What would you feel if God suddenly walked into a room?Ê Fear? Shame? Joy? Apprehension? Panic? A desire to hide?Ê Relief when God finally left? Indeed, how would we even recognize God should God walk into a room?
Jane Tyson Clement, a poet and aÊ member of the BruderhofÊ community, fantasizes about what mightÊ run throughÊ her mind and heart if Jesus suddenly walked up to her. In a poem entitled, Vigil, she writes:
Those last lines highlight the most important of all truths, namely,Ê that God is love and only by letting that kind of love into our lives can we save ourselves from disappointment, shame, and sadness.
I don't often remember my dreams, nor do I set much stock by them, but, several years ago, I had a dreamÊ that I both remember andÊ set some stock by. It went something like this:
For whatever reason, and dreams don't give you a reason, I was asked to go to an airport and pick up Jesus, who was arriving on a flight. I was understandably nervous and frightened. A bevy of apprehensions beset me: HowÊ would I recognizeÊ him? What would he look like? How would he react to me? What would I say to him? Would I like what I saw?Ê More frightening yet, would he like what he saw when he looked at me?
With those feelings surging through me, I stood, as one stands in a dream, at the end ofÊ long corridor nervously surveying the passengers who were walking towards me. How would I recognize Jesus and would his first glance at me reflect his disappointment?
But this was a good dream and it taught me as much about God as I'dÊ learned in all my years of studying theology. All of my fears were alleviated in a second.. What happened was the opposite of all my expectations:Ê Suddenly, walking down the corridor towards me was Jesus, smiling, beaming withÊ delight, coming straight for me, rushing, eager to meet me. Everything about him was stunningly and wonderfully disarming. There was no awkwardÊ moment, everything about him erased that. His eyes, his face, and his body embraced me without reserve and without judgement. I knew he saw straightÊ through me, knew all my faults and weaknesses, my lack of substance, and none of it mattered.Ê
And, for that moment, none of it mattered to me either. Jesus was eager to meet me! In that moment, as Jane Tyson Clement suggests, oneÊ forgets everything, except that God is here. There's no place for fear or shame or wondering what God thinks of you.Ê
And that's a lesson we must somehow learn, somehow experience.Ê
We live withÊ too much fear of God. Partly its bad theology, butÊ mostly we fear because we've never experiencedÊ theÊ kind of loveÊ that's manifest in God and weÊ take for granted that anyone who sees us as we really are (in our unloveliness, weaknesses, pathology, sin,Ê insubstantiality) will, in the end, be as disappointed with us as we are with ourselves.
At the end of the day we expect that God is disappointedÊ with us and will greet us with a frown. TheÊ tragedy and sadness here isthat, because we thinkÊ that God is disappointed in us, especially at those times when we are disappointed with ourselves,Ê we try to avoidÊ meeting the one person, one love, and the one energy, God, that actually understands us, accepts us, delights in us, and is eager to smile at us. We are relieved that we never have to pick up Jesus at an airport. That's also trueÊ of church: We stay away from church exactly at those times when we would most need to be there.
A prairie poet and former Oblate confrere, Harry Hellman, gets the last word on this. He puts it well: