We miss God's relational messages because our old
lens focuses on what God does (e.g., in situations) or has (e.g., power to do
something), rather than God's whole person as communicated and embodied in the
person of Jesus for us to grasp and respond to. God's communicative acts are
only for relationship. Receiving God's relational messages has helped my fearful
heart to come forth to deeper connection with my Father. In addition, we must
also grow in taking responsibility for what we are communicating to God and
others because God holds us accountable for our part in this relationship of
intimacy. Both God's messages and holding us accountable are deeply affirming of
us in our whole person, not in some limited aspect of us.
The whole of God
Growing with God in wholeness involves
questioning, and even challenging, our theological (and other) assumptions and
our biases about every aspect of life. Pertinent to the focus of this essay, we
need to specifically challenge our assumptions about the human person, because
it is directly tied wholeness. First, to clarify what biblical wholeness is
not, it is not about New Age spirituality, secular feminism, holistic medicine,
or organic and unprocessed food. Wholeness is not a static condition, an
attribute to achieve, or something we experience as an individual. The only
basis for our wholeness as human persons is the triune God, in whose image and
likeness we have been created (see Gen 1:26-27). Wholeness is a function of
relationship with God our Creator. Dave Matsuo (my husband) defines this basis
for our wholeness:
The whole of God is constituted in
the life of the Trinity. Yet the wholeness of the Trinity’s life
is not signified by the titles of the trinitarian persons nor by
the roles they perform. While each trinitarian person has a
unique function in the economy of the Trinity, that [function]
neither defines their persons nor determines the basis for their
relationship together—that is, how they relate to and are
involved with each other. Their whole persons (not modes, nor
tritheism) are neither ontologically apart from the others nor
functionally independent, but always by the nature of God are
relationally involved in intimate relationship together as One
(perichoresis) by the relational process of love, functional
family love (Jn 10:38; 14:9-11,31; 15:26; 17:10-11, Mt 3:17;
17:5). This is the whole of God, the wholeness of the
Trinity’s life, which Jesus vulnerably shared for his followers
to belong to and experience in likeness of the Trinity in order
to be whole (Jn 17:21-26, my italics).[5]
The ‘whole of God’ is the relational context
(family) of God, in which the trinitarian persons interact together in the
intimate relational process of heart-to-heart connection, at such a depth
together as to be one, that is, inseparably whole. While Jesus lived on earth
during the incarnation, he embodied and thus revealed this intimate oneness with
the Father for his disciples to grasp in his words, "Whoever has seen me has
seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). Jesus also revealed the Spirit as he prepared to
leave his disciples, telling them that the Spirit is Jesus' relational
replacement to be with them (see Jn 14:16, 25-26). In all this Jesus embodied
and openly and vulnerably revealed the dynamic function of intimate relational
process of the Father, Son and Spirit in the relational context of the whole of
God—God's family.[6]
Because of our old interpretive lens and
preconceived notions about God, it may seem strange at first to think of
transcendent God as open and vulnerable. Here we need to use a qualitative
perceptual-interpretive lens to challenge and go beyond our old assumptions.
Vulnerability for relationship characterizes all of God's communicative acts
toward his human creatures throughout both the Old and New Testaments, as God
ongoingly sought (and still seeks) our relational response of faith; but God
ongoingly experienced (and still experiences) our doubt, relational distance, or
rejection—if not explicitly, implied in our relational messages, as discussed
above. God's most open and vulnerable communicative act to us was the
incarnation of the Son. Jesus openly and vulnerably embodied the whole of God:
God's being as intimate, God's nature as relational, and God's presence
vulnerably involved—for all of us human persons to experience in
person-to-person relationship. He presented his person—and continues to present
his person today through the Spirit—for the deepest relational connections of
intimacy. A shorthand phrase for this openness and vulnerability of one's whole
person necessary for intimate relationship is "nothing less and no substitutes."[7]
Thus
functioning in the dynamic of wholeness—"nothing less and no
substitutes"—Jesus embodied and extended the relational context
of the whole of God (i.e., God's family) by the dynamic
relational process (i.e., family love) for relationship together
with all who follow him as his disciples.[8]
Indeed, Jesus always gave primacy to relationship by seeking
connection with the whole person (signified by the function of
the heart), for intimate connection (the coming together of
hearts open and vulnerable to each other)—the only way that God
does relationship. Therefore, only with our whole person from
the inner out (nothing less and no substitutes) is our response
back to Jesus compatible with his person, in order for the
relational connection to be made (cf. Mary’s connection with
Jesus in contrast to Martha’s, Lk 10:38-42). The quality and
depth of this relationship is also to be engaged with each other
in God's family, the church. These are the relationships of
wholeness that Paul refers to as “the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3),
which Christ made a reality (Eph 2:14-15).
The
experiential reality of all this often escapes us, however, and
we may not know how to go further and deeper. This is where, and
why, we need to challenge our theological assumptions about
human ontology (theological anthropology), and what it means to
be created in God's image. Paul challenges these very
assumptions in his directives for women, which tend to be
misinterpreted or simply ignored (e.g., 1 Cor 11:3-10).[9]
We
theologically know that God created us for relationship with
himself and with other human persons in the church, God's
family. Let's think about this more deeply. His purpose is made
evident in the creation accounts when God said that it was "not
good for Adam to be apart," and God then created Eve to
constitute for Adam the human relational context (Gen 2:18-24),
in likeness of the triune God ("in our image according to our
likeness,” Gen 1:26-27). Adam and Eve's subsequent actions
disobeyed God's terms for this relationship, thus establishing
the human pattern of acting in self-autonomy for
self-determination ever since. What we easily ignore about this
human condition is that we do this by defining our person based
on what we do or have, and try to do relationship with God and
others on that basis. Even as devoted and sincere Christians, as
long as we define ourselves from outer in by what we do or have,
we are engaged in a fragmentary process of reductionism,
unknowingly and unintentionally, which is discussed more fully
in the next section.
The
experiential reality of these relationships together with God
our Father, both individually and corporately as his family, is
to experience wholeness and well-being, which is the Hebrew
meaning of shalom, or "peace." Shalom is much
deeper than the Greek concept of peace as merely the absence of
conflict, like harmonious co-existence. Peace as wholeness
points beyond the common focus on only what we are saved
from in a truncated soteriology, to inseparably include
the dynamic whole relationships as God's new creation family
that we are saved to in full soteriology.[10]
Wholeness is essential of God, as Paul says: "God is not a God
of disorder [fragmentation and reductionism] but of wholeness"
(1 Cor 14:33). The following definition captures well the
significance of biblical wholeness:
Wholeness is the conjoint function
of the whole person involved in relationships together necessary
to be whole—transformed relationships both equalized and
intimate. The whole person is defined from the inner out
signified by the importance of the heart in its qualitative
function.[11]
As we
move through this essay, I hope it will become clear also that
wholeness is predicated on grace, and that wholeness and grace
are inseparable, and are both only for and about relationship on
God's terms, and, as such, are irreducible and nonnegotiable by
our terms.[12]
Presenting to God anything less than our whole person from inner
out—such as our accomplishments, ministry work, our knowledge of
theology—easily becomes a substitute from outer in and conflicts
with God's desires. Anything less than whole relationships are
relationships based on reductionist assumptions about the human
person and thus are relationships engaged on our own terms, not
God's terms of grace. Now, what about this ‘reductionism’?
How reductionism works
The prime indicator of living
in reductionism is a lack of self-awareness and insensitivity to
the relational and qualitative in life. Why? As little children,
we initially function in relationships openly and vulnerably,
trusting in other persons until we learn to close off our
hearts. This "hardening" comes through experiences of
disappointment, being treated as less, ignored, rejected, and
suppressed. We learn to exercise caution and control to keep a
safe distance in relationships, and relational trust is choked
off as we hide and protect our heart, distancing it even from
ourselves. Indeed, we lose awareness of our hearts
(self-awareness) and sensitivity to the qualitative (the deeper
aspects of ourselves and relationships) as we shift our focus
instead on the quantitative, notably what we and others do and
have.
Girls
are specifically also socialized not to express anger. From this
lens, we learn to participate in various relationships, but in
place of our whole person from inner out, we offer something
outer in—anything less or any substitutes for our genuine
self in the form of “what we do” or "what we have" to try to
do relationship with others. The experience of such
relationships is the shallow involvement, for example, of doing
activities together but not making deeper connection. This is
how reductionism always counters intimate and satisfying
relationships. The deep drive girls and women have about
physical appearance is the pattern we have learned about making
substitutes for our whole person, signified by our hearts.
When I
define myself by what I do or have, I also project these
criteria onto others and relate to them primarily by what we
both do or have. In relation to God, I try to establish
connection with God by these criteria, whether based on what I
do/have or limited to what God does or has; such a connection is
not for the primary purpose of intimate relationship but what we
do for each other in a quid pro quo exchange. Reductionism
shifts the focus of the relationship, and substitutes these
types of secondary and outer-in terms. Living this way
functionally eliminates the need for God’s grace as the basis
and base for relationship with God and others, essentially
trying to do my relationship with God on my terms, not on God’s
terms.[13]
Grace clarifies, however, that there is nothing—nothing!—we do
or have that can establish us with God. We can come before God
only by his grace, which demands our real, genuine and sinful
hearts, humbly, openly, and vulnerably—nothing less and no
substitutes, as Jesus showed us—to receive his forgiveness in
order to experience God's intimate presence and involvement with
us. These are God’s terms for relationship with him and the only
terms by which God does relationship.
How does
this all specifically apply to us as women?
Gender distinctions and
discrimination
The
dominant expression of reductionism in human experience is
making distinctions among persons based on our biological sex.
On the basis of this outer-in distinction, we are assigned by
most families and cultures certain values and expectations on
the assumption that males are better and females are less. From
this humanly-determined distinction of better-less, all sorts of
fragmentation has been breaking down persons and breaking
relationships apart. Gender distinction and discrimination range
from the overtly violent to the sometimes subtle treatment of
girls and women as less than whole persons, as in paternalism.
Gender discrimination can be expressed directly in personal
relationships, or indirectly at the level of social systems and
institutions. Men might not discriminate against women in their
personal relationships, but they can still indirectly
participate, and benefit from, the institutionalized gendered
hierarchy in which, for example, men make more money than female
peers who have equal education and capabilities.[14]
Distinction making and discrimination based on gender
means that girls and women often go unheard and ignored (even by
other women, including Christian sisters). Instead of
being full participants, we are reduced to stereotypes, not only
in the prevailing culture—movies, music, advertisements—but also
in church sermons! It is important to note that the stereotypes
of females may appear to be positive (e.g., self-sacrificing
mothers, the longsuffering wife, the pure virgin) but such
stereotyping focuses only on a limited aspect of women, and thus
reduces the whole person.
