I
have a cat. She is petite, for a domestic cat, and I am large, for a human. In
keeping with other mammals, including humans, she has available to her fight,
flight, freeze and fawn behaviours, in response to potential danger. Most
often, she approaches me by falling on her side, rolling onto her back, and
exposing her throat to me. This is fawning or offering herself in submission to
me. And it is risky: I am far larger, and, if I so wished, I could crush her
throat under my boot. But I do not respond that way. Rather, I respond by
kneeling down and stroking her, perhaps even rubbing my head against hers. This
is a bonding act between us, initiated by her.
My
contention is that these four sympathetic nervous system responses are grounded
in the nature of God. God longs for relationship with all creation, including
humans, but this involves a degree of risk, for creation reflects the freedom
of God in possessing its own freedom. God flees from concentrated powerbases to
those, on the margins, who possess the least power; and, in partnership with
them – a coalition of the powerless, for the weakness of God is stronger than
the strength of human beings – fights and overthrows the powerful. God practices
freeze behaviour in assessing whether or not a person can be trusted, and in
evading those who cannot. And God fawns, daring, at times, to give himself over
into human hands.
God
fawns as a baby, born of Mary, utterly dependent on her and Joseph, their
extended families and the community of first Bethlehem, then Alexandria, and
later Nazareth. All who would receive him, as the biographer John so eloquently
put it; also highlighting the risk of this strategy, noting that many of his
own people, to whom he came, did not receive him.
God
fawns as a man in his thirties, who gives himself over into the hands of
others, who will respond in various ways. This is what we know as the Passion
of Christ, that culmination of his ministry where Jesus moves from being the
active agent in the story, who makes things happen, to being the one who is
done unto. Done unto by a woman who anoints his feet with perfume. Done unto by
men who bring him to mock trial, torture and kill him. Done unto by secret
followers who prepare his corpse for burial and provide him with the dignity of
a final (from their point of view) resting place.
Neither
is this a departure for God, for God has made himself vulnerable to those whom
he believes might welcome him from the very outset.
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