Stop

Stop.

Please, stop.

Please, stop beating your chest like a war drum in the face of anyone with whom you disagree. Stop yelling and arguing and condemning. Stop with the farcical history lessons and the condescending sneers and the brow beating and the bible thumping. Please, stop.

Please, stop playing the martyr. It is entitlement, not blood, that you are oozing. Stop posturing and manipulating. Please, stop.

Don't you understand how insane this is? 

The One you claim to follow, the One whose "champion" you aim to be, He gave up everything. He gave up status and privilege and honor and dignity and took up humility and scorn and shame and disgust. He gave up supremacy for servility. He gave up his rights and his home in order to love -- to serve -- those who despised Him.


He was falsely accused

                                                          and beaten

                                                                                    and crucified

 
...and the only thing that poured out of him, aside from his own blood, was a plea for mercy - not for himself -- but for those who had accused and beaten and crucified him.

He stood up for the harlot. That woman who had been dragged into town, her infidelities exposed, her clothes torn from her to heighten her shame -- when all the world would have gathered around to gawk and heap their own scorn upon her -- he stooped beside her and spoke tenderly. 

Don't you see how your Lord treats those we might all be tempted to label as outcasts or unclean or unfit?

When they tempted him with politics, tried to stir him to rebellion, reminded him that Jewish coin was being paid to maintain the empire of a man who claimed to be god -- if there was ever a reason for fire and vengeance and crusade surely this was it, if there was ever a man-who-actually-was-god who had a right to call for that crusade it was him -- he wanted no part of it. He ceded even to Caesar the preposterous claim of ownership over materials he himself had breathed into existence.

Don't you see how outrageous it is for us to act like we own anything?

They quoted scripture at Him, too. They shook their scrolls and spat those holy words through clenched teeth. "Don't you know what is written?!" they screamed -- to the One who was himself the very Word they now presumed to wield against him. Calmly -- Calmly! In the face of the vilest insurrection creation has ever known he still was calm -- he reminded them his words were for us, they were to guide us and to uplift us and to free us.

Don't you see how absurd it is that we use them to batter and berate and imprison?
 
How dare we?

How dare we, who supposedly love and honor and follow Him, act in ways that are so thoroughly contrary to the example that he set? How dare we demand our rights and then claim to follow One who gave up all rights? How dare we presume to subdue an empire and then claim to represent the One who swore His kingdom was not of this world?

You want to be a hero? You want to be a crusader? You want to stand on the steps of the court and shout about how right you are and how wrong they are?

You'll have to find a companion other than Jesus. 

You can't serve two masters. You can't serve both Jesus and your own self-righteousness, your own status or self-worth. You will, you must, eventually love one and hate the other.

So, I'm begging you, stop. Stop the vindictiveness; stop the arrogance; stop acting like you -- and you alone -- have the power to stop those sinners, by whatever means necessary, from doing whatever it is they're doing.

And please, please, stop thinking this country owes you the right to do so. 
 
Just... stop.

Limits

I've mentioned on here a few times that I am something of an amateur gardener. I have two small plots out in the back where I grow things like carrots, potatoes, green beans, strawberries (etc.), and a host of assorted herbs. I've been at it for three years now, and each season the yields are a little better, the bugs a little easier to control, and the plants a little healthier. Some of that has to do with the maturing soil, to be sure, but some of it also has to do with the fact that I've started to learn these plants. I've learned what conditions help them grow and how keep them flourishing, even into the hot summer months; I've learned how to be light-handed in my care, eschewing pesticides for companion plants and actually encouraging the presence of some bugs in order to control others, etc. I've also learned the best times and ways to harvest and preserve that harvest so that it holds its freshness until each carrot or green bean or cantaloupe makes it to our table.

There is a kind of beauty to this process.

