The gospel is not about winners over losers; the gospel really is about win/win—but very few get the message! I have to admit, ashamedly, that some people in the business and education worlds are better at this than some people in the church. They are beginning to understand that life cannot simply continue to be posited in terms of winners and losers. There has to be a way that we both can advance together. Mothers tend to have a head start in understanding this as a result of negotiating and compromising with their own children—whom they want to love equally and fully. The cross is a way of winning that tries to bring along our opponent with us. The cross is refusing to hate or to humiliate the other, because that would only be to continue the same pattern and reciprocate the violence. The cross is about authentic newness. It utterly reframes the human question and forces us to redefine success. What is it we really want? What is it we’re really after? The cross is about flight, though, in the sense that we refuse the usual and predictable return punch. We flee from the predicted response so that something new and transformative can perhaps happen. We run from business as usual to reset the agenda, to reframe the question in a more positive way. It is also about fight, but with a whole new definition of what real power is and what real change is.
