Deconstructing the Marriage Metaphor of Ephesians 5 - Part 2

Yesterday in Part 1, I presented the traditional interpretation of the marriage metaphor offered by Paul in Ephesians 5. Today I want to deconstruct the traditional understanding of marriage based on this passage by offering a different perspective.

In Ephesians 5:22-27 the relationship between the head and the body, or the husband and the wife, cannot be understood apart from the reigning paradigm in verse 21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This model of mutual submission is then fleshed out in the following three spheres of relationships addressed by Paul: marriage, parenting, and management.

Starting with the last and working my way backward, slaves submit by humble obedience and wholehearted service while masters submit by treating their slaves with kindness and fairness. Children submit by obeying and honoring their parents while fathers submit by not exasperating their children but instead by involved nurturing. Assuming consistency, Paul also applies the paradigm of mutual submission to the husband and wife relationship.

Interestingly when Paul addresses the marital relationship, not much is offered as to how the wife submits to the husband. At least, not until the end of his discourse on marriage (5:33) after Paul explains how the husband earns her respect. This is conjecture on my part but perhaps the readers of Paul’s day know fairly well what submission looks like for wives (they have been submitting for hundreds of years) and that is why Paul’s instruction to wives is not very exciting.

What is new to the church is the part about husbands submitting to wives. This kingdom-defining, cultural-defying relational dynamic could be considered part of the “Lord’s will” in wise and Spirit-filled living (verses 15-20). So Paul offers more thoughts on what a husband’s submission should look like.

And it should look like Christ’s love for the Church. It is a love that sacrifices for the other and puts the other before him. However, the analogy must not be taken too far to say that a husband’s love does for the wife what only Christ can do. A husband does not make a wife holy – only Christ does. A husband cannot cleanse her through the word – only Christ does. A husband does not present his wife to Christ as a pure and blameless bride – only Christ does. Every metaphor breaks down at some point.

During the first few years of my marriage, I had a very clear picture of what I expected from Jon – a knight in shining armor come to rescue me from my slide into a spiritual pit. The slide had begun just before I graduated from Bible college. I was the top student in my class but as I had gained skill in dissecting the Scripture, I slowly lost my passionate love for Christ. By the time I got married, I knew something was terribly wrong and I had hopes that Jon as my “head” would lead me back to Christ.

That didn’t happen. And for good reason. Jon was not my “savior.”

As the awareness of my spiritual state increased so did the panic. I did everything I could to avoid the slide down, digging my heels deep into the side of the hill through counsel, mentoring, reading, and praying. I tried to respond to Jon’s attempts to lead but he had his own journey of shedding his family’s forms of spirituality and gaining his own. It was painfully awkward for both of us. Then I gave birth to three sons in three years and family devotions became child-friendly but not desperate-wife-friendly.

Sometime between births I quit taking communion. That’s when it hit Jon that I was in deep trouble spiritually. He felt helpless. Seven years into our marriage I hit bottom and abandoned my faith in Christ.

But Christ did not abandon me. Christ revealed himself to me and I was transformed. (That’s a long story.)

That transformation not only impacted my journey with Christ but it also impacted my journey with Jon. We began a new dance.

A dance of adults in which we individually took ownership of our own spirituality.

A dance of equals in which we respected each other’s unique form of spirituality and leadership.

A dance of lovers in which we shed our facades and grew in love and knowledge of each other’s true selves.

A dance of full humanity in which we faced our weaknesses and leaned into each other’s strengths.

In those years after my transformation, our dance was really awkward, at times painful as we stepped on each other’s toes. But with each passing year we got better at dancing. And it’s still getting better. Sometimes he leads and sometimes I lead. The leader is the one who is stronger and more gifted. The follower is the one who humbly accepts limitations and trusts the other. 

Over time the dance has become smoother. It’s become more graceful. Thirty-three years later it’s definitely more fun!

