautiful, messy task of working out what it means to live and love as Christ-followers in the world.
Like the master of the feast who summoned the outcast to fill his table, the ‘table’ of Christian community is a place where all who are willing find welcome – especially those who make us uncomfortable. As Father Gregory Boyle says, “you cannot demonize someone you know.”[2] This is the good news of the kingdom – the ‘kin-dom’ – we are called into, a community that tears down the barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and welcomes all, bringing us close enough to truly know and see each other. The daily practice of incarnation is not always comfortable, but it is the embodiment of the good news our world desperately needs.
[1] Barbara Taylor Brown, ‘The Practice of Wearing Skin,’ in An Altar in the World.
[2] Father Boyle’s work in gang intervention and rehabilitation in Los Angeles builds on this principle, focusing on building connection as the starting point for work towards peace and justice.