Cindy Davis: The Bride
In popular religion, the bond between God and humanity is often experienced as a contract: God is thought to demand, someone then responds and God acts according to this response. In our legalistic society this is almost a normal way of experiencing religion. We organise our religious lives as our secular existence in terms of rules, regulations, obligations, demands and contracts as binding agreements. We have the inclination to think of religion in terms of “We pray, so You pay.” And often we associate the “you pay” with God who will shower us abundantly with gifts and rewards. I tithe regularly, writes someone in a recent blog, but now my business is in a mess...," implying the question: where is my reward?
The same happens when our religion means “believing the truth” and when it consists of angrily rejecting those who teach falsely or differently from what we believe. In this case religion is about listing facts. But, then, one can name many facts about God without it making any difference in your life.
It seems so pious, so innocuous, to think of God in terms of blessing us with gifts where we worship God. But this attitude subtly shifts religion away from what it is.
One of the key elements of Spirituality is that it is about a relationship of God with humanity. We celebrate our experience of this relationship in our religion, because we have received the great gift of not being alone, having been made an Adam with Eve, of not being abandoned, having experienced resurrection after death.
And how important are relationships to us! On Facebook the “In a relationship” is a key phrase: it says something about your life. “I just got engaged” the beaming young woman announces to her colleagues. Suddenly, her life is changed, different, new.
Spirituality does not view the divine relationship in terms of a contract with rewards and punishments. Obviously God’s relationship implies that one lovingly seeks to live according to the divine will and that those who harm the relationship will feel the destructive consequences of their actions. And by times, God can spell out the destructive consequences to the relationship strongly, strictly and even vehemently. Spirituality strives to know the truth, but the truth is not merely about listing cold, hard facts. The truth is to be found in faith in the loving God that changes everything.
But all this is done to bring us to cherish our relationship with God. There is no other alternative, because it makes us truly human. The deep longing of a human being for intimacy, for belonging, is fulfilled in the divine outreach to us. And that alone is enough. That is what life is all about. Rather poor and in love, than rich and without love as life’s most fulfilling experience.
In Biblical Spirituality the link between the divine and human is relational: God, traditionally thought of as God the Father, Son and Spirit is as divine person relating to a human being as person. It is, in the words of Levinas, a face to face encounter. God stands before humanity, bringing us to ponder on the mystery of a loving, unselfish God who wishes to embrace the other in a fulfilling, transformative relationship. We see, in Christian Scriptures the face of this loving God: a Father who reaches out to a prodigal son, a Teacher who washes the feet of disciples, a Seafarer, stilling storms and removing fear, a Revealer who reassures those in anguish of paradise where tears are wiped off tired faces, a Prisoner who forbids angry retaliation and heals an ear. The divine relationship asks only love, for humanity to be loving like this loving God. This relationship brings us to stand in awe and love before the face of the Other.
How crude, then, to think of God in terms of a contract: I have rights and they imply that the other party should perform. You have obligations to which you will adhere. If this was so, why did the loving God always call for repentance and sanctification? We are not engaged in studying and applying contracts. We are on a spiritual journey with the One who reaches out to us and spurs us on, all the time, to become more human, more loving, more aware of how precious it is to live from face to face.
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