For example, I learned recently that even the time of day in which you harvest makes a difference. Consider basil. If you pick it too early in the morning, the dew actually impedes the production of the oils that really bring out its flavor, so it can taste bland. If you pick it too late in the day, the heat of the day can cause those oils to evaporate and leave it tasting bitter or sour. So, there is this sweet spot when you need to pick your basil if you really want it to taste like basil, and, the important thing is, it doesn't matter what time I'd prefer to pick basil. If I'm just not a morning person and would prefer to do my foraging in the afternoon, the basil doesn't care. If I'm really a morning person and, by the demands of my schedule or family arrangements, just need to do the work before the dew clears, the basil isn't going to suddenly start producing those oils in order to accommodate me. Of course, I am free to pick that basil whenever I want to, the leaves don't just appear at the right time for picking, but if I really want to enjoy it, if I want all that time and effort I've spent (selecting the plant and then seeing to its growth) to matter, I will have to abide by the limits of its nature.

Now, what's interesting to me is, rather than bristle at them, we seem to accept these limits in almost every sphere of life.

We know that a limitation of our skin is that, if we stay out in the sun for too long without any kind of sunscreen, it will burn. We know that, if we spend all night drinking without also being intentional about drinking water, we will get dehydrated, we will probably get sick, and we are guaranteed to wake up with terrible hangover. I have personally learned that dogs, as opposed to cats, do not need a whole lot of protein, and, if you feed them too much of it, you will have quite a mess to clean up later. (Too much?)

So, why is it, then, that we bristle at the mere suggestion that these limits might also exist in relation to human relationships and sexuality?

Granted, the church has definitely, of late, done a terrible job in the way it communicates those limits. Recently, I saw a video of guy absolutely destroying a beautifully cooked brisket, hacking away at all of the most flavorful parts and reducing it to a dry, flavorless piece of grey meat. (Seriously, as he lopped off all of that wonderfully rendered fat and casually discarded it into the garbage, I felt like a part of me died inside.) The commenters were ruthless. For days, they seemed to delight in butchering the guy as horrifically as he'd butchered that brisket -- to the point that it left me feeling sad for the fellow to have been treated that way and embarrassed that my own reaction was so much in line with what I saw playing out below.

And that would be a pretty good metaphor for the way the religious right has handled sexuality. They've stood above those with whom they disagree and hurled insults and subjected them to vicious tirades. They've sought to shout the people they oppose out of existence, or at the very least into some hidden, dark corner where they can be forgotten about. In so doing, they set themselves up as arbiters of what seemed like a host of arbitrary rules and proclaimed judgment on all who dared oppose them. Just like a pack of internet commenters, they sought power and manipulation rather than humility and grace -- which why there are a growing number of folks who are uncomfortable with the dogmatic articulations of their parent's faith.

However... and this is an important "however"... the sins of the commentariat do not, on their own, invalidate the truth of the limits they uphold. There really is a conversation to be had about the way to carve a brisket that best preserves the texture and flavors all those hours of cooking were meant to create. When viewed rightly, those rules -- those limits -- actually enable us to enjoy the brisket better, and isn't that what we're after?

So, if that's the case with brisket (or when to pick basil, or how to care for your skin, etc.)... why not sexuality?

Blindness

A general in the Athenian navy, Sophocles had seen the empire at it's height, parlaying the fame of rebuffing the Persian conquest into domestic dominance. In the years that followed, however, he'd also seen it falter, seen the dream that was Athens crumble under it's own hubris as one Greek city-state, and then another, chafed under Athenian despotism and broke ranks, as her people suffered under Spartan blockade and plague ravaged the city--and it was in the midst of that decline that he penned Oedipus Rex, a play that is actually not primarily about incest (Freud's interest notwithstanding) but about human ignorance.

See, the real tragedy of Oedipus is not that he kills his dad and marries his mom. It's that he doesn't know who he is, and, worse still, he doesn't know that he doesn't know. He's not some immoral scum bag, who simply gets what he deserves. He's presented throughout the play as someone, brave and strong and intelligent, who is simply trying to do what's right. However, because he's ignorant of this one important thing - because he suffers from this one crucial blindness - it's that very pursuit of what's right that actually secures his condemnation.

To put a really fine point on it: If Oedipus is really the foreign prince he thinks he is, everything he does in the play is absolutely justifiable. Switch him out for any other person, have them do the exact same things, and the play is no longer a tragedy. That is, what makes Oedipus' actions so horrible is not what they are but who he is.

So, he stands at the end of the play - condemned and exiled for sins he never would have chosen to commit, if only he'd known he was committing them - and gouges out his eyes, a physical representation of the blindness he's suffered all along.

