24/8/25
To Foster an Encounter … Bring Your Empty Bowl.
It was a quirky little phrase that got my mind ticking and thinking.
It could be a catchphrase for one of those dating app things. A way through to the screen to foster an encounter with someone whom you probably haven’t met before. An encounter that hopefully might be fruitful and joyous.
But the person who said or wrote ‘To foster an encounter’ was a Christian religious leader of many people, and so they were obviously talking about encounters of another sort. Encounters with other people, encounters with the living presence of The Risen Christ.
How do we foster, encourage, allow, and make possible these encounters? A few quirky reflections from my desk.
Encounters with others and encounters with the Risen Master sometimes occur by chance, and sometimes they happen as a result of our conscious seeking and effort.
So part of this ‘fostering of encounters’ business is to make conscious decisions to actually encounter others and to encounter Him. We place ourselves in the right time and space in order for this experience, this meeting, to occur. There is an effort to be made.
All familiar and logical and things you have heard before.
But peel back the first layer of the onion skin and ask yourself this.
Do I encourage others to foster the possibility of an encounter through me? In modern lingo, am I the screen through which others might be tempted to click on a link that leads them deeper into the mystery of the God who adores them.
It seems to me that for others to encounter the Messiah via me, I first must have encountered Him myself and that somehow my attitude, my words, my countenance, my ambience must demonstrate clearly that encountering Him is a joyous and marvellous meeting and an ongoing relationship with the one who can never give up on us. Perhaps it's not all that much different from a dating app after all.
So having an attitude of joy, maybe even chortling or giggling sometimes, seems to be a good place to start. And showing forth that you are loved and that you KNOW that you are loved, must make a distinctive and discernible difference in how we live and how we interact with others and how they find us.
But there is a bit of risk here. And the risk is this. That we think that just because we have had the awesome privilege of encountering The Master, that we have all the answers and that we’ve got Him, and others haven’t. That it’s all gooey and mushy and lightning and rainbows and clearly the slick solutions and 8-character passwords are exclusively ours.
But so often when we seek and encounter those who need us, who are most broken, we find that actually we do not have the magic words after all. That instead of smart and savvy phrases all we can offer are our tears and emptiness. Instead of bandaids and fixing it all instantly solutions, we find to our horror that we are cursed with the most appalling void of inadequacy and there are no words. Instead of us bringing an encounter to the crumpled ones, in our incompetence and dereliction of solutions, the broken and smashed are the faces of the bruised Him, and they actually foster us with an encounter of the pierced Saviour. So in order to foster an encounter, maybe we should just come with an empty bowl and allow ourselves to be filled with their peace …His love …His peace.
Jacinda Ardern eloquently captured this upside down, round the wrong/right way, this role reversal, this piercing, reaching, ache for adequate words in her speech to parliament after the massacre in Christchurch in 2019, where 51 people were killed and 89 others were injured. She said
“We gather here, 14 days on from our darkest of hours. In the days that have followed the terrorist attack on the 15th of March, we have often found ourselves without words.
What words capture the anguish of our Muslim community being the target of hatred and violence? What words express the grief of a city that has already known so much pain?
We may have left flowers, performed the haka, sung songs, or simply embraced. But even when we had no words, we still heard yours, and they have left us humbled, and they have left us united.
They were simple words, repeated by community leaders who witnessed the loss of their friends and loved ones. Simple words, whispered by the injured from their hospital beds. Simple words, spoken by the bereaved and everyone I met who has been affected by this attack.
I thought there were no words, but then I came here and was met with this simple greeting. Your greeting. As-salaam Alaikum. Peace be upon you.”
In order to foster an encounter … First, bring your empty bowl.