I am
sure most women, if not all, would deny that they believe they
are "less" than males. I did for a long time—until I saw that my
intellectual belief did not convince my heart. I therefore ask
us all to pursue with the Spirit what false perceptions may
fester deep in our hearts. A true indicator of what we believe
is how we engage in personal relationships. We females learn to
present to others anything less and any substitute for our whole
person—that is, present what we do or have from outer in to try
to meet others' expectations in order to be valued. In place of
our whole persons involved with open and vulnerable hearts, we
learn to do whatever we think is necessary to get approval and
affirmation, notably from males though not limited to them. The
relationships we engage from outer in can be experienced only as
shallow and unsatisfying, both for ourselves and for the other
persons we are involved with. For the church as God's family,
this has deep consequences for individuals, corporately
together, and what the church presents to others. Consider the
following example which, though not in a church context, took
place at a Christian conference whose focus was on women:
Donna (not her real name), an
active member of a local chapter of Christians for Biblical
Equality (CBE)[15]
attended a national Christian conference addressing domestic
violence. Donna was working with inner city single mothers, and
excitedly looked forward to the conference. She reported back to
the CBE chapter about the conference. Her strongest impression
from being among the Christian sisters (and brothers) there?
Feeling invisible.
To feel
invisible is to feel less, and among Christian sisters this
experience is especially dismaying—a relational consequence for
how we do relationships with anything less and any substitute
for our whole person in whole relationships with each other.
What we do and have
A professor once told
me she never got married because all the men she knew just
wanted a mother.
In my first marriage,
I tried to be the good little Christian wife. In the area of
sex, being a good wife meant doing whatever my husband wanted.
Essentially he wanted me to function as an object, and I did.
This was disastrous to my person, to his person, and our
relationship. Our marriage broke.
An elderly Christian
sister is no longer emotionally able to serve as conservator for
her older brother who has Alzheimer's and is verbally abusive.
"You're supposed to take care of family," she explained to me.
She is in the process of resigning, but is beset by guilt about
it.
From
early childhood on, we females are defined—and define
ourselves—by certain roles. The roles of daughter, girlfriend,
wife and mother come with expectations to perform perfectly, or,
at the very least, not fail. In a Christian context, these roles
often come with the added so-called authority of a particular
interpretation of Scripture. We do many things for
others, especially for males and our families. The Christian
sister mentioned above could be any of us. She also took care of
her ailing in-laws for a number of years, though, as she says,
"I was never the care-giver type," as if there's a type. The
direct physical caring for elderly parents falls primarily on
daughters. To not do what's expected is to risk disapproval or
rejection, and becomes unthinkable. Never mind that our own
health is compromised, or that our other relationships suffer.
Our self-talk goes something like this: "If I don't take care of
my parents, then I am a bad daughter. So I'll take care
of my parents even if it kills me and the rest of my own
family.” The unspoken deeper issue, however, is “I'll sacrifice
and prove how loving I really am."
We women
are good at the role of martyrs and promoting the martyr
syndrome because it is something we can do, we can meet the role
expectations. It's important for Christians, however, to examine
the idea of sacrifice in spite of what our culture says.
Consider that Jesus told some Pharisees to "go and learn what
this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'" (Mt 9:12-13). There
is a false view that love (agape) is all about sacrifice;
it is false because sacrifice is about what I do (the
focus is on myself), but agape is about the depth and
quality of involvement in relationship with the other person for
that person’s sake.
The
outer-in aspects by which we define ourselves extend to what we
have. What we have includes our image, appearance,
possessions, and relationships of all kinds—male-female, family,
children, and so on. Ironically, some women say that it isn't
material possessions or what they do that define them, but their
relationships; these women devote their lives to family and
friends, often with a great deal of sacrifice and strain. If we
examine these more closely, however, we might detect that the
basis for defining themselves is what one has. For
example, the significance of a boyfriend or husband is often
more the idea of having one rather than the person he is, and I
measure his commitment or love by the quantity of things he does
for me or gives me. In other relationships, the focus is on the
quantity of activities with friends over the quality of the
interactions (cf. the phenomenon of Facebook friends, or, more
important, church activities).
In spite
of having relationships, lacking the quality relational
connections for which God created us leaves us in the condition
of being relationally "apart." This is why we can be lonely even
if we have a large quantity of friends and family, and even
amongst other persons, including active involvement at church.
I'm sure you can name alternatives that many of us choose to get
others to like us so that we're not left alone. Yet, shallow
relationships leave us (and the other person) feeling lonely and
down, that “I'm not good enough,” and that “something's wrong
with me”—however subtle those feelings might be. We conclude
that we need to have more or do more—always quantitatively more.
This is how the lure of and enslavement to reductionism get
reinforced in our human contexts.
Three Christian women
(seminary students) spoke of their pasts, which were defined
largely by sexual activity. One had been married to a sex
addict, and the other two had been promiscuous.
While
most
of us have not worked as prostitutes, many of us have used
sexual activity in all its varying degrees to get the guy, and
to try and fill our need for deep connection, both before and
after becoming Christians. How we dress also can easily be about
defining ourselves and relating to males as bodies,
seeking attention and approval by being attractive to males. If
we are ignored for being less attractive, we feel inferior in
comparison to other females. Whether we feel good or bad about
our bodies, this entire dynamic is the embodiment of
reductionism of ourselves, of other females, and of males.
We
legitimately need deeper relational connections of our whole
person with other whole persons in heart-to-heart connection
(intimacy) for which we are created. Our culture promotes the
lie that intimacy equals sexual intercourse and sexual
intercourse results in intimacy; this is the prevailing view
about intimacy. Sex addicts acknowledge that they are seeking to
fill a need, but such connection doesn't satisfy our human need
for true intimacy of hearts open and vulnerable for deep
connection. The false promise of intimacy through sex is an
irresistible lure for girls and women to have sex. Sex without
the involvement of our hearts is not intimacy. Also, we can
experience relational intimacy without any sex at all. Sex apart
from intimate relational connection of our whole person
(signified by heart) can satisfy only sexual desire or ego, but
it can never satisfy our deeper human need for relational
intimacy. That's why even in marriage, without giving our whole
person to the other during sex, intercourse is reduced to a
physical activity not to be confused with relational intimacy.
So is sex better than nothing? No, it isn't because reductionism
is hurtful. And whole persons will not be satisfied with only
physical sex.
We are
queasy about intimacy on two fronts: (1) the false equation of
intimacy with sex, and (2) real intimacy in relationships that
require our open and vulnerable hearts. For many women,
including Christians, the former is easier to engage than the
latter, which is too threatening. So, whichever the reason, we
use sex as a substitute for intimacy, knowingly or unknowingly.
Our participation in sex as a substitute also reduces the other
person.
The
reduction of females is so embedded in our culture that it is
normative. The primary expression of this is our preoccupation
with our physical appearance, a preoccupation lasting our entire
lives. My own preoccupation with my appearance became so
entrenched as to be a functional “enslavement” by the time I was
thirteen. Underlying this preoccupation was my need and desire
for approval rooted in my fear of rejection and abandonment,
which reflected the deeper issue of the lack of relational
connection with my parents and God to affirm my whole person. It
is significant that during my teenage years I became
increasingly angry toward my biological father, which I share
more about later.
What are
we to make of how we go along with being treated as less than
whole persons? Some women are controlled by force and abuse, and
others of us passively defer to others, doing (almost) whatever
is needed in order to get by (i.e., avoid rejection). Those of
us who rebel and do the opposite of what is expected of us are
in truth still defined and determined from the outer in.
Ironically, living in these ways reinforces the lie that we are
less than males. This lie leads to more reductionist behavior,
which reinforces the lie in an enslaving downward spiral.
Something less and some
substitute for whole persons and whole relationships
Apart from God's initiative
of grace as the basis for whole persons and relationships, the
reality of our human condition leaves us with only two
alternatives. One is to despair and give up, perhaps withdraw,
or worse; the other is to create illusions about our person and
relationships built upon what we do or have, which we do even as
Christians, unknowingly and unintentionally. For example, have
you ever thought about the extent to which your thoughts, time,
and energy, and conversations revolve around things to enhance
our image, physically or intellectually? This is the outer-in
focus epitomized by the feeling "I gotta have that" or “I want
to achieve that.”
I recall
realizing one day how much conversation with my mother and
sister revolved around clothing and other purchases; it was a
significant part of how we related to each other, and I did not
even enjoy such talk, yet I submitted to it. In my family, one
of my mother's top priorities was that we should be like
everyone else, which meant to have what was in style. For my
mother, being different was to be "less," and I ingested her
perceptual-interpretive framework that focused on appearance. At
some point I gave up attempts at beauty as prescribed by
Seventeen magazine simply because nothing worked; being
resigned, however, could not resolve for me the deeper issue of
feeling inferior due to my different appearance as an Asian
American in our dominant white context.[16]
My friend Laura[17],
preparing to be a pastor, confessed her habit of racking up
credit card debt. She is working on listening to the voice that
asks "Do you really need that?" Sometimes she's able to put the
item down and walk away, but it's a struggle.
As a
non-Christian, I adamantly did not want to look like certain
Christian women who were, in my opinion, uncool. After
becoming a Christian, however, I was still concerned about
image. I believed that I needed certain things (like Laura
above), essentially to feel okay or better than others. This
self-image emerged further in constructing my intellectual-image
by academic achievement (what I do) and the accumulation of
further knowledge (what I have), which always needs enhancement
to feel good enough in the comparative process of reductionism.
Telling
ourselves that we don't need something can be helpful insofar as
it brings out our tensions from reductionism that we feel less.
We are still faced with the deeper matter with God about what
(or who) defines our person. In the absence of meaningful
relational experience to define us from the inside out, we will
just keep on buying things, accumulating things, achieving
things. And this enslavement keeps us from experiencing God's
love—which is what we really need and want.
At one phase in my
adult life, I'd regularly go out for Saturday breakfast with a
girlfriend. As I've reflected on it, there was very little
connection taking place between us, and we've drifted apart. It
took me awhile to recognize how much I liked the idea of
going out, though the actual activity didn't bring us close.
Years
later I recognized that I had presented something less and some
substitute for my whole self to my friend over breakfast. Not
only did the idea of talking with someone give the illusion of
having a close relationship, as it did for my friend and me, but
the more the better. I would measure our friendship by quantity
of time spent together. In my relationship with God, prayer has
also been an illusion, the idea of making relational connection.
God doesn't participate on my/our terms, which explains why I
didn't feel I knew God even though I was a serious Christian,
and studied the Bible, prayed, did ministry—many years in
ministry.