---

It seemed so hilarious at the time. A bunch of idiot, high school sophomores, we didn't think twice as we laid out our plans for crashing her birthday party. We laughed the whole time as we imagined stealing the cake, exacting our revenge against the indignity of having been left off the invitation list. Lucky me, I got to be one of the ones to stay behind to try and deflect the blame. I got to be there, in the room, as the reality of what had happened slowly sank in for her, got to see the huge tears well up in her eyes as she stumbled around, asking - in little more than a whisper - "Why? Why would someone do this?" over and over and over.

When I finally made it back to my friend's basement, we ate cake by the fistful, chasing it with milk straight from the jug, and reveled in our genius. We were kings, crusading warriors against the Stepford suburbanites, shaking off the superficial niceties of the bourgeois it crowd and taking the respect we deserved. That night was a statement, a flag firmly planted, a future life claimed. It was the defining image of the kind of person I was sure I wanted to be.

More than fourteen years have passed since that night and I still carry the shame of it. I can't even remember the girl's name at this point, but, when I close my eyes, I can still see her face, a lingering monument to the depths of my depravity.

And the distressing reality is, the landscape of my life groans under the weight of those accumulated monuments, those torn-down altars, the ruins of past certainties, each one echoing with the same questions:

How could I have been so sure? 

How could I have been such a fool?

Truth is, we've all been there, haven't we? You're sitting there, as your heart beat slows and your hands unclench, and suddenly the awful weight of what you just said, to someone you supposedly care about, settles onto your chest. Or, in the rare clarity of a quiet evening, the floor of your convictions on one topic or another gives way a bit and all you can think about are all the people you cut out of the "us" in your life because you were so sure of this now defective dogma. Or, maybe years later, you summon up the memory of some moral victory and find it doesn't shine quite like it used to. Or...

In the midst of the emotion and self-justification, it seemed so right, didn't it? Maybe you even congratulated yourself for finally being able to say it. Maybe you even felt sorry for those other people who just had no idea how wrong they were. In your own Oedipal ignorance, you drew a big, red line around what you just knew was right, armed yourself to defend it, and quietly thanked the Lord that He'd seen fit to show you this truth, asked Him for the courage to do what needed to be done to defend it.

Then later, as you rehearse the memory, you realize that, out of the corner of your eye, the "Lord" looks an awful lot like yourself.

---

Of course, the scriptures ring with the theme of Oedipus. "There is a way that seems right to a man," the Proverbs caution, "but in the end it leads to destruction." Jeremiah warns, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" Jesus makes his way to the top of a hill and proclaims: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"

The horror of our sin is that it disguises itself as righteousness.

We are, all of us, stumbling around in the dark, groping for our sunglasses. We are, all of us, running down various roads in our lives that will lead to pain and repentance, completely overcome by the siren song of our own hearts--and, like Oedipus, we have no idea.

It really helps one to sympathize with the disciples who cried out, after listening to a particularly hard teaching of Jesus, "Who then can be saved?"

It's the quintessential human response, isn't it? If you're telling me that I'm so blind I don't even know I'm blind, that I'm so inwardly spun around that even when I try to do right thing, I only add to my guilt, that my heart rather than a beacon of sincerity and truth is actually complicit in my self-delusion, what hope is there that I could ever escape? What could anyone ever do? How could you ever be sure you knew or believed things that were true?

The scriptures' solution, here, runs absolutely contrary to what we naturally want. 

You're right, Jesus says. "With man, this is impossible." You can't think your way out of ignorance from which you don't even know you suffer. You can't set up walls against your own heart. No matter how hard you try, you can't grope your way out of self-imposed darkness. You want out? "I am the way." You're going to have to trust that I can get you out. You want to know what is true? "I am the truth." You're going to have to get to know me. You want to live rightly? "I am the life." You're going to have to die and let me live in you.

 ---

I was raised in a hodge-podge of churches - Baptist, Evangelical Free (Lutheran), Non-denominational, etc. - and even spent time in a Third-Wave, Charismatic church. In my freshman year of college, however, I found my way into the Reformed branch of theology through a combination of my own study and a persistent friend who constantly challenged and prodded my beliefs (patiently enduring my anger-fueled rants) until I finally had to admit I had no answers for hers. 

