Accommodation

The more I search the scriptures and navigate my own life, I’ve begun to realize just how much accommodation precedes love. At the heart of God is a desire to pull people toward a vision of wholeness, not motivated by coercion or shame, but by self-sacrifice and condescension. The condescension of Christ, as found in Philippians 2v6, is Jesus’ way of making space for human messiness and accounting for the complexity of human process. A life is a process. A teacher sees the potential of a student in their classroom. With all of the power to correct and heap upon this child information that would be too much to bear, this teacher withholds. They thoughtfully relent. This teacher accommodates for the child’s process and limited vision/ability. This teacher condescends to the level of the child. Not to mock or patronize this child, but to honor their human development. Still the child is challenged, grows, and finds new wonder and amazement in reading a short poem. They understand the simplicity of the rules “do not steal” and “do not walk up to strangers”. Outlining the cost-benefit analysis of saving their $2 allowance in a ROTH IRA vs a traditional IRA is not going to be helpful to a seven year old. You move, and navigate and speak to the child… as a child. It is not bad that the child cannot understand systematic theology. Just as it is not bad that they do not wear diapers any longer. This may seem obvious, but we really do not understand this concept (and reality) of accommodation and compromise. 

With God

Specific moments in the bible present certain insights into what was happening in a culture, people group, religious setting, etc. We see God relating to people at a level that seems either barbaric, backward or morally obtuse compared with today’s level of modern sophistication. We are not much further along than 1st century Jerusalem citizens, though. We are not much more advanced in our level of consciousness. In some ways, yes, we have grown– we see things differently because of a shift that has happened over hundreds of years. Slavery, animal sacrifice and polygamy, to name a few, are framed differently today in our culture because we interpret particular passages in light of how God had accommodated certain practices for a time to communicate his character and work with humanity to move them forward in that space and time they inhabited. Chances are that Israelites in 500 BC viewed themselves as more sophisticated than their ancestors 500 years earlier than them. We have grown, but what are the ways God continues to accommodate certain levels of injustice or backward thinking today? Sins of omission and commission that will be clear as such in 200 years (or even 20…) deeds and ideologies which we are certain we must let live and give breath to that we will see as destructive and demonic soon enough.

In short, God takes the long view.

God has the end in mind and does not interject every time we don’t act as though we should. This patience, paradoxically, leads to greater growth than if we were to be corrected, chastised or given a lecture each time we, either knowingly or unwittingly, crossed a line or failed to perform. This gracious relenting is not an excuse to continue in regressive ways. It simply means that God is more patient toward our enemies and with us than we are with them and ourselves. 

With ourselves and others

You are in the process of becoming. Becoming who you truly are. The person you’ve been intended to grow into and fully live as. God has been patient with you as a parent is patient with a child who knows some things but is still naive and underdeveloped in their understanding. We often have greater expectations for ourselves than God does. Yet, God sees in us the worth and value in small ways that we rarely recognize in ourselves and others. Our categories are petty and small. Our metrics of success are futile and fundamentally oriented around immediate relief or mass accumulation. Our tunnel-vision has made our thinking small and our threshold for process weak. If we haven’t gained wisdom, lost weight, or reaped any benefit within a week we are certain we have failed and retreat to something more accessible that will give us the affirmation we think we need. This cheap system/cycle is toxic. Yet, the inverse is just as true. When we practice long-suffering, grit, and prayerful courage, we can see that something shifts in us. We begin to think differently about God and others, too. For God is often reflected back to us in the ways that we are treated by others, image bearers of God, and how they treat us. We project our image of God onto others, and when we’re scared, insecure, and unable to see people for where they are in a process, they instinctively begin to attribute those characteristics onto Christ. We believe God does not accommodate us in our messiness… does not condescend to our level of awareness… is not patient with our progress… all because we are not patient with others nor loving to ourselves in the process and progress of all things. Christ has shown us his patience, in a fully lived life as a human who skipped no steps. He has condescended to our level of messiness. He has accommodated our harsh world by responding in love and peace. Jesus challenges us now, to take the journey with him. A journey that bears a cross and suffers with us and for others as they, clumsily and slowly as they may, wake up to what God is creating. We too are invited to share in this.