In
church life and practice, ontological simulations can take the
form of activity we participate in together, which can include
church activities and "fellowship." And we measure success
always in quantitative terms—quantities of time spent together,
amounts of ministries, numbers of people at worship, numbers of
conversions, and the like. This is a subject for another essay!
The point is that we are so susceptible to ontological
simulations that they have become the norm, the status quo,
sadly even in our church practice.
Both Paul and Peter tell us in the New
Testament that we are slaves to whatever controls us. The control they address
is whatever we allow to determine how we live, what we submit to for how we
choose to live. For us females, that means believing false messages that say we
are inherently inferior, and then trying to build ourselves up by what we do or
have and thus engage in relationships. Paul says: "Do you not know that if you
present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom
you obey....?" (Rom 6:16a). Peter says the same thing: "People are slaves to
whatever masters them" (2 Pet 2:19). Paul goes on to tell us that we are slaves
of either sin, the sin of reductionism, which leads to death, or of obedience,
which lead to righteousness (Rom 6:16b). As matters of obedience, they are only
relational matters, which should not be confused with reductionist substitutes
of what we do from outer in. The negative consequences of our reductionism
affect us individually, our personal relationships, and extends to our
understanding of church and church life. Let’s now look at further consequences
on relationships.
Relational consequences
None of
us live in a vacuum, and thus there are negative relational
consequences rooted in defining ourselves from outer-in
criteria. The way I determine how I measure up is always in a
comparative process with others.
Laura, mentioned
above, explained to me why she avoids a particular seminary
classmate saying, "I know I shouldn't, but I always end up
comparing myself to her." Her alternative to comparing herself
to the other person is to simply avoid her.
Laura's
alternative removes her from the situation in which she compares
herself, but it doesn't get to the root of the comparative
process. We are all familiar with comparing ourselves to others
because in one way or another, we all define ourselves by
quantitative criteria—and will continue to until we experience
redemptive change. In any aspect life—physical appearance,
education, job, boyfriend or husband, family, ministry, social
situations, and so forth—we measure how we're doing always in
the comparative process with other females, and even with males.
In our
sociocultural context, this comparative process is simply the
nature of reductionism, in school, work, sports, social life,
and even in the context of church and ministry. As it inevitably
extends to personal relationships, however, it is problematic
because the comparative process creates barriers. Friends,
family members, other Christians become my implicit
"competition." When I come out "better," I feel good about
myself, but it is always at the cost of someone else being
less. When I come out "worse," I feel bad, and envious of the
other person. My sense of well-being always comes at the cost of
someone else, reducing their integrity as a person. That is, in
defining myself from the outer in, this is also how I define
other persons, even Jesus. Beyond reducing the other person, my
comparative process precludes an intimate relationship since the
comparative process precludes openness and vulnerability of my
authentic self with the other person. This is the nature and
consequence of stratified relationships, which, if equalized,
would make relationships vulnerable.
Many of
us females engage verbally in the comparative process. While
critical comments are explicit expressions, snide and sarcastic
comments are simply the implicit expressions of competing—all
designed to make us "better than her," always at the other
person's expense. Jesus critiques this dynamic from reductionism
in his Sermon on the Mount: "Do not judge, so that you may not
be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged,
and the measure you give will be the measure you get" (Mt
7:1-2).
On
another level, when we women believe the lie that what we have
to say doesn't matter—others miss out. For God's family, the
church, this is a particular loss when future women leaders are
silenced by reductionism's lies.
Esther, a female
seminary student in her late twenties confided to me her
disappointment with herself. Although she believed that she had
something important to say, she didn’t feel free to speak up in
class, even in a small group. Too nervous about sharing her
thoughts as we went around the circle, she passed. “I thought
I’d gotten past that,” she said mused sadly.
The
constraint felt by Esther can be agonizing (I know!). No matter
how strongly we wish to speak, we freeze up. The feeling of
inferiority tells us that our thoughts are not as important as
what others say, or that a question we have is insignificant.
Moreover, we invariably compare ourselves with others who seem
smarter and self-confident, and feel "something's wrong with
me." In the comparative process, we fear failure or coming up
short, so we do only what's safe, or we don't try at all. Either
way, by our reticence or doing the minimum, others miss out on
our whole involvement and participation. I've been helped by the
comments that there are no stupid questions, and that the
question I ask may be what others want to know too!
Beyond
the seminary classroom, as female seminarians go out into
ministries and churches, these issues will continue to affect
not only the women themselves, but the experience of church life
and practice. Instead of our whole persons functioning freely
from inner out, our contributions will continue to be limited.
Beyond our control, those who choose leaders will continue to
pass over women because they are women. And under our control,
we may limit ourselves to what is failure-proof. Until the
underlying reductionism (for both women and men) is addressed
head on, the church will continue to be less than whole, and
function as less than whole in its identity as God's dynamic
family. This issue isn't about everyone exercising their
so-called spiritual gifts—which, in its common approach
essentially defines persons by what they do or have from outer
in—but about whole persons functioning whole together in
relationships in likeness of the Trinity, to live whole and to
make whole.
There
are two related important issues needing fuller discussion than
is possible in this essay. One, the comparative process in
personal relationships stratifies relationships, which progress
to hierarchical relationships and solidifies into stratification
of persons on broader sociocultural levels, such as
institutional sexism, racism, classism, ageism, and so forth.
The second related issue is more familiar to the Christian
academy, the debate between complementarians and egalitarians,
both sides of which function with a quantitative
perceptual-interpretive framework to define the person and
determine human function.
I have
thus far addressed the relational consequences of reductionism
in our human relationships; however, the foremost relational
consequence of reductionism is on our relationship with God,
because how we define ourselves and how we function are rooted
in what we believe about ourselves as human beings. The source
of who defines us is a relational issue, for either we believe
and trust God's words to us, or we believe the lies, which are
from Satan, the father of lies (Jn 8:44). To believe lies is to
reject God and all that God communicates. This is the primary
relational implication of reductionism, and its
counter-relational work.
Reduced persons in
reduced function
Women still experience gender
discrimination in churches, in both extreme ways and seemingly
benign forms. In any form, however, the persistence of making
distinctions from reductionism diminishes our personhood and
thus limits the quality and depth of our involvement in
relationships. Related to gender-based distinction making and
discrimination is the culture of censuring, the suppression of
our hearts (including but not limited to frustration, anger and
pain) as God's daughters.
In a popular New
Testament seminary course, "Women, the Bible, and Church,"
the assignment was to write a reflection paper on a book
citing negative teachings about women by the early church
Fathers.[18]
The next day, a 30-year old classmate discussed her paper with
me. Ruth had written two versions. She called her first draft
"my real paper," meaning the one in which shared what she really
thought and felt about the early church Fathers. Her second
draft was the one she turned in to be graded. Coincidently, I
too had written my "real" paper first. This was the response
that freely spilled out. Then I too wrote my second paper.
A year later,
Fuller's weekly paper featured articles about the challenges
that women face in church ministries. Anna wrote “It is most
difficult to write about these experiences without getting into
the dirt of what I think is really wrong…." Like Ruth in the
first example, and about the same age, Anna acknowledged that
her "first draft" was the one in which she expressed her true
thoughts and feelings, but was not the one she submitted.
'Nothing less
and no substitutes' for our whole persons in relationship is
what God seeks because that is how God is and does relationship.
As I talked with women young enough to be my daughters, I was
astounded to see their resignation about how things are, the
same resignation I have seen in myself. Another young woman
recognized her anger as we talked outside class, but she didn't
want to deal with it. Christian culture and contexts don't
encourage women to address the anger in our hearts. Our notable
lack of wholeness is reflected in the lack of presence and depth
of involvement with others—nothing less and no substitutes—and
renders us functionally as missing persons. Again, this is the
counter-relational work of reductionism.
The
prevailing sociocultural context continues to suppress and
control women by labeling and ostracizing. In church, the
constraint takes the form of a culture of niceness (in
interaction with guilt). Thus we have lots of nice girls and
nice women, but ones lacking vitality and joy; many are burdened
with depression or endless unmet needs. In the Christian
academy, that same constraint insists on being irenic in order
to avoid conflict—the Greek sense of "peace" as merely the
absence of conflict or war. By contrast to the Greek sense, the
Hebrew shalom is only about wholeness and well-being of
God's people together as family in the relationships necessary
to be whole! When Paul states that "God is not a God of
disorder, but a God of wholeness" (1 Cor 14:33), he has in view
God's bigger picture of whole persons in whole relationships
constituted in the whole of God.
For the
building up of the whole person of these future church and
ministry leaders, for the hundreds of women who have taken the
class, our first drafts were no less important than the second.
The second draft, the appropriate [read censored] paper, took
precedence for the requirements and purpose of the academic
class, making the whole person secondary. Not having any
established means at seminary for them to address their hearts
reflects the lack of wholeness in seminary education that is
incongruent with how God does relationship, as embodied by
Jesus' presence and involvement with persons. Jesus would refuse
to require Anna and Ruth to limit their involvement to only the
intellectual level (cf. "I thank you Father... because you have
hidden these things from the wise and [educated], but have
revealed them to infants...," Lk 10:21). No, Jesus would have
said at the very least, "Share with me the drafts written from
your hearts," because Jesus does not fragment persons; he seeks
to engage only the whole person with his whole person.
Such
constraint on females—imposed externally and internally—is a
common means of treating us as less, and living as less. During
my teen years, I'd get angry at my father. I was not able to
articulate what I was angry about (because it was not clear to
me then), so I could only talk back in frustration, and got in
trouble with other family members, especially my brother.
Eventually I simply went into emotional hiding; I became a
missing person, and a passive aggressive and cynical one at
that.
I have come to believe unequivocally that the
anger/pain women feel is only partially about being less and mostly about the
lack of intimate relationships for which God created us. It is the underlying
issue of the human condition and reduced human ontology—the lack of intimate
relationships necessary to be whole. I am also convinced that this very anger
turned inward is the most under-acknowledged and unaddressed cause of women's
depression and physical problems; indeed, it is the underlying cause of
widespread social malaise in so many forms. As our sociocultural context looks
to more quantity and variety of substitutes for meaningful relationships,
exposing and fighting against reductionism becomes even more critical.
Lack of awareness of the relational and
insensitivity to the qualitative
My grandmother (Bachan)
wore a perpetual frown and stayed emotionally detached from us,
her grandchildren. Bachan’s tight frown was common for women of
her generation; even their smiles turned down at the corners of
their mouths, frown-like. I later realized that family photos
show me as a teenager with the same frown-smile.
I could
neither recognize nor articulate why I was deeply unhappy until
many years later, when two insights gave me an invaluable "aha."
