21 March 2006

Today we continue in "The Covenanted Self" by Walter Brueggemann.

The "Other" in this (covenantal) relationship is a real, live Other who initiates, shapes, watches over, and cares about the relation. The "Other" is both mutual with us and incommensurate with us, in a way not unlike a parent is mutual and incommensurate with a child, or a teach is mutual and incommensurate with a student. This means that the relation is endlessly open, alive, giving, and demanding and at risk. This Holy Other may on occasion act in stunning mutuality, being with and for the second party, and so draw close in mercy and compassion, in suffering and forgiveness. It is, however, this same God who may exhibit God's self in unaccommodating incommensurability with rigorous expectation and dreadfulness, when expectations are not met.

This relationship with our God is "endlessly open, alive, giving, and demanding and at risk." It has life to it. It is not a static affair that never changes. The relationship is always changing and growing and moving beyond what is into what is about to be. On the other hand, this Holy Other is always for us - with out end. Even as this is the foundation of the relationship, the relationship still is organic and moves through time as though it is able to mature, back slide, or make leaps of unimaginable distances. I wonder how many of us actually let this covenantal relationship with our God be as alive as this. Too often it seems as though the relationship is defined and there it stays. Unfortunately, I would suggest that there is left to us at this point very little of a relationship. In fact, it doesn't sound very dialogical at all. It is fixed and becomes much like a verse that is memorized but is never grasped in its fullness because we are not free to look at the meaning as the years change and people change and our way of viewing the world changes. A simple verse merely memorized does not show much dialogue or engagement. A simple verse that is alive and calls forth our comment and interaction brings is always surprising us with new possibilities for the relationship.

Connection: Relationships that stay in one place and never explore the depths of their form and meaning often become quite static and unbending. How can we honor those relationships and trust what will come as we engage each other in new ways along with the forms we already know?

From age to age, O God, you stay with us and your love remains steady and sure. And yet, along the way you expect that we will grow and our love for one another will be shaped by your love. Let your Holy Spirit inspire us to step beyond what is presently our way of seeing you and others so that we might be amazed by the life all around us. Amen.