Incarnation

The Creator walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Incarnation is very much part of the Christian way.

It is how I understand what mission should look like. We need to be with people, in the midst of their lives, with all the mess that entails. It is then that we may be bringers of truth, hope, joy and grace. We are to live as bearers of Christ. This is as true for life in the PNG swamp as it is for a stay-at-home parent, a business executive or a blue collar worker.

This theme of incarnation is one that I keep returning to and hope to keep growing in the practice of.

Christmas is often when we focus on the incarnation of Jesus, and I am reminded that he started as a baby, reliant on others. He grew up in a culture, a network of relationships, and learnt how to be a man in that time and place. After about thirty years, he spent a short time in public ministry. Being incarnational about mission requires humility and patience. We cannot come in with all the answers from the beginning, but need to learn how to be in that time and place. We need to belong so that we can be heard. We need to accept the help of others. These things are a challenge to me. Stepping back to being reliant and being the learner is hard. I like to be competent and independent, but that is not how incarnation starts.

Incarnation is sacrificial. Jesus left heaven and came to earth. He humbled himself. He was hurt, betrayed, misunderstood and killed. I hope not to be killed for my beliefs and the message I share, but I should not expect to be spared the painful realities of life. Jesus invites us to take up our cross and follow, so he is not trying to fool us that it will be easy, but he promises that the Helper will be with us. We are not alone in the suffering, we are understood and we are in good company, in God’s company.

Following in the crucified Christ’s footsteps also means resurrection. The sacrifices we make are not for their own sake, but for a greater and most worthwhile goal. We can be confident in this life, both now and ever after, meaning that the incarnational life is also one of joy. We have the privilege of being light in the darkness, now. We have the opportunity to be the representative of peace that passes all understanding in the midst of what is troubling people today. Among what is going on, we bring grace.

Incarnation: there is one white hand waving amidst the crowd, mine. (Ella B)

Incarnation is a slow process. Jesus spoke of the kingdom being like a small amount of yeast mixed into a large amount of dough. It took time, but the whole thing was leavened eventually, and could not be separated out. We are the leaven, and living incarnationally means mixing ourselves into the world so that resurrection can happen.

One thing that empowers me to live incarnationally is gathering for communion. Here, at the eternal family table, we are fed and told ‘Take and eat, this is my body.’ In that moment we are invited to really take Christ into us. We are then sent out to be the body of Christ, so that, that which has come to us, now goes to the world.

Immanuel, God is with us. This name for God is both a promise and a challenge, one that I expect I’ll spend my whole life pondering, and still find things to learn.

Home Moments

On returning to the village, there were a number of moments which showed to me that this place in increasingly another home to me.

First were the familiarity of faces and the warmness of welcome. These are now people I know and have a relationship with. We were genuinely pleased to see each other, with lots of hugs and strong handshakes. There were even some hugs from the men! There were also some familiar faces who were absent, but not missed. A place is home when you have been there long enough to have some people rub you the wrong way as well as to form friendships. The nicest welcome was that some of the children smiled at me, rather than being scared yet again.

Kake cat, who unfortunately died recently (H.Schulz)

My neighbours’ cat gave me a very smoochy welcome back, although when he brought me a dead rat to show his affection I was less pleased. I was pleased about one less rat in the world, but not pleased to hear him crunching it in my living area. He was a bit upset that I swept him out the door to eat on the veranda.

I know I am becoming a local when I know my way around the village and am able to wander around at will. When I walked between this village and the next, I was only escorted back as far as the edge of the village, they trusted me to find my way home from there.

Hanging out in the afternoon (H.Schulz)

Being able to just hang out with people is a homely thing too. Between visits, a shelter was built between the river and the open space where volleyball is often played. I often head down there in the afternoon and sit with the women awhile. All the while my phone downloads emails. I do not have to tell stories or make a show, I can just sit and be with them. I cannot join the conversation yet, but we can watch volleyball together and enjoy each other’s company. Slowly I am recognising more faces and connecting families together.

Although I can’t follow the conversation, I am encouraged by the scraps I do understand. Kope has gone from being a long string of sounds to having distinct words to my ears. Often I find myself thinking ‘I know those words!’ By the time I’ve repeated them to myself and worked out their meaning, the conversation has moved on, but I am still encouraged by the pieces I do recognise. To not be overwhelmed all the time, but to have points of recognition, goes a long way to making this place home.

My village garden, with its enthusiastic
 snake bean plants. (H.Schulz)

A final piece of belonging is being able to share veggies from my gardens. When I flew down I brought a box of passionfruit and a container of cherry guavas, picked from my highlands garden. People were very happy to try these fruits that were new to most of them. Meanwhile, my swamp garden was flourishing, provided beans to eat and making my house look like home.

While the language is still hard work and the culture often confronting, it is encouraging to have these moments of belonging.

What’s mine is yours…

The rain returned eventually, with the 

sweet sound of it pouring into my tank. (H.Schulz)

A constant struggle for me when living in the village is the different cultural expectations of ownership and stewardship. What belongs to me and what belongs to the group? What is to be used now and what is to be saved for later?

I have a wonderful neighbour and village brother who built my house, looks after it while I am away and is one of our translators. He recently named his newborn daughter after me. I am sure that I have some sort of responsibilities for my namesake, but have no idea what they might be. He himself is a generous person who often has other people living with him in his small house and who is often doing things for other people. It is this particular relationship, with its web of obligations that is the hardest for me to navigate.

What makes it even harder is that it is often the small things that leave me in a crisis, such as an umbrella or a bottle of water.