The first insight was that one cause of depression is suppressed
anger (another cause is despair). Suppressed anger does not
disappear, but gets turned inward, directed toward oneself. My
tight smile-frown reflected my heart, though I was not able to
identify what I felt. The second related insight was that what
underlies deep anger is usually hurt from relationships, which
also was true for me.
Modern
medicine and drug companies have contributed to the
fragmentation of women through "medicalization,"[19]
which is to perceive and treat our physical ills as problems to
fix with drugs or surgery, as if humans were machines. Rather
than being treated as whole persons for whom the inner and outer
are irreducibly integrated, we have been made to believe, for
example, that all we need to do is take drugs to not feel angry,
anxious, or depressed. Anti-depressants, behavior modification,
anger management, and biofeedback cannot account for the whole
person. They are inadequate outer-in fixes for women; the result
is shallow and temporary because our whole person, signified by
the heart, is not recognized and responded to.
During my teen years
when I was upset and sought a listening ear, I was told "Don't
feel that way" and "You shouldn't feel that way." I took these
words literally, unfortunately, and the only way for me to not
feel upset was to distance my heart. I just shut down and went
into my own little world, losing myself in the piano, guitar, or
other solitary distraction.
Throughout my college years, I didn't care about much.
This may sound odd since I worked at my studies, set career
goals, even studied overseas. On the outside, my life seemed
fine, but if you looked more closely, I was far from fine. In
hindsight, I believe I was mildly depressed during my college
years, distant from my heart, even detached. I recall feeling
numb and listless for much of those years. I found school to be
a chore ("your job," I was told). I didn’t care much about other
people, even my family and friends. I didn't care very deeply
about many important things, or whether things I did were
harmful to myself, or hurtful to others. The extent of any moral
compass I had was to guide me to avoid the negative—to avoid
failure, avoid going to jail, avoid getting pregnant, avoid
causing my parents great shame. Still, I was searching for
meaning, dissatisfied with what I knew (e.g., material goods),
trying to find some significance in life.
I never
got the connection with my parents that I sought (though decades
later I was resolved about it). Deep within, I felt that I'd I
failed as a daughter. My behavior became geared toward avoiding
negative reactions from them, and I learned how to stay within
the comfort zone of doing the right thing. My anger turned
toward myself, and I blamed myself for the lack of connection
with my parents. Sound familiar? This carried over into my
relationship with God. Only recently have I acknowledged and
rejected the lie that relational connection with God depended on
me, on what I had to do, a lie that contradicted my
theological understanding about grace.
As a very young girl,
Sarah loved Jesus. She also sang beautifully. By the time I met
her, she was in her early 30s, leading worship and singing in
church. Yet, all wasn't well for Sarah, for she would go into
months-long states of depression, sometimes cutting herself, and
sometimes driving off for days.
Cutting, eating disorders, various other
addictive behaviors expose the lack of wholeness among many girls and women.
Relational hurt turned inward becomes self-destructive. The link between
depression and anger/pain turned inward is being made by mental health
professionals these days, yet the responses to remain largely as outer-in
approaches of medicalization.[20]
Let's now examine more deeply the underlying pain of so much female anger in
light of human ontology created in the image of God.
The human condition: being
relationally apart
It is
recognized by scientists that if infants are deprived of warm
nurturing human touch, they become distressed and die.[21]
This illustrates the reality of our human condition "to be
apart," which God said is not good. All children need relational
connection for a sense of well-being and worth (wholeness) from
those who raised them.
Certainly, as a
young child I could not understand that being provided for and receiving
material goods would not meet my deepest needs as a human person. Both my
parents were present in our family life, which created natural expectations for
meaningful relational connection. Although I was well cared for, I did not have
such connection with my parents; thus I experienced the condition of ‘relational
orphan’. I didn’t understand why I was unhappy, and had no help to articulate my
feelings. I'd see my brother get into trouble for his outbursts; both his
outbursts and my parents' reactions scared me, as any conflict did. I suppose my
siblings would not appreciate me speaking for them, but we all developed life
patterns to avoid negative consequences, to gain approval through what we did or
had (notably in school), and interpreted approval for what we did or had as
relational connection. "Better than nothing" could have been my life motto. The
trick was to figure out what the other person wanted us to be and try to
conform. In school, it was easy to figure out—simply perform to academic
expectations and—bingo!—certain approval. There is no mystery, then, why school
performance creates so much anxiety for children, for we perceive disapproval
for relational rejection, and one's sense of well-being is at stake. Similarly,
we girls learn very early on that we can get approval, or disapproval, by the
clothes we wear and how cute or pretty we are. Those aspects are critical to
Paul’s argument and underlie his discourse about women (1 Tim 2:8-15; 1 Cor
14:33-35). It never surprises me to hear in the news
about when an otherwise quiet person explodes in violent acts. Sometimes I think
I was not so very different from that person. The lack of deep relational
connection, cultural constraints, along with expectations to measure up to, add
up to a wide range of consequences on relational orphans. I needed to
deal with the source of my anger, but before I was willing to, it was essential
to know that some of my anger was not because I was a bad person.
We must
not understate the depth of this pain and where it comes from.
Some of us females (and males) are so adept at covering it up by
giving the appearance of being perfectly well-adjusted. But the
hidden reality emerges as insecurity in primary relationships
(expressed in clinginess, competitiveness, jealousy, and
manipulation), in perfectionism (compulsions about physical
appearance, being the perfect girlfriend, perfect wife,
Super-Mom, fantastic homemaker), ailments (migraine headaches,
depression, addictions, mysterious pain), and lack of heart
(living in first gear, passivity, resignation).[22]
We are enslaved to worrying "What will so-and-so think of
me?"—including God.
Of
course, dealing with anger, pain, or other buried feelings is
only one aspect in the journey to wholeness. At some point in
our lives we each have to take responsibility for how we choose
to live, no matter the awfulness of our pasts. My concern in
this section is to shed light on the counter-relational
consequences of reductionism on our person and relationships. By
discussing these things together openly we can break into the
status quo of reductionism, in order to recognize the kind of
fragmented living that outer-in approaches entrench us in, and
to grow together as God's family to fulfill God's design and
purpose for us—to be whole, live whole, and make others whole in
God’s relational whole.
Indirectness and censoring
The saying "time heals all
wounds" is a deception from an outer-in perceptual-interpretive
framework. Just as changing one's circumstance does not change a
person from the inner out, the passage of time and physical
distance do not either; they are only variations of
circumstance. Time and physical distance only lessen a wound's
immediacy by allowing the heart to hide. For example, it is a
common pattern for grown-up children who move away from home,
only to return and fall into old patterns with old buried
emotions.
A life
pattern developed for me: when upset with my family members, I'd
"leave," which was the easier alternative than deal directly
with the other person openly and vulnerably. I either physically
left the room, or I left emotionally by closing my heart and
mouth (OK, maybe not my mouth). Suppressed anger, however,
sooner or later leaks out as passive-aggressive behavior. Some
women break things, abuse their pets, hurt themselves, slam
doors, and engage in sarcasm and repartee. The goal of repartee
is to hurt the other person, but it is insidious also because
one who engages in it claims with false innocence, "I'm only
joking!" and blames the other person with "you're too
sensitive!" Moreover, as much as I hated being the loser in
repartee with my father and brother, I engaged in it for decades
as a matter of fighting for my life, for self-preservation,
whenever I felt threatened, such as when I was questioned about
my decisions. A lot of my old negative ways came out at my
husband, and it took a lot of work to sort out the old causes of
my anger.
Migraine headaches, like depression, have higher rates
among women than men. Migraines plagued me as a preteen for a
couple of years. They started after our family moved closer to
my father's work, uprooted from our close-knit neighborhood. I
was fearful and shy outside of our family, and felt quite lost.
Emotionally, we kids were on our own. Recently it has been said
that migraines run in families, as if genetically caused,
another outer-in explanation from a modern medical framework.
Perhaps there is a genetic propensity, but I suggest that
migraines in families are related to family dynamics. I can't
help but think that my siblings' migraines have the same root
cause as mine.
Many of
us are reluctant to admit negative feelings toward our parents
because we are taught that it is selfish and ungrateful to
criticize the persons who sacrificed for us so that we could
have more than they ever did. This guilt constrains us. The
constraint is deepened by Christian culture, which teaches us
that God's commandment to "Honor your father and mother" means
that negative thoughts and feelings toward them are
unacceptable. Thus, we grow into adulthood censoring our hearts,
made worse by the weighty spiritual dimension. Whatever our
authority, we are generally left with two choices: censor our
hearts, or open them up. Censoring our hearts becomes a deeply
ingrained pattern of coping with bad feelings, having discovered
early on that expressing anger results in disapproval, rebuke,
or rejection.
No,
time, distance, and hiding do not heal the wounds of our hearts.
We are deeply affected because we are persons made in the image
of God, after all, and thankfully there are edifying ways to
deal with difficult feelings towards others.
Stuck
on me
The dominant mode of living
for women is to be an object—to be controlled by what others
say, by our circumstance, and by our feelings. In an earlier
section, I mentioned Donna, who was upset about being ignored,
which seemed to determine how she then functioned during the
rest of the conference. Her reaction illustrates how we females
live as objects, letting our feelings determine how we live.
Another woman illustrates being victim to feelings:
Jennifer recently
retired and was preparing to go to graduate school to step out
in a new adventure with God. She ended up not going because,
prominent among other factors, her fears of failure and being
abandoned determined her life, rather than stepping out in
trust, that is, in dynamic reciprocal relationship with the
Spirit.
Jennifer
lives in fear of failure, and thus of being rejected and
abandoned because she defines herself by what she does or has.
This is common for us—our fears control us so that we avoid
threatening situations by staying in our (self-determined)
comfort zones. Being controlled by feelings makes life all about
me; my feelings become my master because, again, as Paul
and Peter said, we are slaves to what controls us, to what we
obey. Vis-à-vis God’s terms for relationship, we remain in our
self-autonomy; this is counter-relational living: stuck on me,
preserving me (see Mk 8:35).
To live
as an object is outer-in living, letting situations and other
people determine how we live. We live on the defensive,
passively waiting to see how to react to situations and
circumstances as reactors, not responders. As objects, we
passively let others take the lead; we are cautious and measured
in relationships; we seek to preserve ourselves. On the other
side of the same coin are those of us who are controlling and
manipulative, trying to ensure receiving something from others
to feel okay. We treat God similarly: go to church, read the
Bible, pray, engage in ministry, mistakenly believing that the
more the better—so that he'll love me, like me, and make my life
better. It is a subtle attempt at God's involvement and care in
the way I want. Thus, we define God by what he does, as an
object for what I can get from him.
