Rabbits and Ducks

Wednesday December 23, 2020

2 Corinthians 5:17-18

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

Dear Friends,

A couple months ago we watched The Truman Show with our children and I was struck by how much this movie relates to life with Christ. From birth until adulthood, Truman had lived an ideal existence with a perfectly formed life/bubble in a utopian-produced television show that he didn’t know was his reality. Until one day, he saw something he hadn’t truly seen before. He caught glimpses here and there when an actor stepped out of character or camera movement caught his attention, but once he really saw the discrepancies, he couldn’t pretend to unsee it. 

I attended a conference with Rachel Held Evans about ten years ago. She shared about her faith journey and where she was finding herself in that moment. At one point, someone asked her what sparked her deconstruction. Her understanding of God and the God-package handed to her from Sunday School teachers, pastors, and educators began to unravel. It was like she had been handed rabbits her whole life and all she had seen were rabbits, until she saw a duck in the line up. She could no longer only see rabbits after that moment. She knew there had to be more to the story than what she was handed. Once she saw the discrepancies, she couldn’t pretend to unsee it.

In the scripture above, Paul wrote about a new way of seeing the world, seeing God, and seeing each other. The old ways, patterns, and traditions we’ve long insisted are correct/absolute/dogmatic must become secondary to the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Breaking into the current structures and systems of world and religion is God’s kingdom rooted in reconciliation. No longer are we puppets in some cosmic play where God was far removed from reality, looking down on creation in judgement and condemnation, moving us around like chess pieces. God had entered into it all, muddying any notion of perfection and undoing any religious formula of heaven and hell bent on power and fear. 

In the middle of our impeccable line-up of rabbits in a row, God tossed in a duck. 

Friends, we have been reconciled to God through Christ because God chose to come near. And in this reconciliation we are to live as new creations who also reconcile! How we relate to each other is often directly correlated to how we relate to God. How we understand ourselves to be in relationship with God and other people are deeply connected. How we love God is revealed by how we love each other. And how we love each other reveals how we love God. When God slipped into the vulnerability of skin to dwell with humanity, everything Jesus did was to restore marginalized and forgotten people back to community. He kept throwing ducks into the perfectly placed law-abiding lineup, messing everything up. 

New creation.

With renewal, one has to shed off the old. You can’t go back to what-was-before with only rabbits, but what-was-before only existed because it was a part of you. Like an exoskeleton that becomes more brittle and containing if lived in for too long, shedding it brings a renewed tenderness and gentleness, deeply empathetic and hospitably penetrable. You are still you, but you cannot be who you once were. That skin was helpful and good and we thank God for it but we are renewed. And friends, our expansive renewal and shedding of exoskeleton doesn’t allow for mocking those not yet ready to shed theirs. Cancel culture is opposite of reconciliation.

God has come near, has always been coming near, and will always be near. As Eugene Peterson wrote, “Every step an arrival.” Every tradition, every candle lit, every doctrinal statement, every perspective handed down, we thank God for but they must point towards reconciliation within the expansive love of God. God is in the reconciling business and every step with God is an arrival to where we are. 

Let’s keep walking together, friends. There is much to remove and so much more to see. 

With (love),
Bethany