I remember feeling so ashamed as I went back and catalogued all of things I'd thought were so right that I now knew were so wrong. 

Yet, without an ounce of self-awareness, I hurled myself once more into another new theology, became as zealous for it as I'd previously been against it. The same anger I'd held for my friend for daring to challenge my previous doctrine, I now bent against those who'd taught me the doctrine, in the first place. The same absurdity, even immorality, I'd ascribed to her, I now heaped upon them. Determined not to find myself in that situation again, when I graduated, I enrolled in a Presbyterian Seminary. I studied languages and history and systematic theology, the right systematic theology, and traded out all of my old certainties for new ones.

Since then, even some of those certainties have begun to fade -- replaced, no doubt, with fresh truths that are equally self-evident. 

The thing is, at each stage of that journey, I wasn't some lone ranger, taking up the standard of my particular beliefs and fighting a war that no one else wanted to fight. Rather, in all corners, I've found legions of others, just as committed as I, just as sure of the foolishness or ignorance of everyone else, just as willing to argue and post and judge. 

Just like Oedipus, however, the trouble isn't with what we were doing, exactly. The desire - for the right path, for the right knowledge, for the right life - is a good desire. The trouble lies with who we are. We are ignorant and deceitful and arrogant. We are the blind, hell-bent on leading ourselves, to say nothing of all the other the other blind people "out there," and all the while we ignore the only "fix" that Jesus ever offered anyone: "Come to me."

Jesus didn't offer us the right set of doctrines, or the one, true denomination. He offered us himself, the author and perfecter of any faith that we might possess.

 ---

I can hear the objection rising, here. In fact, I can actually hear it in a younger version my own voice:

"That's all well and great, but how can you come to Jesus without defining who he is? Don't you run the risk of worshiping some other god by mistake?" 

Well, younger self, is that how any other relationship has ever worked in your life? When you met your wife, when you first sat across the lunch table and were captivated by her smile, when you first thought, "I could spend my life with her," -- were you ever seized with fear that, unless you could perfectly define or explain her, you might end up pursuing or even loving someone else by mistake?

Have you ever, throughout the decade since you joined your life to hers, actually been able to define or explain her?

So, what exactly are we afraid of, here?  

The solution, for all our copious blindnesses - whether relational, theological, or personal - is not more of us, more of our striving or studying, or more of our attempts at humility or wisdom or self-control. The solution is, as it has always been:

"Be still and know that I am God" 

To which, my daily response is, "Lord, I believe. Please, help my unbelief."

 

A brief narrative pt. 2

Back in October, I introduced the idea of telling stories as a means of exploring and, perhaps, better understanding the stories we find in scripture, and began with a short story about Peter -- if you didn't get a chance to read it then, I'd invite you to have a look (there is also a more detailed explanation of the rationale behind this approach).

Today, we continue that series..

-------------------------------------------------------

No! The governor's shoulders drooped. Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I must do to you now?

"My kingdom..." The man's words hung like weight around the governor's neck.

He'd done everything he could, given the man every possible opportunity to escape the fate that  those two little words had all but rendered certain, but there would be no turning back now. Rome would tolerate no rival -- especially not one from this disgusting corner of the empire that seemed so empty of any value and yet so full of men who would rule it.

His mind wandered to the other two who'd been slated for execution. Thieves, yes, but not just any thieves... rebels, too. The air was full of rebellion; the streets trembled with unrest. These would certainly not be the first to be crucified and, by the look of things, would likely not be the last.

Then, there's this fool. The room snapped back into focus, just as the man was saying something about "truth."

Truth? You want to talk about truth? The only truth that matters here is that Rome will crucify every man, woman and child in this hell hole you call home, if you don't learn your place. Do you understand what you're up against? Augustus, the very son of god, has conquered the whole of the known world. His enemies have been brought to ruin; his glory knows no equal; and you -- you poor, worthless beggar -- you think you can even hint at being a king and not be crushed under the full weight of his power? Just who--

He'd have continued in that internal tirade were it not for the smile the began to break out at the corners of the man's mouth.

At once, the governor felt as though he were being squeezed between two worlds. Outside, the raucous crowds hungered for spectacle and blood, threatening violence if denied. Inside, this pitiful beggar, this madman, breathed his own death into the room, seemed to smile at the thought of it.