Living
as an object means not taking responsibility for one's life. A
common consequence of this on others is the unfair expectation
this places on others to please us, usually on a boyfriend or
husband, even a pastor, or on a church if one is a pastor. We
expect them to make us happy, and blame them for our
unhappiness, our dissatisfaction, problems, failures and
inadequacies. "He" can never do enough for me, much to his
frustration and resentment which would understandably increase
over time. My husband recalls that as a boy he tried hard to
please his mother, but no matter what he did (and he did a lot),
it was never enough to please her—and this deeply angered and
hurt him. Comic strips and jokes that men have no clue what
women want poke fun at the matter, but in real relationships,
it's a source of great tension and conflict. I am not at all
implying that the males are innocent participants in these
strained relationships revolving around women. But if we women
are serious about growing in our relationship with God, we need
to reject this common object living and its counter relational
implication. No matter how we try to
spin it, living as object, from outer in, by necessity
revolves around me. Most important, living as passive
objects precludes our response to God as whole persons. As
object, I do not approach God vulnerably as a subject, which
requires a person to function in faith (a relational response of
my person made vulnerable to God's person). The further
relational implication is that I ignore the Spirit, ultimately
to the diminishment of the whole body of Christ, the church. We
do not live as subjects who vulnerably love God and build each
other up as God's family because we are not willing to engage in
this deeper level of involvement. What we really need is a swift
kick in the butt.
Some
women rebel against male-dominated societal norms, exercising
their "equality" and "liberation".[23]
Yet, rebellion doesn't exist apart from the thing it is
rebelling against, thus it only reacts—which is still
functionally determined by what it reacts to. Paradoxically,
then, when we react or rebel, not only are we not free,
we are essentially affirming the "truth" of those messages, and
life continues to revolve around "me." Hence, all these ways of
living—passivity, manipulation, and rebellion—reflect a lack of
wholeness and true freedom, and by extension, a lack of love
(about how to be involved in relationships, not about what to
do).
Engaging in
relational work
In the Introduction I wrote
that the idea of “daughter” had become repugnant to me. Now I
boast joyfully about being God’s daughter. The transformation
from there to here has been my journey to wholeness in Christ.
In function, it has been my journey from “slave” to daughter in
God’s family.
Based on
God's relational nature, our relationship with God can only be
engaged reciprocally. That is, relationship is never unilateral,
though I have wished it were. The relational work involved is
never about steps to take, nor does it entail mere
intellectual assent to static doctrines or theology; these are
outer-in approaches concerned about what to do or information to
have. In our journey, we certainly learn new things about Jesus
in the process. Jesus, however, has come only to engage us in
relational work together, in which we grow in the relational
progression from disciple, to friend, and all the way to the
Father as adopted daughters and sons to take our place in God's
family. Jesus' call to "Follow me" is only for this relational
work together, in reciprocal involvement with the Spirit, who is
present and involved only for this purpose (cf. Rom 8:9-17; Gal
4:6-7).
Earlier
I discussed enslavement to reductionism, in function living as
slaves and relational orphans. Jesus speaks directly to this
when he once told some reductionist Jews "a slave does not have
a permanent place in the family; the daughter and son have a
place there forever" (Jn 8:35). Hence, as long as we define
ourselves by what we do or have, we will never experience
intimate connection with God and each other. As we respond to
Jesus' initiative and call to follow him with nothing less and
no substitutes, the outcome is to be made whole in God's family
by family love. This is beautifully illuminated for us in what
seems to be an unlikely encounter between Jesus and a woman who
was not only “less,” she was considered “least.”
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus' interaction with a former prostitute
reveals keys for us to grasp for our journeys with him (please
first read Luke 7:36-50). This interaction illustrates that
grace, faith, and peace (wholeness) are dynamics only for the
purpose of relationship. A known prostitute entered a dinner
party attended by Jesus. The party's host, a Pharisee named
Simon, was shocked that this woman brazenly came and physically
touched Jesus. According to Simon's religious beliefs and
practices, Jesus should not have allowed her to touch him
because she was considered "unclean." But here she washed Jesus'
feet using perfume (a tool of her trade), her tears, hair and
kisses. Simon could only see the woman in terms of her
occupation, defined by what she did—that is, from the outer in.
In a sense his attitude is understandable, in that his lens was
a product of his human context.
Jesus, however, saw the woman with a
different interpretive lens. Jesus perceived her from the inner
out, that is, her open and vulnerable heart (representing her
whole person) expressed through her actions—and received her.
"Your sins are forgiven" signifies that Jesus did not define her
by her actions and past life because he redeemed her from her
old identity (outer in) and now redefined her from the inner out
by grace and forgiveness, for relationship with himself. Now, in
her response to grace and forgiveness extended to her in Jesus'
person, she freely expressed her heart in response compatible
with Jesus' involvement with her; she made her whole person
vulnerable to him by the relational response of trust, the faith
that we often redefine and shape by our human terms.[24]
This scene illustrates Jesus’
presence and deep relational involvement with her, in which she
experienced the truth of who she was now as God's daughter,
redeemed from reductionism of her old life, from being defined
by her gender and occupation, and thus being rejected. She
received God's grace as sufficient for relationship together,
making possible such intimate and joyful connection together.
Jesus removed the relational barrier and she responded to him.
Imagine Jesus enjoying the moment they shared, enjoying her
whole person!
God's priority, purpose and grace
for coming to us in the incarnation—only for relationship
together—are embodied by Jesus in this remarkable scene for all
of us to take in. The depth and quality of the interaction
reveal the heart of God and the relational function of grace.
Jesus made himself openly and vulnerably available to anyone,
embodying God's presence by grace. That's why we need to
understand that grace is not a lovely sentiment or a doctrine to
possess. It is the relational means of God extending himself to
us, the means that accounts for the impossible gap between
who/what/how God is (transcendent, holy, etc.) and who/what/how
humans are (mortal, sinners, etc.). Grace functions only in and
for relationship with God. Anything less, even if doctrinally
correct, disembodies grace from the Person who enacts it.
Experiencing grace and forgiveness
in order to come together in this relationship with God is
redemptive reconciliation. It is redemptive because the old must
die in order for the new to emerge in reconciled whole
relationship together.
Jesus' final words to her, "Your
faith has saved you; go in peace" (v.50), connects faith and
salvation with wholeness (peace). Biblical faith is our response
to Jesus’ person with relational trust, making oneself open and
vulnerable (childlike trust), nothing less of our person and
no substitutes from outer in—how this woman was involved with
Jesus. She relationally trusted Jesus, for example, that he
wouldn't push her away as she washed his feet. She certainly
must have anticipated negativity from some of the other people,
yet that didn't stop her from giving herself to Jesus. This
faith is not the common notion of faith reduced to something we
possess, nor “blind faith” that has no objective basis—both
perspectives from reductionism.
Being
saved (sozō) means to be redeemed and healed and made
whole in God’s relational context and process, going beyond our
common thinking about salvation, which stops short at only what
we are saved from (the old), in a truncated soteriology.
For our salvation to be whole, we need to fully grasp what we
are saved to (the new)—relationship in the family of the
triune God, to be whole and in the relationships necessary to be
whole, in full soteriology. We can now experience
belonging as daughters (and sons) to the family of God, the
church (God's relational context) by God's relational process of
family love. Functionally speaking, this is also the meaning of
adoption, not the idea or an illusion, but the experiential
reality of what we are saved to.[25]
"Go in
peace," then, is about wholeness and well-being (Heb shalom),
as the woman experienced being made whole in relationship with
God in God's grace. The woman was no longer defined from outer
in and nor did she let anything from the outer in constrain her,
but as a whole person she loved Jesus freely from her heart
(inner out). Beautiful, and in a sense so simple.
The conflict between the old
and new is further illuminated in another interaction Jesus had.
Luke's Gospel tells us that one day Jesus and the disciples were
welcomed by Martha into her home (please read Lk 10:38-42).
Martha's sister, Mary, sat at Jesus' feet listening. But Martha
was “distracted by her many tasks;” so she came to him and
asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do
all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord
answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by
many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen
the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
Mary
took a big step to go beyond what was expected of her as a woman
and got in trouble with Martha. Not only did Martha not like
Mary’s choice, she also tried to prevent Mary from being more
involved with Jesus! We don't know how Mary was before Jesus
came into their lives, but we can reasonably say that Mary
rejected (died to) the old definition for women of what they did
or had, and was redefined "new" in Jesus’ primacy for
relationship together. To be accountable to God and step out
with him is to risk the cost of disapproval of and conflict with
others, but the prospect of knowing Jesus intimately, however,
is his call to us—"the love of Christ compels us" as Paul said.
In
Jesus' reply to Martha, he could just as well be saying to us,
“Your priority on serving (e.g., preparing a superb dinner, or
even ministry in church) is keeping you relationally distant
from me. Stop defining me and our relationship by what you do,
come over here and be relationally involved with me. Moreover,
stop defining me with the lie that I want what you do
over being together with your whole person” (my paraphrase of
Luke 10:41-42). This is the significance of Jesus’ paradigm for
serving, noted earlier. Jesus calls us to account for how we
respond to his presence and involvement with us. This conflict
between old and new isn’t merely the difference between “doing”
and “being” but is the question: On whose terms are we involved
in relationship with God?
We
cannot control what other people think about us, but we are
accountable for how we live. Martha conformed to her cultural
context's outer-in definition and expectations for women by
preparing food for her guests. She did the right and honorable
things for women to do in that time. The point here isn't that
we shouldn't be hospitable, but about what defines us and
determines our priorities. In contrast, Mary didn't let cultural
and family expectations constrain her, but chose to openly and
vulnerably respond to Jesus' presence. Jesus' words are
definitive for us today, as he indicated his own priority for
relationship together—the new source for Mary's functional
identity. Relationship with Jesus had primacy in Mary's life,
and redefined her person from the inner out. John's Gospel
highlights the significance to Jesus of this intimate relational
connection with Mary (Jn 12:1-8), just like the connection
between Jesus and the ex-prostitute (cf. Lk 7:36-50; Mk 14:3-9;
Mt 26:6-13).
It is no
neutral matter to remain in the old, which, as noted earlier,
engages us in the counter-relational process of comparison and
competition with other women and/or men. To God, any such
counter-relational work is sin of reductionism. No matter how
broken down we feel, we can choose to live as a subject in God's
family, for example, starting by reflecting and talking with
God, admitting need or desire to change, or asking for prayer
about growing in relationship with God.
Illusions (ontological simulations)
There's a subconscious
self-imposed blindness to reductionist alternatives that we
Christians accept as normal, notably in our relationship with
God. We settle for less, and try to justify ourselves by
creating illusions and putting a positive spin on them. The
alternative is to admit things aren't as good as we wish, and to
be willing to change.
