Dear Friends,
Chameleons.
They’re hardly the most beautiful of creatures, for sure, but they’re far from unfamiliar – it isn’t just Sir David A and all his wild-life-loving groupies who have heard of them. Everyone has: or pretty nearly everyone.
Run the word ‘chameleon’ past the public on the street, and most folk, I guess, will say they know (or think they know) a thing or two about them. Be sure of this, chameleons would certainly be right up there among the favourites, if ever the TV stations run a “Nature’s Got Talent” series: they’ve been described as just possibly “the world’s most talented reptiles”.
Not without due cause, I should add.
Eyes, for instance, with an astonishing ‘rotation’ of 1800 horizontally and 900 vertically, which can swivel in two different directions at once – eat your heart out, Marty Feldman (for those who remember the guy)!
And a tongue (which is of course its chief predatory weapon – and can be twice as long as its body, and more) – a tongue which can be fired out at a measured speed of 8,500 feet per second: for those who like to know these things, that translates to just shy of a staggering 5,800 mph!
Those are just two of what is indeed a remarkable repertoire of talents which this reptile has: but probably the best known ‘talent’ of them all is the chameleon’s famed ability to change its outward colour quite at will: an ability, I understand, which has less to do with camouflage (contrary to popular notions) and more to do with how these gifted animals communicate.
Something rather similar is what the Lord effects within the living of believers: a Spirit-wrought, ‘chameleonic’ aptitude to cope with and adapt to all the many varied settings where we’re taken in our walk with Christ. And although there are a range of points at which analogies may be drawn between believers and chameleons, it’s that particular aptitude I’d like to explore in this letter: the spiritual grace whereby, as those who’ve trusted in the Lord, we’re able to adapt to changing contexts and ‘blend in’ with our environment.
Without, of course, that aptitude resulting in a compromise.
It’s the challenge, I guess, of being in the world, but not of the world. Being in the world requires that there isn’t any place in our perspective for a ghetto-like mentality: refusing to be of the world ensures there’ll not be any compromise.
It’s a fine and delicate balance to maintain: but it’s a skill, or a grace, which is one of the striking hallmarks of our Lord. The ‘incarnation’ well illustrates the point. In assuming our humanity, the great Creator God Himself subtly ‘blended in’ with an environment so very, very different from the bright, expansive glory of eternity.
Remarkable really when you think of it! That the pure and perfect, infinitely great, Creator God could move among His creatures ‘incognito’ is .. well, practically unthinkable. Surely there’d be tell-tale signs! Surely He’d be different! Surely His whole bearing would just give the game away!
Yet no. That was simply not the case. He never ceased to be Himself the Son of God: but He changed His ‘colour’, as it were, ‘blended in’ to this new, strange, estranged environment on planet earth.
You may well want to argue that it is in fact our sin which blinds us to reality, which keeps our eyes from recognizing God Himself when we encounter Jesus. And, of course, that’s true. For those with ears to hear, it was the Word of God that they were hearing. For those with eyes to see, it was the Son of God on whom their eyes had lit. But sin has deprived us of ears and of eyes, and leaves us both deaf and blind. That’s true without a doubt: it’s part of the reason, certainly, why Jesus isn’t recognized for who He really is. Sin has simply blinded us.
But it’s not the whole reason. In part His being able to dwell among His creatures incognito was due to that ‘chameleonic’ grace He has whereby He simply ‘blended in’ with His environment: He adapted Himself to the context He had come to, the ‘country’ where He dwelt.
Not, I stress, for any sort of ‘camouflage’ so much as for ‘communication’ ends.
The famous early hymn Paul quotes (Phil.2.6-11) describes in many ways precisely this ‘chameleonic’ grace. Look at the terms that are used.
“.. He made Himself nothing, by taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
The form .. the likeness .. the appearance. Changing His colour, as it were. Adapting Himself to the fallen world of sinful, stained humanity. Not in any merely superficial way. Nor in any way which compromised His deity or purity. In the world: emphatically, totally inthe world – without being ever of the world.
This ‘chameleonic’ grace of Jesus Christ is manifestly humbling, as the hymn so well affirms; so very much expressive of obedience: and hugely, sorely costly. Note that well. Because it is just this self-same grace, so evident in Jesus, that His Spirit then ingrains into the fabric of our own renewed discipleship. The very hymn which eloquently celebrates our Lord’s great willingness and aptitude to ‘blend in’ with the context where He dwelt is prefaced by a summons to believers to embrace this costly lifestyle as their own.
We’re called to be ‘chameleons’, in other words. And that call of Christ to exercise this Spirit-wrought, ‘chameleonic’ grace will find expression in two important ways.
First, we learn to adapt to the local church environment in which we find ourselves.
Sitting in the metaphorical pews of the local Nazareth synagogue was hardly the same for Jesus as being seated on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the praise of celestial beings. Worship in the synagogue was limited, flawed, and not a patch on what the real thing’s like.
But the characteristic ‘chameleonic’ colour-change routine kicked in. He adapted. Didn’t kick up a fuss. Engaged with the way they did things there in Nazareth.