And suddenly... suddenly, it seemed both -- the crowds and the man -- intended to walk the very road the governor had been trying so desperately to avoid.
  
You... want... to die?

Render unto Caesar

I have often had a rather uncomfortable relationship with the more public face of my religion, the people who are often chosen to represent Christianity in the public sphere, whether selected by a less-nuanced (and perhaps controversy hungry) national media or simply by virtue of their ability to shout louder than everyone else. (In fact, I mentioned this discomfort as one of the reasons I started this blog to begin with.)

For one, more often than not, they only ever seem to be able to show one of two emotions: outrage or fear. They give speeches and write articles which either sound the march to war (boycott! protest! call your congressman!) or ring the warning bells of persecution (they are trampling our rights!), and seem to have little room for empathy or mutual understanding. However, more than just the emotional responses, the thing at which I find I cringe the most is the moral superiority complex that inspires them -- a complex that seems to say: unless you believe as I do or choose to live in ways that line up with what I understand to be "right," you are not worthy of my care or concern and no obligation I have to you is valid.

To make this more concrete: I recently came across the story of (now, ex-) Atlanta Fire Chief, Kelvin Cochran on the interwebs, who was fired just this month. Now, according to the right reverend Franklin Graham, Cochran's firing is an example of what he believes to be a continually growing practice of religious persecution in this country. By Graham's telling, Cochran was a great Fire Chief of upstanding character who just happened to be Christian and also just happened to put together some small, self-published materials for a bible study in his church that had a tiny section on sexual immorality. That section was discovered somehow (Graham conspicuously fails to tell us how) and, since it was out of line with popular opinion (equating homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality), some "gay council member" with an axe to grind, "went on a rampage" and got Cochran fired.  

Persecution! Call the mayor!

The problem with Graham's telling is... it's not exactly true. What Graham, and others, conveniently leave out is that Cochran wasn't fired because he wrote the book, but because he then distributed that book to several of his employees. To state that more plainly: A public official, who was in charge of a public institution, wrote and distributed a book to his employees in which he equates a particular group of people -- some of whom may have been among that group of employees -- to pedophiles or people who have sex with animals. So, that public institution (namely, the local government) -- which already had rules in place that forbid that kind of perceived public condescension and of which Mr. Cochran was fully aware when he accepted the job -- fired him.

Watch out! Here come the PC police! 

Of course, what really makes this an issue is that Graham (et al) skim over all of that (or, rather, don't mention any of it at all) and instead remind us, with what feels like a shake of his finger, that what Cochran wrote, "simply restates God’s position put forth in His Word, the Bible."

Can't you see?? He was fired for believing the BIBLE! Be afraid! Contact your congressman! You DO believe in the bible, don't you?


But... what if we consider Jesus' attitude in this regard?

"Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, 'Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?' But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, 'Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.' And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, 'Whose likeness and inscription is this?' They said, 'Caesar's.' Then he said to them, 'Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away." (Matthew 22:15-22)

For this passage to make much sense, you need to know that the Pharisees' question isn't about financial policy or responsibility but about loyalty and obligation. At the time, the Jews were actually beholden to two different taxes, the temple tax and the Roman census tax. The purpose behind the temple tax was to support the priests and maintain the temple. More precisely, it was what allowed the temple to be the temple. In that vein, the Roman census tax, which is what is in question here, is what allowed the Empire to be the Empire -- the same empire ruled by a man who claimed to be the Divi Filius - the son of god! - and which gave reverence to a whole host of gods other than Yahweh. With that in mind, we can see the question takes on a rather pointed tone:

You claim to be the Son of God and to be advancing his kingdom. So, tell us, is it lawful within that kingdom to give your money to support a rival?

Pretty tricky, right? The Pharisees seem to have cornered Jesus as either a political agitator or a fraud. If he says it's illegal to pay the tax, he's outed himself as an agitator, which gives the Pharisees all the evidence they need to get the Romans involved. If he says you should pay the tax, he's a fraud, more concerned about the safety of his own skin than the legitimacy of the kingdom he has been proclaiming.

Jesus' response, however, turns the whole question on it's head.  