Necessary for growing with God in wholeness, therefore, is to
have our illusions exposed for what they are, and to become
sensitized to reductionism's presence and influence. This issue
is urgently relevant to us females, because we've learned to
create and live with illusions in order to get by and feel okay
about ourselves in contexts in which we are ongoingly reduced
because of our gender. Only in the past decade have I clearly
realized many of my illusions, as if scales have fallen off my
eyes!
As
Christian women, it is disturbingly easy to think we've changed,
and to think that how we live is congruent with our theology. I
have struggled a lot with this particular illusion, until
problems in relationships (e.g., relational distance,
insensitivity, passivity) have forced me to face the heart of
the matter. My illusion has been the result of outer-in
functioning, in this case, intellectual assent (and very sincere
assent at that!) to theological concepts. Having correct
doctrines and propositional truth does not result in
transformation of how we function from inner out. Apart from
relational work and experience (e.g., as the ex-prostitute and
Mary show us), our efforts are illusions, only the appearance of
change—that is, ontological simulations as substitutes for being
transformed from the inner out—no matter how sincere we are in
our practices of piety.
Peter's
practice illustrates the masquerade of outer-in living, as well
as the hurtful consequences on relationships in the church. Not
long after Jesus had ascended, he spoke to Peter directly in a
vision, telling him that God extends salvation not only to Jews,
but now to the Gentiles (see Acts 10). Led by the Spirit, Peter
then went to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile, and preached to
the Gentiles there that the Good News was extended also to them,
and baptized those who received Christ. On subsequent occasions,
Peter proclaimed this same message (Acts 11:1-17; 15:6-11)
Later,
Peter contradicted these very desires of God at the church in
Antioch by making distinctions between Christian Jews and
Christian Gentiles and separating himself from the latter. He
thus persuaded other Jewish Christians to do the same,
fragmenting the church (Gal 2:11ff), so that “even Barnabas was
led astray by their hypocrisy” (2:13). In family love, Paul
confronted Peter about his hypocrisy (Gk. hypokrisis),
for “not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (2:14,
NIV). The Greek word hypokrites means one who outwardly
displays an identity different from one’s own, as an actor, to
give an illusion. Peter's distinction-making in God's family
illustrates the lack of wholeness in his person, and its
clearest evidence is in relational fragmentation and distance.
The gap
between Peter’s theology and his practice is symptomatic of an
experiential gap with God, and therefore not living whole.
Although Peter had received a direct revelation from God, having
correct theology remained an outer in acquisition, not something
that reflected his relational experience with God. Preaching
this new theology, however, gave the appearance that
Peter lived it—that is, an ontological simulation. Peter
still needed to be equalized from the inner out, to be defined
only by grace in his relationship with Jesus and the Spirit.
Church leaders, teachers, and seminary students take note!
The
hypokrisis in Peter’s life illustrates for us the
qualitative difference between outer-in change (metaschematizō)
and inner-out redemptive change (metamorphoō). Jesus and
Paul both warned against metaschematizō, and for the
necessity of metamorphoō.
[26]
Jesus says, “The good person out of the good treasure of the
heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure
produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that
the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:43-45). This redemptive change
requires both dying to the old (reductionist ontology and
function from outer in) so that the new can emerge, made
possible by Jesus’ work on the cross and the experiential
reality of ongoing intimate connection with the whole of God.[27]
Even as
we Christians strive for correct theology, earnestly practice
spiritual disciplines, actively do ministry—done with all
sincerity and good intentions—we are susceptible to
hypokrisis and metaschematizō because reductionism
pervades human life. Thankfully, we have the Spirit to expose
our illusions from reductionism so that we can address them.
We women
have at least an inkling, with more or less certainty, that
female gender does not make us less than males, and that
discrimination based on gender is wrong. We try various
alternatives to prove the lie wrong. I have engaged
(unknowingly) in metaschematizō just like Peter, trying
to change from outer in. I would never have even thought about
illusions but for my own experience of having them painfully
exposed, as God has kept pursuing my heart for deeper connection
together.
While in
college (during the ‘70s), with the women's movement in full
swing (along with other movements for self-autonomy and
self-determination), I considered myself to be liberated from
the traditional mindset of male superiority and female
inferiority. I believed intellectually that women and men were
of equal value, should have equal opportunities and equal pay. I
rejected the message from prevailing culture that as a woman I
needed a special relationship with a man, marriage and children
to be "the best I could be." Instead, I would pursue a career,
live independently, and be fulfilled.
My
nascent feminism was solidified theologically after I became a
Christian before my senior year, eagerly affirming Paul's
statement that "there is no longer Jew or Greek... slave or
free, male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"
(Gal 3:28). Thus scripturally fortified, with other Christian
sisters I marched for women's human rights, against domestic
violence, and advocated for garment workers in Los Angeles. As a
Christian, I was committed to being fair-minded and sensitive to
all others. It was thus deeply disturbing to discover the wide
gap between my correct theology and how I actually lived,
notably how I functioned in relationships. This
illusion-dispelling forced me to get in touch with my hidden
heart!
Certain circumstances forced me to see that
my theology was only an outer-in assent with my mind, but that my heart was not
congruent with my mind. One situation was that during an English language class
with women from Mexico and Central America, the topic came up about men and
machismo (male superiority in Latino cultures). Some of the women talked
candidly about their spouses’ control over them, including forbidding them to
come to our class. As we talked together, I could hear in my voice and sense my
own resentment and anger toward males, betraying my still-unresolved anger
toward them as a group. My anger revealed unfinished business in relation to my
dad, and that somewhere in the hidden nooks of my heart there lingered my belief
in the lie that I was inferior as a female. The point to grasp here is that
being equalized can not occur from the outer in by merely affirming a
propositional truth, no matter how sincere or strongly motivated we are.
Having correct theology does not automatically translate into transformation
from the inner out; it is an illusion from metaschematizō, just as Peter
demonstrated. My
hypokrises was also exposed through ongoing tension and
conflict in relationship with a male partner in ministry.
Whenever he questioned things I did, or gave me negative
feedback (for the purpose of my growth), my pattern was to react
with defensive anger and throw the responsibility back onto him.
In so many words I would say or think, "Can't you say anything
positive about me?" "Why are you so critical and judgmental?"
"I'm trying my best!" What I really wanted was
affirmation and approval from him for what I did because that is
how I defined myself. Furthermore, I valued his opinion more
than that of any female partner because he was a male. The
implications of my true beliefs were painful to realize. I had
not truly been equalized, though I professed to be. Believing I
was inferior as a female also implied that I believed all
females to be inferior, thus their opinions were less important
to me. Because I believed males were more worthy,
receiving approval or affirmation from males would increase my
own worthiness and importance. Admitting all of this was a very
bitter pill for me to swallow.
Another
ontological simulation that women fall victim to in the effort
to counter gender distinction-making is the false promise from
secular Western feminism of liberation and equality. So-called
liberation for women is largely about gaining self-autonomy for
self-determination, and equal access to what men have and do
(e.g., same power, privilege, and prestige). We take this to
mean entitlement to do what each individual wants; I define
and determine my identity and significance. Certainly, we should
pursue equity for all persons. What is critical to grasp is its
basis. Self-autonomy keeps me in outer-in reductionist
alternatives, determined by me yet shaped by my sociocultural
context, of what I do and have, in the comparative
process necessary to measure my success. In this "system," I
have to keep performing and having certain things (e.g.,
knowledge and resources) in order to measure up, and other
persons are my implicit competition, as noted earlier. The
inevitable outcome is stratified relationships.
Only
Jesus is true equalizer of persons. Liberation for self-autonomy
keeps us functionally enslaved to the burdens of believing we
are inferior, as well as having to continually prove ourselves
to ourselves, God, and others in subtle efforts at
self-determination. Just as Jesus redeemed and made whole the
ex-prostitute and Mary from the inner out, so also he seeks to
redeem and equalize us from the lies of gender distinctions and
discrimination. God did not free women (or any persons) to
self-autonomy; he freed us to relationship as his
daughters, whole persons in God's family, and the relationships
together necessary to be whole in his new creation family. This
is complete soteriology that does not leave us only saved from
sin, in an incomplete soteriology, but saved to our place in the
family of God as daughters (and sons) with its relational
process of family love—full soteriology.
A
further way we inadvertently create illusions is to characterize
relationships—with God and others—as better (i.e., intimate and
satisfying) than they really are. If we want to grow, we have to
honestly assess the depth and quality of our relationships—with
God, family, church family, and beyond—to help us think about
whether or not we are unknowingly and unintentionally engaged in
counter-relational practices from reductionism.[28]
Growing in 'nothing less and no substitutes'
A heart that is ignored or
hidden lacks self-awareness and sensitivity to the qualitative
and relational (cf. Jesus’ words, "the love of many will grow
cold," Mt 24:12b). Our hearts remain isolated (relationally
apart) for decades, even in the midst of many people in our
lives. Growing in wholeness requires our hearts to be open and
vulnerable for relationship together in the response of trust
that is compatible with how God is first open and vulnerable
with us. This dynamic process has emerged for me since I first
acknowledged that I was messed up and could not fix myself. I
was tense and all bottled up inside, and scared to be
accountable for all that lay buried in my heart. Venturing into
this vulnerable territory could mean possibly losing control and
falling apart. Many times I cried out to God, "I believe you are
in control; help me in my unbelief!" (cf. Mk 9:24).
When it
became apparent that suppressed anger (indeed my heart) was a
major barrier in my relationship with God, I knew I had to
address it directly. It was crucial for me to learn that anger
comes with the territory of being a person and I needed to be
honest about it. I embraced Paul's words, "Be angry but do not
sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger; do not make room
for the devil" (Eph 4:26-27). Most important to me was that
Jesus himself got angry about the abuse of the temple. God
himself gets angry—what a relief! We can even express anger at
God. God welcomes us to pour our hearts out freely to him. Just
look at the Psalms with this lens!
Jesus'
anger about the temple was congruent with who he was (is).
Seeing this
freed me to see that there is such a thing as legitimate anger,
since I used to believe all anger was unacceptable. There is
reason to be angry, as when children aren't given the quality
relational connection and care they (we!) innately expect.
Parents have the responsibility to deeply connect with their
children, and children count on them for this. As persons
created in God's image for the deep relational connection
constituting belonging, being deprived of it causes pain and
anger.
On the
other hand, anger can also come from all kinds of
self-centeredness, and reflects our lack of wholeness. But
rather than get stuck trying to figure what is and isn't
legitimate (which is about not wanting to make a mistake), by
opening our hearts in relational trust in God, and freely
letting the anger come out, we can ask the Spirit to distinguish
legitimate from illegitimate anger, so we can deal with it.