Tomorrow I’ll examine more closely Ephesians 5:28-33 to show the importance of and connection to Genesis 2:24: A man leaves his father and his mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Deconstructing the Marriage Metaphor of Ephesians 5 - Part 1

Metaphors are powerful. With a picture that’s worth a thousand words, they inform us. Like the focus dial on a projector, they clarify concepts for us. Like the miracle of metamorphosis, they transform us. The language of metaphors translates the unknown and abstract into concrete and known. It opens doors to discovery and truth that previously eluded us.

But at times the meaning of a metaphor is perplexing, especially when it’s used within an ancient cultural context. Understanding metaphors takes work. The images demand patience as they invite us “to walk around and look at the connection to a concept in different ways,” says Walter Brueggeman.

A metaphor is imprecise by nature. Yet it is accurate in its purpose to get our attention and arouse our emotions and imaginations. It invites examination but resists efforts to reduce it to a statement of facts. The same metaphor can be used differently depending on the context. But it also can absorb layers of meaning as it shifts with each reader’s context.

Lately I’ve been thinking about marriage metaphors. Like the one in Ephesians 5:22-33.

By tradition, the metaphor has been reduced to a model and a mandate: The husband is the authoritative head to which the wife, his body, submits. In everything. Therefore the husband must be the spiritual leader of the home and the wife must be the respectful follower. Lately conservative interpreters have added a halo of loving sacrifice on his head.

No mystery here.

The problem is Paul says there is a mystery. In fact there is a PROFOUND mystery. In verse 32 Paul explicitly ascribes it to Christ and the Church. But he also clearly links the mystery to the “one flesh” union of a husband and wife in verse 31. The quote from Genesis 2:24 occupies a special place in the immediate context which serves then to inform the head and body metaphor used by Paul. But before I address the significance of verse 31, let me back up to the previous verses and suggest an alternative understanding of those verses.

Tomorrow I’ll approach the metaphor introduced by Paul in Ephesians 5:22-27 from another angle that I believe offers a different perspective of a “biblical” marriage.

Love and Laundry

Soon after my mother moved to Portland from Florida to live with my family, she decided to make the trip to Osaka to say goodbye to relatives, including her firstborn daughter.  Yes, I have an older sister, a half sister. It’s a long story.

It was 1954, not too long after World War II. When Japan surrendered, Okinawa became a U.S. possession as well as a strategic location for military bases. The federal government recruited heavily from the United States. My dad signed up to find adventure and get away from Pennsylvania. Boarding a ship in California, he sailed across the Pacific Ocean and got a job with the Marine Corps as a civilian. He was 36, single and, as he told me later, frustrated in his efforts to find a wife.

So he found one in Okinawa. My dad and mom fell in love and got married in September, 1956. Then I was born. Two months later.

 So what happened between the boat and the birth? A unique courtship. You see, my mother is a deaf-mute and she was never educated. She can’t read or write.

One of my aunts had her own romantic version of their courtship which she loved telling whenever I saw her. For many years I thought it was true. In the story my aunt tells, my dad frequented a bar which was owned by my mother’s brother. My dad saw her and it was love at first sight. But he didn’t know my mom was a deaf-mute for many months, thinking she was quiet because of her Japanese culture. According to my aunt, someone finally clued him in after he kept getting the silent treatment in his attempts to have a conversation with her. Since her brother liked my dad, he encouraged the courtship and eventual marriage.

I found out a long time ago that the story was half true – my dad had known my mom was deaf from the beginning.  But guess what, I just found out today the whole story was made up. He did not meet her in a bar. He met my mom when she offered to do his laundry! The story suddenly went from “seedy” to “spotless”! Except for the timing of my birth.

You can imagine it was a challenge for my father to develop a relationship with a beautiful Japanese woman, who was 14 years younger and could not hear him, talk to him or understand any language. He couldn’t even use a Japanese/English dictionary. So he ended up creating his own sign language to use with her. That’s the language I still use today. It’s called “charades.”

