Perhaps it’s a necessary evil for all of us who turn to technology for banking and shopping and checking in on medical charting: that we must go along with the dreaded 2-step security verification, as if changing a password every other month with a lower and upper-case letters and numbers and special characters and other specifications isn’t enough to make our always-needing-to-be-informed lives interesting. Usually the next step could be a phone call or text message to make sure it’s really you attempting to log in to whatever respective account; but sometimes you will need to solve puzzles or select which pictures include a certain item or find images that parallel each other. Recently, I was a bit taken aback when I saw the conclusion of one such…interesting process: “Congratulations! You’ve proven you’re a human.”
What an…interesting thing for a computer screen to show, not to mention what existential and theological and social parallels can be made with that statement. How do we prove our humanity beyond passwords and ensuring we’re not robots to the satisfaction of whatever company security measures? Granted, one could say it’s just about having a pulse, cognitive functioning, blood flow, oxygen running through or whatever else in the medical and biological realms. Or do we prove our humanity based on taking care of ourselves and ensuring our place in the world, so to speak? Is it about having a “basic humanity” in terms of respect and care for other human beings, and not just the ones we’re closer to proximity and emotion-wise, but the others further away who we don’t know first-hand?
Of course, from God’s perspective, our human condition is meant to be shaped in the Divine image, with the Holy Spirit rushing through us, with a gifting of faith thrown in, for good holy measure. Our humanity is meant to be dependent on God as the source of our being, the ultimate foundation not simply for church history and building sakes, but our ultimate grounding for our day-to-day living, including navigating all the extra steps and processes to make our lives all the more…interesting. Our humanity is meant to be integrally wired with not just the basic respect and care and love and compassion, but the cup-running-over level of it all.
And yet, part of our human condition, is the ability to choose not just random combinations of letters and numbers and characters, but how to carry out the respecting and caring and loving and compassionate-outpouring to benefit those near and far away, while also keeping in mind the personal need for wholeness and wellness, too. It is a life-long process and journey, to say the least.
But, oddly enough, at the conclusion of our whole mortal process, I don’t anticipate God congratulating us on “proving” anything. Granted, what we do certainly impacts those near and far away from us, let alone for our own selves; but from God’s perspective, our humanity is already claimed and adored and cherished from the beginning, to the point that not even death stands a chance from separating us from God’s love in Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. Thanks be to God, indeed!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad