Series:Journey to the Heart of God - All about Relationships!
I was too young to remember, but there’s a story told about me when I was 2-3 years old. One can be pretty convincing at that age and apparently, my mom had to sew patches on the knees of my perfectly good pants so that I could look like my dad. Sameness. It’s the instinctual desire to be like and a primary point of connection that helps us form relationships. If you ever watch two people meet for the first time, you will hear their conversation search for something in common. “Oh, I saw Downton Abbey, too!” “Oh yes, Maggie Smith is my favourite actor, too”. “I can’t believe we both grew up in Inglewood! My goodness isn’t that amazing”. Now… As a pre-schooler I could look like my dad and go to work just like him. Sameness.
I watch sameness work its magic after church, as we seek to establish relationship with one another. We talk about hobbies we have in common. We find common connections around where we’re from… “Hey, I grew up in Saskatchewan, too. What’s the name of your hometown?” I hear conversations around favourite kinds of tea, favourite gardening tips, and least favourite books of the Bible. We find sameness with people in our generation—any Carpenters fans here?
Theologically, we find sameness as people of God. We are created in the image and likeness of God. Even though we have different abilities and skills, we find sameness in the body of Christ. There is oneness in our sameness. As ones created in the image of God and linked together as members of the body of Christ, we find comfort. We find a welcome. We feel connection. We honour the human need to be together. Sameness is the primary glue that bonds relationships generally, and for Christians in particular it helps form community. We celebrate sameness through our love of eating together, praying together, studying together, and holding a set of values together such as practicing compassion and unconditional love, growing community and extending the table of hospitality, as well as seeking a just, sensitive and inclusive community that chooses to embrace diversity despite differences. Theologically, these are principles and practices that we hold in common that help us settle into relationships where these values are generally the same. We gather around each other knowing that our expression of sameness is grounded in our image and likeness of God and our life together as members of the Body of Christ. Sameness.
Sameness helps us begin relationships. And that’s a key understanding where the operative words are: “helps us begin”. Sameness is a rather shallow expression of relationship. Its roots are not very deep. And while it works to help us enter into relationship, by itself it doesn’t lead us very far. There’s an inherent murkiness to sameness if we remain stuck there. It is a point of connection, an entry point that provides opportunity for relationship but, it’s shallow and has a shadow side.