But it was also a challenge for my mom to consider marriage. When my dad met her she was already a mother and an abandoned wife. My mom had made the difficult decision to move to Okinawa after the war in order to find work. Without a husband her desperation for a means of support meant leaving her daughter behind to be raised by her own mother, my grandmother.

When I was born, my grandmother brought my half sister, Natsuko, to Okinawa so she could be reunited with her mother. The hope was that my dad would help raise her. Apparently it didn’t go as planned. She was only 5 years old, but she had already learned how to get her own way. Natsuko did not want to go back to her mother. She put up enough of a fuss that my mom and grandmother decided Natsuko would go back home for a few more years until she was older and able to discern her circumstances.

When Natsuko was 12, she returned to our home in Okinawa. I was seven at the time. The plan was for her to stay for a while and transition into our family. But it didn’t work out. After almost 3 years, she was still unhappy, she did not adjust to the Okinawan schools, and she resisted my dad’s attempt to be a father. He was a disciplinarian (not harsh, but consistent) and she hated it. Unfortunately, Natsuko was also old enough to determine that her life was better with her grandmother who more easily capitulated to her demands. Natsuko went back and my mom never mothered her again.

I often think about the decisions people make and the impact they have in the lives of people who intersect because of those decisions.

In this story, here was a woman, a deaf-mute in pre-war Japan where there wasn’t any health care or education available to her. Her life was turned upside down when her husband left her with a newborn daughter that she knew she could not raise by herself. She decided to board a boat with a friend to find work on an island far from her home and her baby, hoping to make enough money to return home someday. That day never came.

Instead she found love. And it took the form of a white man from America, an enemy country that had just defeated her own. This man wanted children very badly but she didn’t. So he struck a deal with her: You have the babies; I’ll raise them.

The decision to bear his children was not easy. Would he abandon her like her first husband? How could she care for a baby and then a second daughter two years later? She wouldn’t hear their cries. She wouldn’t hear them when they woke up from their naps or in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t hear them if they asked for food or a drink of juice. 

To bring children into her home meant she would be confronted with her helplessness again. Daily. She was totally dependent on my dad during the night and house maids during the day while he worked. But as the two girls grew older, the maids came less frequently. The girls learned early to take care of themselves and take initiative. They were raised to be strong spirited and independent because their own journeys would take them far from home. The decision to leave was inevitable.

They were married for 37 years before my dad passed away. He loved her til the end. 

My dad chose to travel 8,000 miles to a small island. My mom chose to travel 190 miles to the same island. They met over laundry.  

And here I am.

My Dream Church

 I have portraits hanging in my dining room of each of my three sons and their wedding ceremonies. Those are precious memories of special days. In every wedding I’ve ever witnessed, the couple believes their love will endure a lifetime and everyone else in the room certainly hope and pray it does. But those who have been married long enough know two things: Most marriages today don’t survive and those that do have had seasons when they almost didn’t.

Lately I have noticed an increased number of newspaper articles highlighting marriages that have lasted 75 years. The newsprint portraits now show weathered faces that glow with their own glory in having weathered storms that potentially could have sunk their marriages. Inevitably, the question is asked, “What is the secret to your long marriage?”

Usually their answer is not very secret. Most married couples already know what’s needed to survive and thrive in their relationships. It’s just very hard to do.

I think churches have similar portraits of hope when the doors first open. And they have similar journeys of crisis seasons and sadly, often a death to dreams. As I’ve encountered or heard stories from friends of troubled “Brides” (an appropriate metaphor for the Church for this post), I can’t help but envision a dream church. Then I have to remind myself  there is no such thing as a perfect church. It’s funny though. I think every church plant thinks they have found the secret to a successful church.

Like a marriage, it’s not how well you have built the house or how effectively and efficiently you operate the household that matters. And if the glue that holds the home together is a strong central (pastoral) figure, it inevitably leads to disaster since that person will not live forever. No, the strength of the house lays in how well its members navigate the real stuff of relationships – at every level, in every sphere.