Whatever the cause, we need to reject this self-concern about
doing the right or wrong thing—a relational barrier with God;
our part is to stay involved in the relational process with him.
This next
section summarizes my early experiences in the dynamic
relational process to wholeness, the reciprocal relationship
with the Spirit of opening my heart to God, to receive him as my
Father who has first loved and initiated toward me (1 Jn 4:19).
It has been a reflexive process in which I have had to address
the same issues several times ("that
again?!"),
but each time going further and deeper with him. The relational
process I share here is not to be taken linearly as a 1-2-3
series of steps, which would reduce the process to what to do
(which I have gotten into, for sure). Neither is the relational
process a once-and-for-all event, nor a string of instances,
which reduce the relational process to merely going from one
situation to the next as a passive object (though I have treated
the process in all these ways).
I
specifically committed myself to God to work through the
barriers in my relationship with him (e.g., anger toward my
biological father). Initially I needed a "coach" who guided me
to stay in the relational process, reminding me to be honest, to
pray, and sharing God's promises along the way.
It was
scary to come like a little girl to her Father. With the prayer
to "help me in my unbelief", and with the Spirit's involvement,
I entrusted my heart to him, telling him how scared
I was to release all this anger and pain, and that I needed him
now. As an important part of the relational process, I
affirmed God by telling him "I'm counting on you to be
who you say you are and to do what you promise." This
affirmed God's person and that he would not reject or abandon
me, but would receive me because of his grace ("my grace is
sufficient for you," 2 Cor 12:9). Relationally, it pleases God
to count on him because he wants us all to experience him
intimately for who he is and how he is in
relationship together. This is to relationally experience God's
love, not the knowledge about hesed (Hebrew) and agapē
(Greek)—his presence and involvement, nothing less and no
substitutes. I claimed his promise that "I will never leave you
or forsake you" (Heb 13:5b).
Slowly
at first, I made my heart open and vulnerable to
God, to release to him the anger and pain of being
treated in life as inferior because I am female. I identified
and rejected all the messages (both spoken and unspoken) from
family, culture and society that were lies I had believed. At
times I did not want to open my heart to God because I didn't
want to feel the anger and pain. I was afraid to let go of the
control of my feelings, which I'd kept suppressed for years. It
terrified me to completely lose control of myself. This might
sound overly dramatic, but that is exactly how I felt. Others
who were present spoke God's promises and assurances to me
throughout the time(s).
To
direct my anger, I had to learn to give other persons (e.g., my
dad) their responsibility in our relationship, no longer
making any excuse for the other person. It seems to be
ingrained in many of us to excuse others. Some common excuses
are
-
they grew
up in a different time
-
that was
how they were raised; it's the traditional culture
-
they didn't
know any better
-
they
sacrificed for you
-
they did
the best they could
I needed to
suspend dealing with any truth to these (i.e., to hold them in
tension) while addressing the relational issues. Here again is
where we can trust the Spirit to discern and give feedback about
what is truly the other person's responsibility, or whether we
are trying to justify ourselves.
Out
poured sobbing floods as I let go of my heart to God. It felt as
if a dreaded darkness with long tenacious roots was at last
being pulled out. And to my relief and amazement, my Father
received me. He did not reject me or say “You shouldn’t feel
that way,” or imply that all my problems were because something
was wrong with me. With further guidance, I imagined my father
sitting in the chair opposite me, and I "told" him what I had
needed and wanted from him, my hurt and anger at so many things
he had said and done, my disappointment and sadness. In this
process I didn't censor anything, or didn't try to figure out
the "right" thing to say. I felt freed in expressing deep
feelings. Intermittently I would have to stop and address God.
Beyond
mere catharsis, I needed to experience God with me. How did I
experience God's response? As I let my heart emerge, it was my
Father's relationship-specific presence and involvement through
the Spirit, who assured and comforted my heart by reminding me
of many relational words and promises from Jesus (not
disembodied spiritually), which responded to my heart deeply
(cf. Jn 14:26). God's specific responses that my heart needed
came as the Spirit reminded me of relational promises such as,
"Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord
will receive me" (Ps 27:10, NIV). God as my Father is not
relationally distant like my Dad; I can fully count on God to be
all that he says he is and to keep his promises. God indeed is
righteous, not as a mere attribute, but in our relationship
together.
There
were subsequent times that I dealt with further feelings on my
own. Because I had gone for years out of touch with my heart, it
helped to start those times by writing a letter to my dad (that
I didn't intend to send), in which I freely told him all that I
was never able to say as a child. A couple of times I ended up
furiously scribbling. At other times, I just needed to scream
into a pillow, or throw socks at the wall, or pound my bed with
the pillow, just to physically express residual fury and
frustration.[29]
By
believing the lies (from Satan), this means not believing God
(e.g., I'm created in his image, he loves me, his grace is
sufficient for our relationship). Relationally, I had in effect
called God a liar and rejected God (because we can't fragment
God from his words). To take responsibility for this, I
rejected the lie that I'm inferior as a female and
repented of believing Satan's lies instead of God. I
claimed Jesus' work on the cross which redeems my heart of sin,
and received his forgiveness. I thanked God for his
grace for our relationship and the depth of reconciliation I
ongoingly experienced.
God's
response is always his presence and intimate involvement. I
experienced God's comfort in relationship-specific ways (i.e.,
specific to my person, my need, and our relationship), not
something he did for or to me unilaterally, such as merely take
away pain—the qualitative contrast with how the medical field
deals with deep pain.
Once as a child, I
was anxious and couldn’t sleep. I went and woke up my dad, a
physician, looking for comfort. His response? He gave me a half
a sleeping pill and sent me back to bed. God, my Father, deeply
comforts with his presence and intimate involvement.
I could
now forgive specific persons
who had hurt me. This was an equally
important step of trusting my heart to God.[30]
I let go of what I had wanted/needed from those persons, namely
deep relational connection, by
saying good-bye
to them in my heart and
grieving the loss: "I'm not
waiting to receive from you anymore; I'm moving on. Bye, Dad."
In doing so, I let go of hoping to have the deep
connection with him that I had long hoped for.
I again needed to affirm God
as my Father and take in the reality that I'm his chosen
daughter whom he loves. I could now receive and experience my
Father's vulnerable heart! Moreover, I could also “see” my dad’s
person and be involved with him much more freely.
"Spirit,
bring out whatever is in my heart that I need to see" is a
prayer I still pray when I know there's something going on but I
can't get a hold of (cf. Phil 3:15; Rom 8:26-27). "Go deep,
don't leave anything hidden there." Indeed the Spirit searches
my heart, and brings forth things I had no idea were there. I'm
still getting to know the Spirit.[31]
Moreover, as God responded to my heart, I could distinguish
better what was legitimate anger and what was anger from
selfishness, to see more clearly where I was at fault and take
responsibility for myself.
I have
also at times pleaded with God to just say the word and change
me—to do something, and do it unilaterally. Such is a
prayer from my reductionism of both myself and of God, defining
God by what I want him to do. This is how I have tried to push
for relationship on my terms, to circumvent my part, to stay the
passive object, to keep relational distance from him. God will
not participate on our terms—he cannot. Thankfully.
To
mention briefly here, God has also pursued my heart specifically
in the matter of the distinction based on race, and
discrimination. Only about seven years ago, God exposed deep
pain in my heart as a person of color, a third-generation
Japanese American. Again, I poured out the pain in my heart to
my Father, rejected the lie I had believed (i.e. being inferior
as an Asian despite the stereotype of our academic achievement),
which had influenced how I lived. I rejected the outer-in
criteria of race to define my person, and received my Father's
grace and love.[32]
The emerging relational
outcome
Experiencing and knowing God
as my Father is in a sense very simple. It seems so easy for
small children to connect with God until they learn to suppress
their hearts. Yet as an adult, my journey to wholeness has not
been about getting back to the Garden, to some idyllic state, or
back into the womb, but is the relational process of dying to
the old, and rising with Jesus as daughter in his new creation
family. At the moment of writing this essay, I am working with
the Spirit to come even more deeply before my Father in
vulnerable involvement, trusting him to be who, what, and how he
says he is in our relationship. I am asking, seeking, knocking
to be opened to the depths of his heart, waiting and counting on
him, to go further in faith—both to participate deeper in his
life and to further share God’s whole life vulnerably with
others—and doing so expectantly. I have never felt so
vulnerable.
Any
focus on what I do or have, or on what God does or has precludes
this relational connection—which is the reason I never had
meaningful connection with my biological father. My relationship
with Dad never got beyond what he and I did or had, not even to
his death. And because of this, I never knew him, as I am
growing in knowing God my Father. I knew Dad only from the outer
in, about what he did successfully and had materially, or what I
did successfully (or not). He had wanted me to be a physician
also; if I had not resisted his expectations and eliminated
myself from that course, I would be a physician today. It made
me sad to acknowledge the reality of my relationship with Dad,
to have any illusions now clearly dispelled, though on a deep
level it was no surprise.[33]
I have been amazed all the more to realize that God wants me/us
to know him by experiencing his vulnerable heart, not just know
information about him, and that all his communicative acts are
on his initiative, only for the purpose of relationship
together.[34]
Wow.
Equalized and intimate relationships in God's new creation
family constitutes my (our) new primary identity; all other
identities from outer-in distinctions are rendered merely
secondary (not obliterated) or completely insignificant. All
these human-shaped distinctions from the old, that fragment,
stratify relationships in hierarchies, have been equalized in
God's family. As those deemed inferior in our human contexts
(females), we are "equalized up," and those deemed superior
(e.g., males) are "equalized down" (cf. James 1:9-10a). Since it
is the relational function of grace that equalizes us with each
other, grace's demand of 'nothing less and no substitutes' means
that these relationships together are also intimate—inseparably,
irreducibly, and nonnegotiably equalized and intimate!
As a
side note, there are further issues that are problematic for
these equalized and intimate relationships to be realized, which
will have to be addressed in a separate essay. One such issue is
the debate about women's place and function in church, of which
both sides—complementarians and egalitarians—are premised on a
reductionist theological anthropology resulting from an outer-in
perceptual-interpretive framework. I suggest, therefore, what
emerges from either position is less than whole, for persons and
church, which the whole in Paul’s discourse on women always
challenges for their wholeness.
