What if God was One of Us?
Scripture: John 1:1-18
As a student pastor, I worked in a couple of different churches serving as an interim youth leader. On the first occasion the youth were not so happy about this situation because their beloved leader, Rev. Jess, had been taken away from them. Rev. Jess had fallen critically ill and had to resign her from her position abruptly.
The Rev., her son, her son’s best friend had left. And so, this little youth group was decimated and disappointed in me, the student pastor who was supposed to figure out a way for them to grieve the loss of Rev. Jess and their friends.
They didn’t say much about the situation, but their facial expressions and apathy told the story. This is a stage in life where young people are already questioning the assumptions of their childhood faith. One of the boys, Jon, had reached a conclusion: God does not exist.
God had not saved his uncle who had died the previous year. And now God was not saving Rev. Jess. When I invited the youth to write down their prayers on slips of paper Jon’s response was to submit blank slip of paper.
Jon had nothing to say to God. Atheism was his refuge.
Jon was silent in a way that only a teenaged boy can be silent. His parents were worried about him. His mom, who helped out with the youth group, tried to push him to participate more. But still he said nothing, silently communicating – loud and clear – that so long as my questions presupposed the existence of God he had nothing to say.
Until one day, I played a popular song for the group: What if God was One of Us? by Joan Osborne.
“What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?…” (Joan Osborne)
When the song was over I asked the group, “what do you think?” How would you respond to the question: “What if God was one of us, just a stranger on the bus?
“No!” Jon said.
I tried to hide my surprise. “What do you mean, Jon, why not?”
“No!” he repeated “God can’t be one of us … God is separate. God is different. It just can’t be another person, certainly not a slobby person on a bus. That just isn’t right.”
Jon, the atheist, had discovered the scandal of the incarnation.
And this is how the gospel of John begins. This poetic book, quite different from the other gospels, is not a narrative telling of Jesus of Nazareth’s life. It is a reflection of Jesus the Christ, now ascended to the Father. This gospel is full of signs and symbols. And John begins with the scandal of the incarnation.
“The Word became flesh.”
Word. The Word had been with the Godhead since the beginning. The Word was now in the world that it had spoken into being. And now the Word was the one thing the Godhead wanted to say to humanity. This is how the Word came to us.
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, Message Translation) The high and holy being, who had ushered in the entire cosmos, became contained in an infant. And with that flesh, the Word had become a person who could hurt, who could feel hunger and thirst, who could grieve and despair, who could stink.
The Word had become a person who could fall in love, write a symphony, invent a vaccine, perform a transformative dance, grow a garden, or tend to and care for others. And the Word had become a person who could hate, kill, cheat and lie. The Word had become a person who could feel jealousy and pain, a person who could respond to others with kindness or indifference.
And with all these attributes of being human, the Word could also experience what it meant to belong to the entire body of humanity. And by being in the flesh, the Word could know what it meant to feel the pain of any one part of that body as though it was his own.
And so, it’s not surprising that Jonny said “No!”
I think most of us, if we are honest, want to say “no!” too.
Because, to embrace God as one of us, a stranger on the bus, would sometimes just hurt much too much.
Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon was the lead singer and founder member of Sweet Honey. Her voice is mellifluous. One artist who worked with the group describes the “color of her voice” as “snow on a peach.”
Reagon was the daughter of a Baptist minister, and like so many Africa American musicians she learned to sing in church. She was a founding member of the Freedom Singers, who brought music to the non-violent student civil rights movement (SNCC). At mass meetings, the singing was done in a congregational style. She says “There weren’t soloists; there were song leaders.” Song leaders began a song, but “the minute you started… the song was expanded by the voices of everyone present.” The effect was powerful and empowering. [1]
According to the movie, “Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice”, attending a Sweet Honey concert is an experience. The group includes a sign language interpreter, because they believe that deaf people should be able to enjoy their music too. The interpreter’s job is a little complicated, because much of the music the group sings is without words. Beat bops, hums and harmonies. The interpreter moves her hands, arms and body to express what the music is saying. [2]
The group travels the United States, drawing audiences whom they teach to sing songs of freedom for all humanity. Sweet Honey in the Rock concerts are not performances, they are events of communal singing.
Members of the audience are taught the harmonies, they are given their parts. They are expected to move their bodies. The Sweet Honey singers do not only sing with their voices, they sing with their whole selves. The music is a product of their bodies, the sound comes from deep within, and their hands, arms, legs, faces, heads move with the rhythms and the beat.
Sweet Honey in the Rock reminds us that music inhabits our bodies, music binds our bodies as one. Their goal is to connect the audience with the music, viscerally, and so to connect them with one another. And having connected them with one another, it connects them all with the truths the women sing.
A most poignant case is Ella’s Song: “We Who Believe in Freedom …” The women take the words of civil rights activist Ella Baker to make their song:
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Until the killing of black men, black mother’s sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mother’s sons.” [3]
The singers hone in on the scandal of incarnation.
They sing with their bodies and they sing about bodies, specific bodies: black bodies, white bodies, all colors of bodies.
During the movie, one of the Sweet Honey singers watches on as her son prepares for his Prom. She says that she worries about him, as a young black man. What assumptions will be made about him by police and others? And at the same time she knows she needs to let him go. This is so hard.
I do not have to worry very much about my white son’s body. He can come and go freely. When he gets into a fix the police will believe his story. He can go for a drive, a hike, a run, without fearing for his life. This is not so, for the sons of my black sisters. Sweet Honey in the Rock holds me accountable as the mother of a white son. They call me to recognize that when one body hurts we all hurt.
And so the question is, how can I rest, while black mothers do not enjoy the freedom from worry that I enjoy? How can we rest when any time, any day, God could be any one of us.
As Advent come to an end and Christmas is near, we hear the gospel words articulating the scandal of the incarnation: the Word became flesh. The Word moved into the neighborhood: my neighborhood, your neighborhood, a black neighborhood, an immigrant neighborhood.
What if God was one of us, just a stranger on the bus, just trying to make his way home?
Amen
https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/sncc-national-office/freedom-singers/
[2] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/sweet-honey-in-the-rock-about-sweet-honey-in-the-rock/716/
[3] https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns/health/2014/ella-baker-my-civil-rights-generations-fundi/ Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a White mother’s son—we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.
–Ella Baker