As I am contemplating my dream church, I am trying to picture what it looks like. What values frame its mission and ministry and inform the relationships present within the community? I want to explore some possible responses.

I love metaphors and if there is one image that pervades my thoughts, it is the “table.” The church I am imagining creates tables and invites others to sit at them. Tables are for talking, for listening, for planning, for creating, for prayer, for learning. In essence, relationship begins at the table. (And if there’s food, it’s even better.)

Here are some possible “tables” I imagine in my dream church.

TABLE #1: The Lord’s Table

This table is in the center of the room. It is the beginning point for all the other tables. It is more than just the experience of reenacting the Last Supper. The sacrament continuallly reminds the participants that this table is what forms and informs the community. It is the place of costly redemption, of sacrificial love, of holy communion where all of us share a poverty of spirit and meet Christ.

TABLE #2: Storytelling

At this table, every person is treated as a story that is waiting to be told. And everyone else is on the edge of their chairs because they can’t wait to hear it. No one interrupts. No one offers advice or opinions or anything. Only whispers of “thank you.” Never judgments. Each one knows they have been gifted with a storied soul, a treasure to be kept safe. The table of stories is a table of knowing, the place where one feels known and embraced.

TABLE #3: Diversity

This table is the place where we may disagree with each other but instead of arguing, we work hard at understanding each other. It can get intense at times because we allow space for passion. We come to the table prepared with understanding the arguments from varying perspectives and beliefs so that we can participate in both intelligent and passionate discussion. But the goal is real understanding rather than winning or changing. Which means we overlap with Table #2 and include our stories and how we got to our beliefs, assumptions and values in the first place. We are honest so that the other can understand how their differing values impact real, live people. It's a safe table where we can voice what we really think. It's a table that encourages openness to the possibility of change rather than cemented convictions. It's a table where people value understanding the other more than being right. And they seek the expression of humility that says, "I may be wrong." 

TABLE #4: Freedom in Christ and Unity of Spirit

The participants at this table are committed to maintaining the tension between the freedom each person has in Christ and the unity created by the Spirit that binds us to one another. Freedom means we each search the Scriptures to come to our convictions and this may result in different interpretations. But that’s okay. Unity means we respect the imago dei in each person and trust the Holy Spirit who dwells in them to do the work of growth, maturity and understanding. Freedom means we don’t herd people into predetermined roles but give them space to explore the gifts of the Spirit. Unity of Spirit means we pay attention to the movement and anointing of the Spirit because God is not one to be boxed in. Since the Bible is full of exceptions to the “rule,” the participants are careful not to play God or suppress the Wind.

TABLE #5: Mutual Submission

Mutual submission is grounded in Galatians 3:28 at this table. Everyone is equal--equally valued and equally released to carry out their calling. There are no special seats here or at any head table which is never set up in the room anyway. Leadership is flattened, not hierarchal. Roles are determined by gifting, not gender. Everyone has a voice and every voice is important and invited. Authority is in Christ alone as the Head of the church who has spoken in Scripture and still speaks through the Holy Spirit. Submission is mutual as everyone competes for the lowest seat while still rising to their calling in Christ.

TABLE #6: No Condemnation

This is a table that I want but have no idea how it can happen, mainly because I’ve never seen it. This table requires a combination of all the tables above. It’s one that welcomes anyone who feels condemned by the church. But those who come create tension and discomfort for those who have often done the condemning. IF they come, they challenge our notions of right and wrong especially when Scripture is applied like a stamp on a document that says “UNBIBLICAL” or “GO TO HELL.” IF they come, they bring all their anger and pain from how they have been treated. IF they come, they ask to be accepted for who they are. Acceptance is not the same as agreement. Acceptance is the fruit of a heart that repents of condemnation.

I think I stop with these six tables. I’m sure there are more I can think of but perhaps you can help me out with responses to these two questions:

1)  What would you add to the table descriptions above?

2)  What other tables should I consider for my dream church?

