Contemplation Corner: “First the fall, and then the recovery from the fall. . .”

“First the fall, and then the recovery from the fall, and both are the mercy of God.”
– Julian of Norwichnce….” -Kwame Anthony Appiah 

by Pastor Donnie Brooks
Marcellus United Methodist Church
pastordonnieb@outlook.com

       Christianity is, among other things, a faith of falling. This may go against the cultural grains of Christianity. American Christianity often seems indistinguishable from certain subsets of American culture. This is inevitable, as we are enculturated and contextualized beings. But the cultural aspects should never supplant or override what would be the perennial aspects of the faith. Deciding what that is can be difficult and often fraught with controversy. Was this or that teaching of the Apostle Paul or Peter or John cultural and contextualized or was it meant to be, or should be, perennial?

   These are difficult questions we must ask. I maintain, today, however, that there is something that should be considered forever and always part of the faith and may counteract something cultural and thus “Christianly” dominant: something that is truly perennial. It is this notion of Julian’s. Christian faith is full of “falling.” In fact, it is falling. It is filled with various deaths. Death to our old selves. Death to those ways of thinking and living that often try to override the true ways (often by masquerading as “Christian” even while they are far afield). Death to affiliations that pretend to faith. It is filled with looking at the beams in one’s eye rather than the motes in our neighbors (Matt 7:1-5). Humbling of body and soul. Letting go. Of how we view ourselves. Of how we view others. Letting go the grasping tendency we have over our possessions and those in our lives. Letting go of our Western individualistic and overtly independent tendencies. We need to fall.

   For Julian, there is the fall that first humbles us and prepares us for the right relationship to God. That is, a dependence. It is not meant to mean that we are weak and dependent with God. No, in God we are strong. We seek to execute the great commands God has given us. To love God and love neighbor as ourselves. Mutually dependent premises and activities. We just fall from the “pride” that assumes we are strong and independent on ourselves. Some who claim Christianity, for example, might not even acknowledge that they need forgiveness or grace. They may not exhibit it at all in their lives, in their speeches, actions, or in their political machinations. Or if they do it is for their own tribes against the very being of others. Pride in nation, pride in party, pride in one’s specific tribe as opposed to another. These must be let go and what must be embraced is the humility and weakness before God.

   Strength is in Christ. Strength is in the relationship and cooperation with God. We let go of our pretensions. We let God empower us and to lead us the ways which God intends. This is a mercy of God in that it is the only way that we can “rise” in Christ. Death precedes new life, just as Christ needed to die before resurrection. The road to rising first goes down and then goes up. It becomes weak before it becomes strong. Both, indeed, are the mercy of God.

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