Be like water

Recently, I'd say in the last two months, I've been the recipient of several outside references to Bruce Lee. I haven't gone seeking them, they've just shown up. Not the least of which happens to be part of my new license plate number: JKD (Jeet Kune Do, the martial art Lee created, which roughly translated means "way of the intercepting fist."). What has this to do with my life? His famous quote returns to me over and over again, like waves at the shore:  

Be like water.

What does this mean, and how am I to understand it in a Christian context?  Today's readings in the Lectionary point to it: saying yes to God's will in every moment, even when we don't understand it. Even when we cannot see the plan that includes every mote and moment of all creation in and outside of time, that includes every choice every person has ever or will ever make. I've just finished re-reading (since high school) C.S. Lewis's 2nd book of the Space Trilogy. This is something he spends a lot of time with - the inevitability and perfection of God's plan for redemption of all Creation.

Saying yes, like Mary's fiat to God's request of her to be the Mother of His Son, our Redeemer, is sharing in God's salvific work through Christ, of whose body we are members. It means not getting ticked off when people are mean, or irritated when a coworker talks too much, or resentful and bitter when a loved one turns on you. Everything is a yes, because we can accept that God has allowed this person to be with us, the situation to exist, as evil as it might be. Some good can come of every single scenario - but it requires our fiat. It means seeing the opportunities God places before us and walking into them, without knowing how things will turn out. Abraham and Sarah had to do just that, and here we are, thousands of years later with the same choice. 

Abraham trusted in God's promise to grant him progeny more numerous than the stars, even when God seemed to ask the impossible, to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, who himself was a miracle born of two very elderly parents. I don't take to the idea that God was just testing Abraham. I think it's deeper than that, and far less cruel. God was leading Abraham into a deeper trust. Child sacrifice was the norm for cultures at the time of Abraham; other "gods" demanded it, and both infants and children were slaughtered in uncounted numbers. Yet God showed Abraham in no uncertain terms that child sacrifice was NOT to be a function or a ritual of following the One True God. Mercy was about to replace the demands of ritual sacrifice. 

The Israelites would later perform the Passover sacrifice of an unblemished lamb, and though it seems cruel to our modern sensibilities, imagine the relief of an entire people that they were not going to be asked to offer their first born children to cruel gods/goddesses. The Egyptians refused God's will; after hundreds of years of brutal slavery of the Hebrew people, after their own idolatrous  child sacrifice, they and their pharaoh would not release the people God was calling out of Egypt. Those choices had consequences, perhaps to punish the Egyptians, but also to demonstrate to the Israelites that God is trustworthy; He makes good on His  promises. 

And further, as we know, the final and ultimate Blood sacrifice was Jesus Christ, Son of Man, to end all sacrifices in the Temple, to fulfill all the promises of Yahweh. And now, we are members of the Temple of His Body, and we are drawn into the merciful embrace of unconditional love. Our sacrifice, a contrite spirit, and living our lives to the fullest as God has created every one of us to do. No matter who we are, no matter our limitations as we see them, we've been created to add some measure of beauty to God's Creation. That is, by the way, the fundamentals of any real pro-life stance.

So we can be like water and allow God's love to flow over and through us, even when faced with the evils of the world, or just even having a bad day with obnoxiously behaved people in our midst. We can say yes as our Mother Mary did to that one final Sacrifice that was Christ's incredible fiat to the Father's will for our eternal life with Him.