The Naming of Eve

If someone were to ask me what my occupation is, I’d reply, “Preoccupation!” I spend most of my waking moments just thinking. Sometimes I wish I had a switch somewhere on my skull that I could flip whenever I needed my brain to stop its flow of thoughts through the neuron connections. Of course, it would have to be hidden underneath my thick black hair so that no one could come along and flip it off at an inconvenient time. My kids would have used it often in order to get my attention.

Some thinking times are more intense than others. Unfortunately I tend to have those wide-awake, brain-racing moments in the early morning hours when I really want to sleep later than the time the bedside clock is showing with its glowing digits. It’s been happening a lot lately. And it can get frustrating.

Sometimes I squeeze my eyes tightly hoping the thoughts will pop like a balloon and deflate to the ground. Sometimes I get up, scurry across the cold floors to my computer and either record or distract my brain activity. A few times I have sat in my chair by the bed and prayed because my thoughts were so disturbing. But most of the time I go with the flow and see where they take me.

One recent morning I awoke with the switch turned on and I decided to go with the flow. For no discernable reason, my brain traveled to China where I thought about my “naming” experience from last September.

In an earlier post, I tell the story of how my translator Fangfang named me. It is customary for the foreigner to be given a Chinese name, one that is carefully chosen and lovingly bestowed. Fangfang took over a week to find my name. She chose it after observing me and listening to my messages in order to capture my heart.

I thought about why this custom exists in China, at least among the Chinese Christians I met in Beijing. What did it do for me?

When Fangfang named me, I felt welcomed into her world. And because the name fit me perfectly, I felt known. Fangfang was my equal (or one could argue she was subordinate since my costs included hiring her as a translator) and when she named me, I felt a special bond to her, a heart connection that enhanced the roles we were engaging in as speaker and translator. We needed each other. We appreciated each other. We were a team.

And then it occurred to me that perhaps Eve felt the same way when she was created, presented to Adam and then named by him.

Adam and Eve were God’s first leadership team.

Genesis 1 records the creation of the universe culminating in the creation of man and woman. In Genesis 1:26-28 the three verses form an inclusio or what I call a “hamburger.” Verses 26 and 28 form the top and bottom “bun” which repeat one command from God: BOTH male and female are to rule over the natural world. BOTH are to steward God’s creation. Verse 27 is the “meat” that contains the theology to drive the commission: BOTH male and female image God together. It is in the relationship between male and female that the triune God is imaged most accurately .

Then Genesis 2 does a funny thing. It starts all over. This time we are told that the man was actually created first. However God’s intention for the man is made clear. He is not to be alone and he needs help. But the man also needs to go through an exercise of self-discovery.

I imagine the first man as a puzzle piece that needed to be relationally connected to another puzzle piece in order to complete the whole picture. And unless he went through the exercise and felt his aloneness deeply, perhaps God knew the man would disconnect from his partner and think he was sufficient to image God and rule well. Unfortunately, this happens in Genesis 3.

But until then, the exercise works. Through the act of observing the animals in detail and naming them all, the man realizes he is alone. Divinely anesthesized, he goes through surgery and wakes up to a new reality. His world is now to be shared with another human being, created by God to be his ezer, his equal, his strong helper and co-warrior.

When the man meets his partner he welcomes her into his world by naming her. She is woman and she is known by him—she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. They are connected. They are a team.

For Adam, naming wasn’t about power or authority. It was an act of bonding, of solidarity, and of mutual dependence.

I think the Chinese understand the power of naming.

And I went back to sleep.

Old Rooms, New Paint

It’s almost 2012. 

Time to make new resolutions—except I gave up on doing those a long time ago.

This past week, as I was painting the interior of a huge house, I reflected on this traditional but futile exercise. What is it about the New Year that brings such hope of transformation in some habit or lifestyle? It’s as if a hidden room reveals itself on January 1 filled with treasures of old dreams and new motivations. Like Harry Potter’s Room of Requirement, all I have to do is stand in front of it, think hard about what I need to do for the coming year and poof! I’m standing inside the room where all the needed resources and motivations to change are available to me.