The apostle Paul was the same. The ultimate orthodox Jew, with traditions of worship and what it is to walk with God infused from the womb through every single fibre of his being: and yet, there he was as comfortable singing his heart out in a dingy, make-shift worship centre deep in the bowels of Philippi’s jail – as comfortable there as he was in Jerusalem’s temple. The ‘chameleon’ kicked in. His praise not constricted at all by the context he found himself in.
Isn’t that how it’s meant to be? Isn’t that how it will be? When we join with the saints in the glory of heaven and gather around the throne.
No-one then will be insisting and complaining, “We’ve aye done it this way”! We will all be uniting in worship the like of which none have yet known. Every nation. Every tongue. Every language. Every culture. A great, expansive tapestry of sound. An endless, rolling ocean full of praise, wave upon wave of both wonder and love, each wave so unique and distinctive, and breaking with effortless grace on the shore of the glory of God. A seamless, vast mosaic of the music of eternity, rich beyond all measure in variety and volume, a multi-coloured harmony of song, reflective of the glory of the great Creator God Himself, expressive of the heartfelt love and gratitude His people wish to bring.
Presbyterians just as much at home as any Pentecostal in the Hallelujah choruses being sung by an exuberant, expansive multitude of saints. Pentecostals just as much at home as any order-loving Anglican in the awed and reverent silence when the beauty and the majesty of Jesus Christ quite takes our breath away.
C S Lewis described the worship of heaven as what he called ‘the Great Dance’. ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ will seem suddenly dreadfully dull compared to this! The wildest ‘Strip the Willow’ will seem tortuously tame by comparison!
Music. Movement. Marvelling. A three-dimensional symphony of praise. A river of reverent joy, splashing down through the valleys of heaven in an endless crescendo of devotion, delight and desire! That Spirit-wrought ‘chameleonic’ grace believers have will come finally into its own, that colour-changing aptitude becoming then a constantly rotating, bright kaleidoscope of love.
Do you see what I’m getting at? The ability to adapt, chameleon-like, to the local church environment, whatever local ‘colour’ that may have, is equipping us all for heaven where such grace will come into its own.
Give me worship which is focused on Jesus and rooted in Scripture – and I can cope with the rest!
Wesley’s hymns being sung in the crowded, informal, hand-clapping, arm-raising, ‘Amen-shouting’ culture of a Methodist church in Barbados: the quiet, measured dignity of the ancient Anglican liturgy in an early morning service down in rural England: a noisy, rowdy, who-knows-what-is-coming-next united celebration in a Pentecostal church in Cumbernauld. All of them markedly different. But all of them focused on Jesus and rooted in Scripture: I can cope with the rest! No, stronger than that. I rejoice in the rest – even if it’s not what I’m familiar with and not in all regards, by any means, my ‘cup of tea’.
With the Anglicans I become an Anglican. With the .. well, you get the picture. You see just how this Spirit-wrought, ‘chameleonic’ grace translates across the living of our lives.
It’s Paul’s, “I have become all things to all people ..” (1 Cor.9.22), a ‘colour-changing’ aptitude whose exercise is all, says Paul, all “for the sake of the gospel.” It matters.
That, of course, is a pointer to the second important way in which, chameleon-like, we’re quick to give expression to this ‘colour-changing’ grace. We learn to adapt not only to the local church environment in which the Lord has set us: we learn to adapt to the local culture too.
There are challenges here as well. Chameleons may have their own distinctive, ‘default colour’: but they’re ready and able to change. This is surely the essence of gospel ministry. You see it in Jesus Himself: remember that staggering statement of Paul about Jesus – how He who knew no sin became sin, for our sake? No compromise or sin on Jesus’ part. Just the ‘chameleonic’, colour-changing aptitude which saw Him become one of us, in order that in Him we might become what He Himself is, the children of God.
The heart of the holy God is characterized thus, with that ‘chameleonic’ grace whereby He changed His colour and ‘adapted’ Himself to secure our truest good. Stunning. And saving.
Paul certainly got it, this principle of Christ-like, gospel grace. It ruined his career. It knocked on the head any notion he had to hit the heights of religious prestige and prominence. He became a slave to everyone: to the Jew he became a Jew: to the Greek he became all Greek: to the weak he became himself weak. All things to all people that by all possible means he might (be used by the Lord to) save some. The archetypal, spiritual chameleon, with his Christ-like heart for mission and his passion for the lost.
Hudson Taylor certainly got it too. Called by the Lord to China, he understood the principle enshrined in Jesus’ incarnation. He became one of them, dressing in Chinese clothes and growing a pigtail (as Chinese men of the time all did). ‘Chameleonic’ grace – and see how that was so marvelously and massively used by God!
How incumbent it is on ourselves today to get this principle, too, and to exercise this Spirit-wrought ‘chameleonic’ grace – right across the spectrum of our worship, work and witness in the life we live in Christ.
Yours in our risen Lord and Saviour,
Jeremy Middleton