For-Otherness

A sermon preached by Rev. Debra McKnight 

March 10, 2019

Scripture
Gen 1: 26-27
Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in God's image, in the image of God, God created them.

Sermon

“How will you be present for others?” Every Sunday I close our time at the communion table asking folks to pause and to celebrate that in communion we take in nourishment and our open table means that we take this nourishment in to offer it to others. This question is born out of the work of Justo L. Gonźalez wrote a volume called Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective. In this text he unpacks the nature of humanity, Jesus, and God with this cornerstone notion and phrase called for-otherness. I love this phrase, it is simple and powerful. It is accessible and challenging. It shapes the work of Urban Abbey, or at least I hope it does. Gonźalez invites us into for-otherness through the creation stories.

The first creation story, out of the priestly tradition, invites us to hear God speak creation into existence and call it good. We are born good, and we are made in the image of God. God’s own being is relational. God, in our trinitarian understanding, shares substance rather than dominating, somehow God is three in one. When God makes humankind, God creates in God’s image plural and God names dominion as a feature of humanity, just as a feature of the divine. Of course, humans often take dominion to mean, “Oh good, that belongs to me. I get to use that animal or that land.” But this is a misinterpretation of the word dominion. God’s presence is not that of tyrant but of “self-giving governance.” We are to have dominion like our creator, that means we are to be caretakers, co-creating and giving life. In fact, the second creation narrative says we are literally made of earth, we are dust. We are not over it, we are a part of it, we are spirit filled dirt.

In the second creation story, God makes Ish, which the story names a man but unlike the first story, God does not say it’s good, rather “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). This story where God gets in the dirt is a little more lively. God makes all kinds of creatures, shows them to Ish but the man names them. The creatures are not really partner material, even the dog is not up for the work of partnership that God is seeking for the man. Man is not complete by himself. Ish is not good alone.

Then the second creation story continues with God on a quest to make a helper. Of course, this translation is full of sexist connotations for our modern use. King James paid for a translation that said “help meet” where it could mean fitting help. We automatically think helper means assistant and imagine Mad Men. Like man needs an old school assistant that he can use, not respect, and not really compensate; or a model wife who does all the work of the house, whistling while she works and looking as pleasant as Cinderella. Out of this we read into to the story that this first man, Ish, is in charge and not in partnership. But Gonzalez reminds us “help” does not have the connotations of meek, docile, and self-effacing. On the contrary, it is the word most often applied to God as the help of Israel” (Gonźalez, p 132). Help is powerful. This Helpmeet is further problematic in that meet should be fit, a fitting help. Fitting means “as in front of him” something like a counterpart, a mirror image, not a subordinate being. This is where the man sees the woman and says, she is fit for him or as in front of him and he declares “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh and she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man” (Gen 2:23).

The Man is Ish and the woman is Ishshah. She is called, not named, by the man. This is where God declares things good, they are partners, they are not alone, “To be fully human is to be for others, and therefore God’s creature is not complete until there is another to be for” (Gonźalez, p133). Of course, we take this ancient story and fill it with our modern context and so we think, “Oh, this is about marriage”, but there are no ceremonies or wedding bells. Plus, if this is where we get the idea of a Biblical model of marriage, we are one of the first to interpret it this way. Most of the Bible teaches not about one man and one woman, but usually one man and as many women as he can be in charge of. King Solomon has 1,000 wives and concubines. This is a story about the seed of our humanity. We are are created for others, we are created for partnership, and in partnership. It is a passage for partnership, not for exclusion. Both creation stories are different, but they ring with the narrative of for-otherness. They sing out community, grace, and connection. A relational God creates humans to be in relationship. God this creative, life-giving force creates us to be and do the same.

Everything is going great for, like, a verse and then the fall happens. The woman is so relationship oriented that she picks the wisdom fruit (which some imagine as an apple and others as a banana; I think wisdom fruit must look amazing). She picks the fruit and shares it with the man. She could have kept wisdom for herself but instead she shares it. Everything falls apart and people forget their for-otherness. Cain kills Abel. Man dominates woman when Adam names Eve. He names her now just like he named the cattle and birds before the fall. This is where we can see the impact of sin. Gonźalez sees two sins, Adam beginning a sinful pattern of domination, while Eve hides in a sinful pattern of false humility, acquiescing to oppressors. Gonźalez speaks to this sin of false humility, as do others, as not naming a full humanity and risking the struggle of demanding a place at the table of partnership. Both of these sins show a loss of partnership, the loss of for-otherness in favor of domination and subordination. This is where the story points to our brokenness. This is where the theories of the world name and see our brokenness and we develop a sensibility that says humanity is not like divinity at all, we are fallen, we are sinful; the opposite of God’s divinity and loving presence. This sensibility is fueled further by the Greek philosophy the early church encounters and begins to take on as a framework for understanding these ancient narrative.

