Embracing Paradox

Texts:

Psalm 46

Genesis 12:1-9

1 Corinthians 7:17-24

It's interesting how, in the readings for today, Abram's call involves leaving everything he knows behind, traveling through the desert without a map, journeying in stages toward the Negeb, yet Paul seems to be telling the church in Corinth that God calls us, as we are:

"Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you.  This is my rule in all the churches.  Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised?  Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision.  Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised?  Let him not seek circumcision  Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything.  Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called.  Were you a slave when called?  Do not be concerned about it.  Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever.  For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ.  You were were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.  In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God." (1 Corinthians 7:17-24)

So which is it?  Does everything change in the life of faith, or does everything stay the same?  Yes.  In so many ways, everything changes; we look at the world with upside-down eyes, eyes that see the least of these and see the face of Christ, eyes that see "the earth [changing] the mountains [shaking] in the heart of the sea, the waters [roaring] and [foaming], the mountains [trembling with its tumult]," and proclaims, "even so, we will not fear."  It looks at death and imagines life.  Our way of seeing the world changes, but - in many ways - we remain the same people we were before, with the same fears, the same joys, the same challenges.  Our lives continue their cycles.  After Abram receives the command to go, he and Sarai approach Egypt, "When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, 'I know well that ou are a woman beautiful in appearance; and when the Egyptians see you they will say, 'This is his wife'; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.  Say you are my sister...'"  Oh, Abram... some things never change (this is only the first of a handful of times Abram passes Sarai off as his sister); he trusts God enough to get up and leave his home, his country, and all that he knows, but doesn't trust that God will provide for him if someone else desires Sarai as their wife.  

"Get up and go," and "There remain with God," seem like mutually opposing calls.  Which one is true?  I think it is both.  Whether we find ourselves wanderers or in the same place, it is the same God who calls, beckoning us into a fuller future than what we could even imagine.  Everything stays the same, in so many ways, yet everything changes at the same time. 

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Christians would do well to embrace paradox.  To look at ourselves as broken/holy-sinner/saints is to tell the truth about who we are.  It is to tell the truth about Abram, who "believed God" yet still doubted.  It is to tell the truth about Paul who says "For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to hte Lord, juast as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ."  It is to recognize we are "perfectly free lords of all, subject to none and at the same time perfectly dutiful servants of all, subject to all," (Martin Luther, "Freedom of a Chrisitan," sic).  It is to be both-and; to recognize faith is more than intellectual assent.  To have faith is to have imagination.  To have faith is to look at the world with generative creativity, to see things we have seen a million times with new eyes.  It is to allow our minds to be turned around so that we can see all that we've been missing as we try to shield ourselves from complication, from relationship, and from each other.  To have faith is to embrace the God who comes to real people - with real doubts, real fears, real vices, and uses them to point to God's reality, the one that glimmers only when the light hits it just right - it is the reality we cannot stop looking for once we have seen its reflection.