*
* *
Wholeness is only about being made whole and
living whole in relationships in God's relational context and process (God's
family, the church)—the relational outcome ‘already’ of God's pursuit of us
according to his desires and purposes, for which he created us in his image and
likeness, and for which the Spirit is given for ongoing reciprocal relational
work. Getting back to jokes about women in sermons, the lack of sensitivity
toward women, the excuse that "I'm only joking," and our acquiescence, all
directly point to the vital immediacy of fighting against reductionism and our
need to grow in the wholeness of God. Until God's story comes to its
eschatological conclusion, our journey to wholeness continues. There is much
relational work to give ourselves over to, individually and together as his
daughters (and sons), so that God's family can be freed from its reductionism,
to reject our counter-relational enslavements, and to emerge as true daughters
and sons of God—in intimate and equalized relationships together. This is the
wholeness that Jesus prayed for in his "formative family prayer" in John's
Gospel:
As you, Father, are in me and I am
in you, may they also be in us...so that they may be one, as we
are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me
and have loved them even as you have loved me (Jn 17:21-23).
Thank you, Father, for sharing
your heart with me (and all of us). Thank you for your
vulnerable presence and intimate involvement—nothing less and no
substitutes—so that we can count on you to be who you say you
are and do what you promise. Take us further and deeper with you
so we can grow and truly experience wholeness as your very own
daughters (and sons) all together!
I
conclude here with a personal message from my husband to us, his
sisters, which he originally included at the end of his study on
wholeness.[35]
Since we are made whole only in relationships, listen with your
heart to his heart, with even greater urgency.
A
personal note from a brother:
"A relational challenge to my sisters":
God has created and embodied your person in
gender by design and purpose. Don’t let this distinction, however, reduce you
from the primary significance of God’s purpose. This has less to do with your
uniqueness as a female individual and more to do with the whole of God’s desires
in the big picture for redemptive reconciliation of our relational condition “to
be apart.”
God has gifted your person in gender for this
qualitative purpose, which has everything to do with the church as his family.
If you only function apart from the church or give up on the church, you will
fail to use your whole person to fulfill our primary purpose to build God’s
family, thus leaving my gender in particular with only its simulations and
illusions of church family. Certainly for you to function wholly within
the church is a struggle and may seemingly be without opportunity. Yet we need
you to demonstrate the grace imperative for the qualitative purpose and function
of church practice. With the Spirit you can go beyond your situations and
circumstances to help us distinguish between the prevailing church as an
organization or institution from the reality of the new creation church as
family—into which I suggest God is asking you to lead us all further and deeper.
My gender needs your help to get out of our enslavement to reductionism, both in
personhood as well as relationships, in order to experience the whole of God
together in intimate interdependent relationships equalized in family love. Your
willingness to make your person vulnerable in these relationships will
demonstrate the grace and redemptive changes necessary to be whole as this new
creation church family. God calls us both to build this family, yet current
conditions suggest for you (yes, embodied in your gender) to take the lead.
Please don’t wait for my gender to give your gender “permission” to act. Just as
the Canaanite woman, the prostitute and Mary did, let the heart of your whole
person be expressed to and involved for the whole of God."
Endnotes
[1]
Recently some pundits say that increases in opportunities
for women in politics, education, and the business world
show that the United States is now a woman's nation. I
disagree. How can the US be a woman's nation when, for
example, women's earnings remain about 75-80% those of male
counterparts?
[2]
"Father" is how I address this person of the Trinity, not to
be gender specific but relationship specific.
[3]
For further discussion on reductionism of the whole for
church life and practice, see T. Dave Matsuo’s The
Person, the Trinity, the Church: The Call to Be Whole and
the Lure of Reductionism (Wholeness Study, 2006), ch.7
"Ecclesiology of the Whole", and Sanctified Christology:
A Theological & Functional Study of the Whole of Jesus
(Christology Study), ch.8 "The New Relational Order and the
Ecclesiology of the Whole" on this website (www.4X12.org).
[4]
For a fuller discussion about the importance of our
perceptual-interpretive framework for listening to and
receiving God's heart, see Following Jesus, Knowing
Christ: Engaging the Intimate Relational Process
(Spirituality Study, 2004) by T. Dave Matsuo, on this
website. See also my essay on spirituality, "Listen to My
Son."
[5]
T. Dave Matsuo, Sanctified Christology, ch.3,
subsection "Tactical Shift."
[6]
For a full and enlightening discussion of equalized and
intimate relationship of the Godhead, see Sanctified
Christology, ch.2 subsection "The Relationship of God."
[7]
If we focus only on what Jesus did (miracles, teaching,
eating with sinners, etc) or had (power), we miss his person
and relational involvement. The former focus results in an
incomplete Christology, the latter a complete Christology.
For an insightful study about Jesus' whole person, see
Sanctified Christology, ch.1 "The Person Presented."
[8]
This is why Jesus states that "whoever serves me must follow
me" (Jn 12:26)—Jesus' paradigm for all who seek to serve
him.
[9]
For further study of Paul’s perspective on women, see T.
Dave Matsuo’s The Whole of Paul and the Whole in
Paul’s Theology (Paul Study, forthcoming Oct 2010) on
this website.
[10]
There is so much more to grasp and embrace about God as the
God of peace/wholeness, and the full significance of the
gospel of peace/wholeness (what we are saved from and
to) than can be discussed here. For a deeper study,
see Matsuo's The Person, the Trinity, the Church
(Wholeness Study), and also Sanctified Christology
(Christology Study) on this website.
[12]
For a full discussion on grace, wholeness, and reductionism,
please see The Person, the Trinity, the Church
(Wholeness Study) on this website.
[13]
The “demands” of grace challenge all of our efforts of
self-autonomy, self-determination and self-justification.
See Matsuo, Sanctified Christology (Christology
Study), ch.2, subsection “The Demands of Grace.” Cf. Matsuo,
The Person, the Trinity, the Church (Wholeness
Study), ch.7, subsection “Grace as the Functional Basis” for
a discussion of ecclesiology of the whole. Both studies are
on this website.
[14]
Any male who is serious about treating women no differently
from males would need to be willing to give up the benefits
of favoritism, prestige, and power accorded him by virtue of
being male. That males benefit from gender discrimination at
a cost to females should give our brothers in church pause.
To the extent that they don't care reflects the extent of
reductionism of their own person and their
perceptual-interpretive framework.
[15]
CBE is an international organization dedicated to promoting
an egalitarian reading of Scripture, for the purpose of
developing and supporting women as church leaders, notably
the position of senior pastor.
[16]
As a teenager, I thought that straight surfer-girl hair was
cool, that my hair was inferior. My hair has always been
partly naturally wavy, and gets frizzy in humid weather. I
was different from the prevailing white ideal of beauty,
thus I felt I was less.
[17]
Note: the names of all the women mentioned in these
anecdotes have been changed.
[18]
The course at Fuller Theological Seminary, assigned book by
Catholic scholar, Elizabeth A. Clark, Women in the Early
Church: Message of the Fathers of the Church
(Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1983). The early
church Fathers were the acknowledged keepers and defenders
of the church’s earliest beliefs. Unfortunately, many of
their views were harshly negative toward women, views which
have informed the Western church’s perspectives on women’s
value and roles in the church.
[19]
H. Gilbert Welch, “Life, medicalized”, op-ed, Los Angeles
Times, March 15, 2010.
[20]
In some positive news from science, Sharon Begley reports
that studies now indicate
that anti-depressants do not really work for most persons;
much of their effectiveness can be attributed to the placebo
effect ("The Depressing News about Antidepressants," Newsweek,
Feb. 8, 2010). I hope that this points
scientists and medical experts to consider the need for
qualitative responses to whole persons, not an outer in fix
of fragmented persons. I hope that these findings will
compel us as Christians to challenge our theological
assumptions about human ontology—our nature and function.
[21]
In his book, loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for
Social Connections (NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008),
neuroscientist John Cacioppo notes the case of Romanian
orphans that demonstrate this human reality, 130-31.
[22]
Language that epitomizes this resignation is often spoken by
women: ni modo (Spanish) and shikata ga nai
(Japanese).
[23]
I'm not referring here to women who leave abusive
relationships as a matter of survival but avowed feminists.
[24]
This sister’s worship of Jesus is a challenging example of
how our worship needs to be freed for the connection God
seeks (cf. Jn 4:23-24).
[25]
For a discussion of the relational growth process of God's
daughters and sons as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the
Mount, see Matsuo, The Relational Progression
(Discipleship Study), ch.6 "Discipleship Formation" on this
website.
[26]
Metaschematizō and metamorphoō are discussed
in depth in The Relational Progression, ch.11,
subsection "Reductionist Alternatives."
[27]
For a full discourse on Peter's relationship with Jesus, see
Following Jesus, Knowing Christ (Spirituality Study),
ch.5, subsection "Being Relational: The Pursuit of Peter,"
and ch.2, subsection "(2) God's Nature as Intimately
Relational." See also Wholeness Study, ch.2, subsection
"Convergence with the Trinity."
[28]
I highly recommend Matsuo's Following Jesus, Knowing
Christ (Spirituality Study) and its Study Guide & Growth
Plan, on this website. The study guide provides important
questions for reflection and interaction that encourage
thinking relationally.
[29]
Important note: in order to not create needless alarm (e.g.,
with your neighbors), be sure to muffle the volume! Also,
cover your screaming pillow with a towel because it can get
drool-y. Wholeness isn't for the faint-hearted or squeamish.
[30]
Due to the limits of this article, I don't discuss
reconciliation fully, only to say that forgiveness opens the
door to full reconciliation between open and willing
parties. If one party is not open, then reconciliation does
not take place.
[31]
The Spirit is Jesus' relational replacement with us on
earth, not some impersonal power, not an "it." Before Jesus'
death and resurrection, he comforted the disciples with the
promise that he wouldn't leave them as orphans (i.e.,
relationally apart from family). Jesus promised his
relational replacement, the Spirit, who would be with them
as Jesus was (please read Jn 14:15-27). The Spirit is given
only for relational work, as Paul makes clear in Romans
8:14-17, 26 and Galatians 4:6-7.
[32]
Like my denial of believing I was less as a female, I denied
(to myself) feeling less as an Asian. I could acknowledge
how I truly felt only with the Spirit’s deep help. Thank you
Spirit!
[33]
The issue of illusion about my relationship with my dad came
from memories of childhood. I recall as a little girl
sitting and playing with Dad, but as I grew older, this
didn't happen anymore. I grew up thinking our relationship
had changed at some point. In hindsight, I saw that I was
the one to initiate these and any other moments together,
and that I stopped after we moved.
[34]
This illuminates what Jesus says in his prayer to the
Father: "And this is eternal life, that they may know
you...." (Jn 17:3).
[35]
The Person, the Trinity, the Church (Wholeness
Study), ch.11 "Nothing Less and No Substitutes," subsection
"A Suggested Relational Conclusion"