Karl Barth said, “We may believe that God can and may be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exalted in contrast to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all suffering… divine in contrast to everything human, in short that He can and must be other the “Wholly Other.” But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable, and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God does in fact be and do this in Jesus Christ.”

Jesus is for others, The angels announce it in the Gospel of Luke, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David.” Jesus is for others in a way that is strong and assertive. For-otherness, means praying and acting; he heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and challenges the religious and political leaders of his day. He speaks blessings to the poor and his for-otherness is what gets him in trouble with the establishment and on the cross he is literally praying for others. His crucifixion is not just because he is just so nice and sweet and spiritual, it is because he is upsetting the systems of domination and he is not doing it for himself, he is doing this out of love, out of for-otherness. He is doing everything differently. Jesus’s humanity and divinity will be debated for hundreds of years and then again for the next two thousand. And the mistake we theologically curious humans make again and again, generation after generation, (and probably because it benefits the people with the most power) is we treat divinity and humanity as opposites. Like it is a spectrum and they are opposite ends of the pole. “Being more human does not make Jesus less divine. And being more divine does not make him less human. Actually it is precisely in his being for others that Jesus manifests his full divinity, and it is also in his being for other that he magnifies his full humanity. God is being for other. This is what is meant by the central biblical affirmation that God is love. To love is to be for otherness” (G p152).

Our faith calls us to be for others. And this is hard work. It puts us in hard spots sometimes. I invite you to think about your work. I have listened to people who make hard choices to advocate for the lowest paid wage earners in their company, making sure clerical staff or custodial staff receive benefits. I have listened to people struggle with hard ethical choices and choose for-otherness even as it risks their position or makes the journey more challenging. For-other-ness is a whole life quest, it is not just a program or a service project that we do together for a few hours. Perhaps you have a nudge or a calling that can not be dismissed. Church is a time when we explore and listen and refresh so we can go out and answer those calls on our lives.

This theology has guided my call into ministry. The question of our work is how do we embody this theology, where does this vast narrative find life in our every day, where does for-otherness fit into the nitty gritty details. These details seem small but they make a world of difference expressing who we are. I think we do this particularly in creating space that is more functional for others than for the church. Bishop Jones was probably right that moving to an auditorium would be better for church. This is not always convenient for us. You know this if you have given up your seat when I have asked you to move to the front so latecomers don’t have to walk through the room. You know this if you were one of the people I asked to sit on the floor on Christmas Eve. You know this if you have worked harder to listen when the party bicycle drives by with cheering people during communion or once when an elderly lady demanded that we grind her coffee beans mid-sermon. You know this if you have seen folks come in to use the restroom mid-sermon and leave or stay and want to preach like a guest named, “Space Jesus.” You know this when sometimes you have to listen a little harder, particularly during Launch Team or Grow Night, or if you have to chase a toddler around rather than sending them to a nursery or hanging in a cry room, because we literally don’t have any other room. You know this if you have helped move equipment for worship or events, you know this if you have done dishes because our location can’t handle a dishwasher. You know this if you have come in, needing to talk and found me right here at a table rather than walled-off in an office. Our space is wonderful for community and often a challenge for church and staff efficiency. We welcome people day in and day out to this space, we never really close and we invest in staff to greet people. We invest in a space that can be active all the time rather than a space that can be active - mostly when we need it. I think our space pushes us to make choices about how we use it, for others, how we host community gatherings and close our coffee bar. How we make room for people to work and study and relax and talk with friends. We keep our focus on others and our investment in serving others.

This space, I hope, is born out of the quest of how we can be for-others and that’s not because we are in a coffee shop, any church space can be for-others. Any church can be for-others. We could do this in a church. It’s just that so often, churches forget to be for-others. It becomes easy to forget the purpose and the call. It becomes easy to say this space belongs to us first, it becomes easy to think about what is convenient for us, what helps us. Churches in our city are sitting on great real estate that is used well and vibrantly a few hours a week. I pray that no matter our staffing, no matter our space we keep the needs of others before our eyes. We ask the question, “How is this for others?” We may not always be in this space, I dream that no matter our space, our location our size that we are there for others. That we structure with intention around making the space for the needs of others, a hub of community, a launch pad for change.

Reflection Questions
What does for-other-ness mean to you?
Where do you practice it? How do you struggle to practice it?
What does it mean for our practice as a community? What does it mean for what we put first?