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Becoming Human
The
spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah 11:2
Todays’s
first reading at Morning Prayer describes the ideal Israelite
king. Perhaps it was originally modeled on an actual king, such
as good King Hezekiah. But when the Israelite monarchy came
to an end, these verses were understood of the king who would
restore the Davidic line, the Messiah. This is why they come
to be used today in our Advent liturgy, as we anticipate the
coming of Christ, the Messiah and son of David, who is the fulfilment
of ancient hopes.
When
we hear the gifts of the holy spirit which the ideal king is
to possess, we recall that these are the very same gifts which
we ourselves received through confirmation. Those who are hostile
to religion sometimes say that humanity empties itself into
transcendence. By this is meant that human values and capacities
are projected onto the Deity, so that what is worshiped as divine
is really a synthesis of human perfections. People desire to
be nothing in themselves, so that they can worship God as everythings.
Thus God is enriched, at the cost of human impoverishment.
We
Christians see it differently. It is God’s grace that enables
us to realize our human values and capacities, to become, in
other words, who we truly are, to discover within us, deeply
buried or just below the surface, something that knows better
than we the contours of our true face.
In
the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the path of Christian transformation
is called "divinization:" "God became man, so
that man might become God" (Athanasius). In the Fourth
Gospel Jesus answers his opponents with the words from the psalm
"Ye are gods" (John 10:34 = Psalm 82:6), But divinization
suggests becoming something which we are not, and so I suggest
instead the phrase that Jean Vanier used a few years ago as
the title for his Massey Lectures: Becoming Human.
This
phrase seems epsecially appropriate at the present time, as
we are about to celebrate the Incarnation, which means precisely
"becoming human." When we look around us, we see our
world losing the battle for humanization. Violence, domination,
killing, disrespect, terror, environmental degradation, and
want have all reached intolerable levels.
When
we look into our own hearts, we are shocked to find how little
we know about becoming human ourselves. So much of our behavior
is simply a reaction to the conventions and opinions of our
society, rather than an authentic expression of our true thoughts
and feelings.
To
become human means to become who I really am and who I am meant
to be. But it also includes recognizing the violence within
each one of us. Israel’s ideal king "shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth and slay the wicked with the
breath of his lips" (Isaiah 11:4). How tempting it is to
want to solve all the world’s problems by violent means.
We see this today as the lust for war tends to overpower the
painstaking efforts for peace.
But
the one whose birth we are awaiting is the Prince of Peace,
the one who ended violence by taking it upon himself, and by
suffering death so that others might live. He was the truly
Human Being, whose disciples we claim to be.
December
8, 2002
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