It is, without a doubt, one of my least favorite questions. I always feel ill-equipped to answer and afraid that I am transgressing some boundary of orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, Christology is a pretty foundational issue in conversations around ministry. When we're talking about working in churches, belief about the person of Jesus is, to understate it, important.
And so when the email came through this past week to please articulate my Christology, the memory of my former failed attempts to answer actually caused me to groan out loud. I've been asked the question three other times, each during significant periods of spiritual growth in my life, and, though I couldn't see my face, every single time, I felt it flash a "deer in the headlights" expression. The first two times I was asked, I made something up or recited part of a creed. The third time, I actually just admitted that I had no idea. I was sitting in a room full of wonderful people, one of whom knows me better than almost anyone in the world. And yet, having just finally started to creep out of my feminist shell in the three months before, I wasn't ready to articulate what I was thinking to the room.
This time around, I can't say, "I don't know." But this time around, I've had a year of reading, writing, teaching and processing to move into my new theological home.
In the midst of the mess and tragedy that was this past week, in light of my year of learning to stand more firmly in chaotic theology, and because I finally, finally, have something that resembles an answer, here is where my Christology sits for now. (For those of you who think it's incomplete, I know. This is just a piece.)
I affirm that Jesus is fully human and fully divine, that his finite body held the infinitude of God. I also affirm that Christ is one of three equal persons of the Trinity, and that, in the form of Sophia/Word, Christ was present in the Trinity at creation and is still present now.
More than orthodox affirmations of creed though, I think story and imagery may better communicate “Who is Jesus” for me. One of my favorite images of who Christ was and is can be found in Matthew 23:37-39 and Luke 13:34-35. I love it because typically, should we call on imagery of birds or wings in reference to God, we go very quickly to “wings like eagles.” We gravitate toward pictures of power, of agility, victory, and force. We want God to be our triumphant protector, an impenetrable wall, a fourth quarter hero.
We may call out to God our Impenetrable Wall, but Christ names himself as something different. I love the image of Christ as a hen gathering her chicks for many reasons, the foremost being its ability to disrupt the desire to build a Christology that makes Jesus seem to be made of steel, impassable, and transcendent to the point of being distant. Hens are hardly eagles, but I do think it reveals a subtlety of who Jesus knew himself to be. He was not distant, but close enough to swoop those he loved under his wing. Just his physical presence was renewing and redemptive. He was a fierce protector, but not an impenetrable one. He was fierce in his love for his children, not in battle. He was Sophia, the Divine Word incarnate, but he was also human, and therefore, vulnerable.
I often hear people remembering “The Lord is my Shepherd.” In the same way, I love to name that “The Lord is my Chicken.” While it certainly doesn’t have the same poetic beauty as Adonai Roi (Hebrew for "the Lord is my Shepherd), it does challenge me and ask me to remember who Christ saw himself to be – a mother, protector, shield and lover.
I affirm that Jesus is fully human and fully divine, that his finite body held the infinitude of God. I also affirm that Christ is one of three equal persons of the Trinity, and that, in the form of Sophia/Word, Christ was present in the Trinity at creation and is still present now.
More than orthodox affirmations of creed though, I think story and imagery may better communicate “Who is Jesus” for me. One of my favorite images of who Christ was and is can be found in Matthew 23:37-39 and Luke 13:34-35. I love it because typically, should we call on imagery of birds or wings in reference to God, we go very quickly to “wings like eagles.” We gravitate toward pictures of power, of agility, victory, and force. We want God to be our triumphant protector, an impenetrable wall, a fourth quarter hero.
We may call out to God our Impenetrable Wall, but Christ names himself as something different. I love the image of Christ as a hen gathering her chicks for many reasons, the foremost being its ability to disrupt the desire to build a Christology that makes Jesus seem to be made of steel, impassable, and transcendent to the point of being distant. Hens are hardly eagles, but I do think it reveals a subtlety of who Jesus knew himself to be. He was not distant, but close enough to swoop those he loved under his wing. Just his physical presence was renewing and redemptive. He was a fierce protector, but not an impenetrable one. He was fierce in his love for his children, not in battle. He was Sophia, the Divine Word incarnate, but he was also human, and therefore, vulnerable.
I often hear people remembering “The Lord is my Shepherd.” In the same way, I love to name that “The Lord is my Chicken.” While it certainly doesn’t have the same poetic beauty as Adonai Roi (Hebrew for "the Lord is my Shepherd), it does challenge me and ask me to remember who Christ saw himself to be – a mother, protector, shield and lover.
And so, in light of the tragedy of this past week in Boston, in light of the stories of the countless women who have inspired me to research the intersection of theology and trauma, my answer to the question, "Where does your Christology sit?"is
Under a Chicken's wing.
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