The coins you use to pay that tax, whose face is on them? (Caesar's) Then, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

His choice of words here is important -- we must not mistake "render" for the more sterile "give." Render (greek: "apodote") implies debt, something that must be repaid.

That is... you must "give back to Caesar what you owe him." 

We just can't miss this. However they felt about it, the Jews did live within the confines of what was considered the Roman Empire and had even benefited from the peace the empire established as well as the roads and irrigation systems it had developed. In fact, the very silver they used as currency had been mined and coined by the Romans. And how did the Romans pay for all of that? Taxes -- the very same taxes that were used for war and expansion, to pay the salaries of priests who devoted themselves to idols and led others in worship to the same, and to expand the reach and influence of a man who claimed to be what Jesus actually was.

In the face of all of that, Jesus is essentially saying: If you live in the Empire and benefit from the good things it provides and make use of the Emperor's money, you fall under the obligation of the tax. Your commitment to the kingdom of God is not an excuse from the obligations you have to the earthly societies in which you participate. 

So, more pointedly, if you distribute religious literature to your employees even though your employer says you can't, you don't get to jump and holler and scream, "Persecution!" when they fire you.

If you live in Caesar's Empire and make use of Caesar's silver, your commitment to the bible does not absolve you of his taxes.

New Year's Resolution

It's a hard thing to admit, but it occurred to me yesterday that, for the better part of a decade, I have been asking my wife -- no -- rather, pleading with her to walk in idolatry.

Have you ever had a moment like that, a moment of painful clarity where the facade of self-justification you've built around your sin suddenly... evaporates?

See, what I had told myself all this time was that I was just trying to be a good husband. Tired, but feel like the house is a mess? I'll clean it! Exhausted from fighting with the kids all day? I'll take them! I can make sure they get fed and bathed and put to bed. Need to make an appointment or get someone to come work on the house? I'll find a way to make those calls between classes. Does the car need work? I'll take it in! Don't want me to be out of the house that long? I'll find away to take off of work or go in extra early. When it felt like too much, when I struggled under the weight of everything I'd taken on, I'd remind myself that I was called to give up my life on behalf of my wife just like Christ had given up his life for the church; I'd resolve to set the alarm a little earlier, to be a little more organized, and move on.

The trouble arose, however, whenever one of those tasks inevitably either fell through the cracks or wasn't done correctly. 

Maybe I'd forget to make one of those phone calls, or get so busy I never had the time. Maybe I'd clean but would forget to dust a particular counter. Maybe I'd step in to cook dinner and mess up the recipe. Maybe I'd take over managing the kids but not quite get them to bed on time. Whatever it was, just let my wife say one thing about how something I'd done wasn't quite what she'd expected it to be and watch out.

The next several hours would follow a rather predictable pattern. First, I'd get angry that she could be so ungrateful.

Here I was, doing all this stuff - for her! - and all she could do was criticize? 

Then, I'd spend an hour thinking to myself and, eventually, telling her how unreasonable she was and how she needed to be less critical and more supportive. Of course, a fight would ensue and, at the end, there would be one of two conclusions: either she'd have to admit she was unreasonable and make up her mind to be less so, or I'd have to admit her criticism was justified and would make up my mind to do better or work harder next time.

A week or even just a few days later, something else would get missed and we'd be at it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

---

I have responded to this cycle in various ways over the course of our marriage. Sometimes, I convince myself I really am the forgetful, or absent-minded mess I feel I'm made out to be when we fight. So, I make all kinds of resolutions to cut out whatever might be distracting me, to work harder at being organized, or to try to understand better just what, exactly, my wife is looking for in various tasks. Other times, I sadly manage to convince myself I married a woman who is simply impossible to please. So, I resolve to keep doing what I can, but to be less affected by her criticism or, in my eyes, her lack of grace.

However, what I realized yesterday is, underneath all the striving and frustration, what I really want, more than anything, is to be enough for my wife. 

I want her to look out over the chaos that is her life, especially with two kids, and feel she can survive, even thrive, because she has a partner who could meet her needs, whom she delights to be with and who can fill in or lift her up when she felt weak. I want that cheesy, hallmark sentiment -- "As long as we have each other, we have all we need" -- to be true for us. So, when she says or does something that communicates that I'm not enough, I either decide to work harder to achieve that goal, or decide that I actually am enough, but she's simply too critical to see it. Indeed, for almost the entirety of our marriage, I've essentially been attempting to sell my wife on the idea that I either already am or could eventually be sufficient for her.