My umbrella was left in my storeroom when I went away. It was about the only thing not packed in a box because it was too long. When I returned, it was the only thing that had gone walkabout. It had been borrowed to give shade to my namesake while they went to fish camp. When they returned, I saw the umbrella in use, but it didn’t return to me. A week later, when I was walking somewhere in the middle of the day and needed it for shade, I asked about it. It was brought out of the house, broken and barely held together with string. It gave me the shade I needed, but it is useless as shelter from tropical downpours.

Why was I so upset about an umbrella? It was that my trust of things left in storage had been broken, that something I needed was not there when I needed it. My neighbour though, saw it as an appropriate use of an item doing nothing to meet a need for my namesake. My tension is that I can understand his reasoning, but still wish it had been left alone and was in one piece when I returned.

Another day I found myself annoyed at a request for a few litres of drinking water, and even more annoyed at myself for being annoyed.

At the time it was dry season. As this was first time in the village in January, it was hard to tell if it is a drier than usual dry season, but it seemed to be that way. Each morning and each afternoon there was a parade of people going along the path by my house to get drinking water from a bush well. The round trip seems to take them about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, my house has two 1000L rainwater tanks.

Before I came to the village, my neighbour had called asking for permission to clean out one of my tanks. We did not communicate clearly, and I thought that rain was falling more often to refill the tanks, so I said yes, as long as you leave me at least half a tank (500L). When I got to the village I found out that there has been little rain, so the tank was not refilling, but that everyone had very much enjoyed getting a container of water from my tank when it was cleaned, as well as from half of the second tank. I was left the half a tank as requested. This probably saved the village one day of walking into the bush for drinking water, maybe two.

My umbrella two years ago when it was new. (D.Petterson)

When I returned, my neighbour turned up asking for drinking water in bottles, and I was annoyed. Why?! I did not make the rain fall, I just caught it. I did not earn it, yet I was reluctant to share it. Part of it was knowing that half a tank will not go far if I’m providing water for a house of six or more people next door. Part of it was knowing that if my water runs out, someone else will be the one walking into the bush to get water for me. Part of it was just cultural annoyance that ‘my’ water should be assumed to be ‘their’ water from a different cultural perspective. A lot of it was annoyance at myself for being a scrooge about water, an essential ingredient for life.

My first week in the village, I was cautious with my tank, but still used it for washing etc, thinking rain would continue to fall like it had the day after I arrived. By week two we’d had little rain, my tank was much lower and I switched to washing with well water and only using my tank for drinking. I still had occasional requests for water, which I would help with, but was not getting regular requests. This seemed like a good balance for me.

Still, the question of what is mine, what I am keeping for later, what is communal, and what I am sharing with others, is an ongoing struggle. Coming from somewhere very individualistic when it comes to possessions, I am having many of my assumptions challenged, which is a good but difficult process.

Right Side Up

(H.Schulz)

Labelling my boxes for aviation rarely means they arrive in my village the right way up. They have usually been turned over a few times along the way, to fit them in the plane, while carried on a shoulder and when squeezed into the canoe. It pays to pack things tightly so that at every angle they are secure. I go through a lot of packing tape and I give thanks for God’s eggshell design and the person who created the egg carton. It amazes me how well my eggs survive their journey!

Cargo though is not actually my theme, but the kingdom of God.

I have heard people refer to God’s kingdom as an upside down kingdom; The last shall be first and the first shall be last. We are saved by grace, not by works. Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you. The thief on the cross was told that ‘today you will be with me in paradise.’ He didn’t deserve that, but God’s ways are not the ways of the world and do not always make sense from our human perspective.

Rather than an upside down kingdom, I believe we have an upside down world. God is right-side-up.

I love looking at reflections in a pond, in a river or in the sea when it is calm. There is beauty in the reflection, even though distorted by ripples and shadows. This is how I see God’s kingdom and the world. We live in the broken reflection, an incomplete idea of the reality. We have got used to life upside down, but God is right side up. Eternity is right side up. Yet in the reflection, we get the sense of who God is, even if we do not always interpret what we see correctly.

(H.Schulz)

One common misinterpretation of our reflected version of reality is the relationship of worship and salvation. Most people naturally default to a position that work and worship will lead to blessing. To put it another way, we believe that if we do the right things and manipulate the powers-that-be in the right ways, we will get what we want. This is not just an animistic practice, it is also the unspoken theory behind facebook ‘likes’ and our plea for ‘at least x people to like this post so that y’ Right-side-up looks different, as first we are blessed and then we worship. First Jesus was born, died and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins. Later we recognised our need for this and responded with worship and the transformation of our lives through the Spirit.

 No part of the world is without the reflection of God, as the Creator’s fingerprints are everywhere (Rom 2:14-16). All people in every place have interpreted this reflection, seeking to worship and know the Reality. Every culture has got something right as well as something wrong (see Acts 17:22-34) . I believe that this reflection is made clear in Jesus, the image of God (2 Cor 4:4, Col 1:15), the Word become flesh (John 1:14). In sharing Jesus we are helping people to understand the ultimate reality. In translating the Bible we are giving access to the source text of our faith and allowing communities to hold a conversation about the questions of their place and time, in the light of the Word.

What the world looks like right-side-up in suburban Australia is going to be different to right-side-up in a PNG swamp. The Word is the light that guides both places, but the form will be different. How can cultural practices in each place glorify God? What aspects of culture lead people astray from God, rather than towards? Which actions or beliefs belong to the distorted reflection rather than to the Image of God? Can these practices be redeemed, so that rather than shining a poorly reflected light, they shine the true light? The same questions need to be asked in every time and place. Indeed, it may be harder to ask these questions in places where Christianity is entrenched.

(H.Schulz)

1 Cor 13:11-12

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”