Discovering the Other: A Theological Menage a Trois

“Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them . . . This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The I / Thou / It (personal, other, nature) relationship is first and foremost situated in Existential alienation. As human beings –and all the baggage that entails– we are hopelessly separated from any significant relationship with the divine, other people, and the mercurial glories of creation. Individually, we carry the burden of embracing the dense soul numbing isolation of the human condition. Individually, we embrace the angst born in our turn toward the void of death and the infinite other. We are naked and alone before eternity with nothing to possess –only the hope of a resurrection to comfort.

Mysterium tremendum et fascinans. (mysterious overpoweringness and fascinating)

I sit with a friend late at night discussing life, faith and death. My heart breaks. Outside it’s cold. A front moves through and the rain falls, painting the bare autumn tree branches silver in the light. We have no idea what each other is thinking other than our feeble attempt to communicate –verbally and non-verbally. Somewhere a fat squirrel is nestled in an old Oak. Her instincts tell her to eat more. The layers of our being have been peeled like an onion and are swirling in an autumn vortex along with the dry leaves, garbage and catkins. And yet, we make ourselves known to each other. How?

Finitum capax infiniti. (the finite is capable of the infinite)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls Jesus the only center. Jesus is the center that relativizes all other idolatrous attempts to claim the center. This is possible because he is the mediator between the I and the Thou, the presence of God in finite creation. Jesus the Christ reveals the wholly other and discloses the texture of the I / Thou / It relationship in the everyday world. Only in the everyday world is this relationship played out.

“The church is only the church when it is there for others . . . It must participate in the worldly affairs of the human social order, not ruling but helping and serving. It must say to human beings of all occupations what life with Christ is, what it means ‘to be for others.’” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The poetry of the faith is revealed in the encounter with the other. We are empowered to participate in the creative act of imaginative love exemplified in the acts of the God-human Jesus of Nazareth. In Christ, we are empowered to live for the other, in solidarity with the other. This is the life divine. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said, “we can only speak with God, if we wrap our arms round the world." Ultimately, the nature of the encounter with the other is an act of divinely mandated revolution. This revolution disrupts the structures and principalities of this world through the imaginative act of encountering and living for the other.

Pygmalion . . . love us to life!

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