The problem with that is it's a lie. I am not now, and can never be enough for my wife -- nor was I ever meant to be!

Only Jesus can know and love and strengthen her as she truly needs. Only Jesus can fill the parts of her life that feel dark or empty. Only Jesus can meet the desires in her heart for something grand or beautiful or soul-satisfying. Only Jesus can make sense of each struggle she faces. Only Jesus is enough for my wife. With each promise to work harder, with each argument for my wife to be less critical, what I have been doing is asking her to accept from me what she can only truly receive from Jesus.

What I really want is not to be a good husband or 

to have a gracious wife. What I really want is to be god.

 
Hence, the idolatry.

---

So, as we make the turn into the new year, having realized this, I thought perhaps a different type of resolution would be in order. No more white-knuckled promises to be better or do more, no more cold-hearted oaths to be less affected by criticism, this year this husband resolves:

1) To strive to remember, in every frustration and every failure, that I am not sufficient and that only Christ is enough 

 

AND

 

2) To no longer hope or labor under the delusion than I can be for my wife, or give to her, what only Jesus can

I figure, if I no longer feel compelled to be god, then maybe, just maybe, I'll no longer need to prove my wife wrong when she reveals that I'm not. (Maybe we can even work together as we each seek to let Jesus be enough for the both of us.)

Any of you husbands care to join me?

An advent meditation

It must have felt like hours, as she raged inside her tiny prison, the walls standing resolute against her screams, the door refusing to yield under a torrent of blows. The crawlspace at the base of her bed's headboard had seemed like a great place to hide, just the right size for a young girl to squeeze inside and escape detection. In the dark, however, as the minutes trickled by and no one came to find her, she had quickly changed her mind. When the door wouldn't budge, her uneasiness exploded into panic as she beat and kicked and roared against the darkness that confined her.

By the time my parents finally heard my sister's cries, they found a tear-stained, snotty mess with bloodied knuckles, who would carry the emotional scars of that ordeal the rest of her life.

There are, of course, a thousand beautiful pictures wrapped up in the Incarnation -- that God comes to his broken people, like a father stooping into the mud to scoop up a wounded child, for example -- but for me, the picture that really gives life to this season is tied to that memory of my sister.
  
Have you ever stopped to think how impossible it all seems? The great God of all the universe -- simultaneously present at all times and in all places, the foundation of all being, the source from which the whole material universe was derived -- squeezed, a raging torrent of life and power, within the confines of an infant's weak and helpless body? The immaterial and the material, Spirit and flesh, God and, yet, a little baby -- is there any greater contrast? Could any chasm seem more unbridgeable?

We always tend to think of the birth of Jesus as a peaceful, happy occasion, but there is violence there as well. A member of the trinity who had existed with the others in perfect harmony and self-fulfillment is stripped of this perfect existence and introduced to hunger and fear. He is wrenched away from those who know and love him perfectly and put in dependence on those who can never understand Him. In fact, later, we will find this Jesus, as a grown man, doubled over in a garden, agonizing under the burden of his mission as he weeps and sweats blood, pleading with his own alienated Deity for release.

Far more than the serenity of star light and wise men, far more than the sweet and smoky aromas of frankincense and myrrh, it is that image -- the image of Jesus struggling, just like my sister, within the bonds of his humanity -- to which I most relate.

Don't you?

How often do your hopes of what life could be -- of loving your spouses or children well, of being generous and kind and honorable, of using your time and your resources to be gracious and generous to others -- get trapped in the struggle what life actually is? How often does stress consume your gentleness? How often does obligation ensnare your generosity? How often does the daily agenda cripple your ability to love?

Aren't we all constantly at war against our claustrophobic lives?

Yet, here in this advent season, as we prepare our hearts to celebrate the Baby in the manger, we are met with the greatest truth of all:

He knows.

He knows what it means to hunger and to be tired and to go wanting. He knows what it means to ache for more in our relationships, to struggle under the demands of others. He knows the tyranny of time and expectation. He knows how stress and fear and obligation bind us and hold us back from our grand intentions.

He knows.

And we are not alone.