“Even in Jesus’s most transcendent moment, the moment that set him apart from the rest of humankind, he remained recognizably one of us. He came back wearing skin. He did not leave his body behind… Read from the perspective of the body, his ministry was about encountering those whose flesh was discounted by the world in which they lived.” - Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World
I love this idea! It certainly is a strange one in a religion that has for so long emphasized both the distinction between "spiritual" and "physical" as well as the higher value of the former.
Yet I would say it is equally strange that Christianity would focus so much on a soul and so little on a body, when the gospel writers gave so much detail about the physical nature of the body in which Christ was resurrected. Read First John! The only thing ever called the "Antichrist" in the Bible is any individual who claims that Jesus did NOT come in the flesh to begin with!
How important is it to honor the skin we wear?
“Wearing my skin is not a solitary practice but one that brings me into communion with all these other embodied souls."
The skin I have is the skin I have to wear. The body I have is the body I have to use. And everyone has it the same, which is particularly hopeful to me spending my summer in a place with people who share very little else in common with me. What better way to honor those around me than by paying close attention to the skin they wear—not with a critical eye, but with a receptive heart?
And this is a practice anyone, no matter background or upbringing or education or whatever, can do. We all have the capability to learn how to honor the Other in the skin they wear, even by and through it. Plus, seeing people wearing the skin they have, as they are, is a critical component to hearing their entire story.
How do I start honoring another in the skin they wear? Honoring my own skin is paramount here. If I value not my own, what has been given to me, as it is, then how can I do it for another? And this might start with practices like
Taylor’s suggestion to pray naked before a full-length mirror. This
seems absolutely antithetical to what I have heard called
“spiritual”!
“Isn’t this a distraction?” my not very picturesque
body asks. But Jesus embraced skin-covered shoulders. He washed skin-(and dirt-)covered feet. He used his own skin-covered hands to touch, to teach, to bless, to expel, to heal, to break bread.
“Yet this is the central claim of the Incarnation—that God trusted flesh and blood to bring divine love to earth.”
If you ask me what I think the Church is really about (not even the Church per se, but here I include anyone who is in the Way of Christ Jesus), then one of the answers I will undoubtedly give is this: That this "central claim of the Incarnation" is as much a promise today as it was when "Immanu el" ("God with us") was first prophesied; as such it is meant to continue to be fulfilled, as concretely fulfilled as it was when the physical body of Jesus came into the world at Bethlehem.
"Good is the flesh that the Word
has become,
good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the body for knowing the world,
sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
feeling, perceiving, within and around,
good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the body from cradle to grave,
growing and aging, arousing, impaired,
happy in clothing or lovingly bared,
good is the pleasure of God in our flesh.
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the pleasure of God in the flesh,
longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell,
glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell,
good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become. "
[© Hope Publications]