Unfortunately, like the students of Harry’s special school of wizardry, I still have to work hard to learn new habits and make the desired changes. After a while, it gets too hard to even think about what I need in order to get in. The room disappears for another January 1.

Perhaps what’s needed is not the special Room of Requirement (the title may reveal the possible problem), but just a fresh perspective of the old rooms.

There’s something euphoric about putting fresh paint on the walls of a well-worn room. All of a sudden everything seems new. There’s a different feel to the room. Painting a room ends up including a process of cleaning, cobweb removal and repairing. Hidden flaws are exposed. Concealed creatures, usually dead, are uncovered. Dusty surfaces are revealed. Once the room is cleaned and painted, it is transformed into something new.

But it’s not really new. The room is still the same old room. It just feels new and vibrant with life.

I wonder if this is what’s really behind our need for January 1. I wonder if my resolutions disappear by February because I view the need for transformation as being a change from bad to good instead of old to new. I can’t sustain being good when I never feel good enough. But I can live into the new since the old always has an opportunity to become new, whether through refreshment or replacement.

As I painted and reflected, I couldn’t help but imagine what hope for the new year would look like if I concentrated on refreshing old rooms instead of disappearing into the Room of Requirement. Instead of forcing a new lifestyle or habit change through resolutions, I imagined cleaning and refreshing old rooms through new thought patterns and values. I imagined my fears as creatures needing to be removed, lies as flaws to be exposed and repaired, and the deep truths of my faith as furniture to be dusted off and revealed in all its beauty and strength.

What I want for the New Year is to feel new and more alive than the year before. Through the years of following Christ, I have found that newness and aliveness comes through deep transformation of old rooms in my life. What’s freeing to me is that this transformation still preserves the real me. I don’t have to make a resolution that’s unrealistic (for example, “I’m going to train for a marathon like my other 50+ year old friends”). Instead I can identify thought patterns that keep me from putting on my sweats and going out the door for a two-mile walk around the block.

What I want for 2012 is to be available for continued remodeling of the rooms of my soul, to be a more refreshed and life-filled “house” to share with others:

By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established;

Through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.

                                                                                    (Proverbs 24:3-4)

I want to wake up on January 1, 2012 with anticipation of newness.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, she is a new creature;

The old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

                                                             (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I want the same for you – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Neverland

Neverland. The place where you never grow old. 

Jon and I watched the two-day mini-series, Neverland, in one sitting (thanks to the DVR). This Syfy movie is the prequel to J.M. Barrie’s, Peter Pan. It’s the story of how Peter becomes Peter Pan and how Captain Hook loses his hand and his tick tocking watch. But mostly it’s the story of how Peter and Hook end up being enemies. The storywriters provide a compelling, creative and surprising answer to a question no one has really asked about this classic. The answer is also tragic. And it’s rooted in the age-old story of betrayal, heartbreak and loss of trust.

In the story, Peter is an orphan who looks up to and loves James “Jimmy” Hook, who seemingly cares for him like a father. Jimmy is the mentor to Peter and a small band of boys (later the “lost boys”) and teaches them to survive in the streets and on the rooftops of London. Peter’s dream has been to grow up and be just like his “Jimmy.” If he proves himself worthy, he hopes someday that Jimmy will treat him as his equal.

But Jimmy’s personal ambitions have no room for another. The opportunity comes through Neverland to realize his goals of attaining respectability, even deity, in the dark world of London by exploiting the almost heavenly world of Neverland.

Through most of the movie, Peter saves, defends and serves a man who continually lies to him, betrays and uses him. But as the one with the innocent heart trying to protect Neverland, Peter repeatedly ends up in a sword fight against his mentor who eventually exposes his selfish, scheming heart.

