Last summer I went to this Comic Convention, dressed in a very stupid and poorly made costume, and wandered about. I walked past a booth and recognized the name of a comic book illustrator I loved, Fabio Moon. I was dumbstruck by greatness, and there was no line at the moment, so I walked up to meet him.  I didn’t know what he looked like so I began the conversation poorly, “Are you the artist?” Then I immediately realized that I didn’t know which books he had done and which books his twin brother had done, and I was terrified to say anything else lest I reveal my great ignorance. So I murmured something like, “Your work is such and inspiration.” And then excused myself because he was clearly nonplussed with me in my Fat Thor/Big Lebowski costume.  So I immediately looked up all the books he had written or illustrated that I loved so much and hid myself under a rock for the rest of my life for how poorly I had interacted with an artist whose work I genuinely loved.

It’s easy to think you know someone you’ve never met when their words and work are public.  Famous authors, athletes, politicians, celebrities and  religious figures all have a way of enchanting us into thinking we have a relationship with them. And maybe there is a kinship when their ideas and stories have helped you better understand yourself and the world. But apart from a real I-Thou kind of relationship, they don’t really know you at all, and you honestly don’t know them much either. As someone who writes comics satirizing historical church figures, I am certain that for all I research about Martin Luther or John Wesley or Augustine, I don’t actually have friendship with them, nor they with me. I have ideas about them. And they know nothing of me.

Christianity makes the very bold claim that we could know God (at least in part) through Jesus Christ…that we could have a real, meaningful relationship…and that relationship goes two ways.  God knows us fully, takes interest in us, sees us as beloved. And God is fully revealed in Jesus, soul and flesh, birth/death/life, love and grace. And what remains mystery of God, “Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

I take a lot of comfort in that, especially when I struggle with the ugliness and hypocrisy of fellow Christians who proclaim to know and love the same Jesus I do. I sometimes wonder if we’re even talking about the same God, and if we are, how can our experiences of God’s love lead us to such remarkably different conclusions about how to love our neighbor. Now I know partially…and so do those siblings in Christ who do me harm with their policies and practices. But each of us are already completely known by God, and God is calling us to one another…to love and forgive and extend grace and mercy even as we long for justice. For all I have experienced and know of God, there is still so much infinitely more to know and love and experience.

Let us then love with humility, with open hearts to see the Christ at work in each other.