In one climactic scene, Jimmy reveals that he was the one who killed Peter’s father out of jealousy and hatred. Jimmy had loved Peter’s mother, but his father had won her heart. Peter is broadsided by a double betrayal. In that moment, he realizes that Jimmy is not the man or “father” Peter thought he was. And his world and his dream is exposed for what it is—a fantasy.

At the end of the movie, what now becomes the beginning of the classic story, Peter chooses to leave his fantasy world and stay in Neverland, his new reality. But so does Jimmy, now Captain Hook minus one hand. In this story, it’s Peter who severs Hook’s hand, not the dreaded crocodile. And when he does, he has the opportunity to end Jimmy’s life and be rid of his betrayer who murdered the only one who probably loved Peter as a true father. But Peter chooses not to kill Jimmy. He chooses not to be like his mentor/fake father. Peter proves to be the better man.

As I thought about what Peter’s new reality would now entail, it occurred to me that I’m not sure Neverland would be a better world for him. Neverland. The place where the child remains a child and the adult an adult. The place where people never change. Neverland is now Peter’s world of constant betrayal. He can never grow up and move on and his enemy will never die of old age since Peter has chosen to spare his life. Neverland is a Foreverland of conflict and reminders of his deep pain, of the terrible Betrayal.

I would not want to live in Neverland—even if I could fly with pixie dust. I have my own story of being betrayed as do others I know. Just that afternoon, before I watched Neverland in the evening, I sat with someone and heard her story of a terrible betrayal, even two: a brother who forged her name on financial documents while she lay in a hospital bed fighting for her life against a dreaded cancer and a father who chose his son over a daughter who needed his protection.

There are other stories, like the brother who stole the money needed to care for a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s…the father who did despicable things to an innocent young girl…the pastor who used power to damage his flock or seduce one of the sheep…the husband or wife who found comfort in the arms of another, and not necessarily of the opposite gender...

…the religious leaders who should welcome the Messiah but instead crucify him…the disciple who should have loved Jesus but instead betrayed him.

In those moments when I think about the one who betrayed me (don’t worry – it’s not my husband!) and I start to feel the pain again, I redirect those thoughts and the pain toward the Cross and I remember the Betrayal of Christ. It had to happen that way. Betrayal is what brought hope and redemption and a real Foreverland. Betrayal opened up possibilities of reconciliation in our dark world as well as certainty of reconciliation in our Forever World.

But in this in-between time, in our “stories in the middle,” we struggle through the “how” of a resurrection life in the midst of a broken world where we might not get the “I’m sorry” and we might not be able to have the relationship we once had. Forgiving the betrayer is difficult and forgetting is nearly impossible. And if there are moments when you are forced to face the betrayer, you have to choose between either getting in a sword fight or walking away. Or maybe you choose imperfect reconciliation.

Or, because you are not strong enough to constantly face the betrayer, you have to leave and find a new community. This one is tough on two fronts. It gets complicated to know how to continue relationships from the old community because no one knows the full story of the betrayal. Not even the betrayer. Not even the betrayed. But what can be known is often rejected because most people, especially Christians, don’t know what to do with stories of betrayal. It’s too threatening. The fantasy world must be preserved at all costs.

On the other front, because the betrayal has torn down your fantasy of the community you were in, it raises questions of what was real and what was not. If you are fortunate, you start to re-engage a new community but it’s with the condition that authenticity, honesty and brokenness are celebrated alongside reconciliation, redemption and a lot of patience with each other. And there’s no guarantee you’ll get it. If you were fooled once, who’s to say, you won’t be fooled again. It takes a lot of faith and trembling to step back in and risk once again.

The only answer is a new perspective of the fantasy world and the “real” world. It can only be found at the Cross. It can only be gained through repentance. It can only be understood through the Gospel story that takes my past, my present “middle” and my future and offers healing, hope and eventual reconciliation, even with my betrayer.

In Christ’s “Neverland” we will never grow old. And we will never be betrayed again.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:1-4) 

Neverland was a good story---but I like this one better.