This was my husband’s “Zoom with the folks” summary of his sermon today, which he had asked me to read this week, alerting him to any overdose of melancholy or red flags for cultural-congregational consumption. He and I do this dance from time to time, which I am more than happy to offer when he asks it. I ask “what kind of feedback do you want?” He has gotten better at refining “what he’s looking for” from me. These are often our best conversations, with spiritual substance and sense of belonging with one another.
I think my response to this week’s sermon surprised us both. He was spring-boarding from the Matthew 10 text of Jesus instructing the disciples how to travel, be welcomed (or not), and in all things, “Proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Brian had titled it “The Long Defeat,” an homage to his elder-teacher, J.R.R. Tolkien, whose entire narrative world(s) are rife with Christian sensibilities and complete expectation of failure. Just because history is ample evidence of this long defeat (of God, of the Good, of Truth-Beauty-Good etc.) is no reason not to love kindness, do mercy, walk humbly in this world.
I think he made some poignant, beautiful, even wise points in his proclamation of the Good News today. I listened online as I was driving home from my Open Gym workout with my own circle of friends, CrossFit style. He is very good at what he does, and he is now the beloved pastor of a thriving suburban congregation (even though he fears post-Covid challenges and what “thriving” actually means today). I am happy for his calling and I do attempt to support him in it as best I can.
Yet on days like today, we live in this fissure he calls Calvinism and I call cowardice. The place and function of sin enfleshes our separation, ironically. He proclaims sin taints everything, and so no matter what we do, say, or hope, we will fail. God will succeed, but out of our paygrade and beyond our time. Total Depravity, part of 5-point Calvinism, if anyone’s interested. I joke about it in theological circles, but it does bother me...increasingly, apparently.
For myself, given what Spirit has invited for me over twenty years now? I say: “It’s not that I think sin is inaccurate or false. The world is as we’ve made it, collectively. Separation is the most broadcast, visible sign of its reality(ies). A majority of us (it seems) live this vision of separation that sin provides every day. Having drunk this theological draft down to its dregs, I find sin, traditionally conceived, unhelpful and archaically will-ful. It is the story because so many of us have made it the story.
It predisposes human beings to look for the fault more than the blessing, gift.
It imputes and causes ingestion of shame such that "sinful people" become convinced they can do nothing good. (So why try?)
It lands judgment most heavily on those who have the least power, the least voice, in society.
And sin seems to be the ecclesial doctrine from which women spend their entire lives trying to recover...
It’s telling to me that most men I know find the conviction of sin liberating. I hear them profess this liberation like it will become true for everyone, if we just open our hearts to this way of thinking/feeling. My dissertation mentor, James Loder, named it liberating. Male colleagues at work have said as much. Brian names it too. It seems inconceivable to them that what is liberating for them is binding for so many others. Which drives me to write and process and write some more...crazy, in other words.
Even so, I bow to the probability that it is liberating for them. No longer do they need to be held responsible, and if/when failing, at fault. Sin buys men-identified folks a "get out of Duty" card. For so many others? It's a Go to Jail card. But we have done this to little boys becoming overly-dutiful men for centuries. How exhausting it is for them, and so how freeing being convicted of sin must be.
One could make the argument that Protestant Christianity in its European-North American dress or history is (conceivably) the faith tradition of men, often straight/cis-gendered, often white. At least where Brian and I are in the global North, Midwestern, largely segregated city of Dayton. Perhaps this Christianity speaks to them what they most need to learn? self-relinquishment, humility, self-offering, receptivity. This Christianity speaks less and less, in my experience, what awakening women and human beings of color, of multiple expressions, need to hear for their own wholeness, liberation.
Nodding to one of my own previous mentors, then: sin as separation is actually quite gendered, leaning masculine/patriarchal. If we are to use the term at all, women's sin is not separation, hubris, pride at all. It's self-abdegnation, self-relinquishment. Our sin is maintaining connection despite its imprisoning and enslaving impacts. A woman’s spiritual maturity requires courage to confront systems that refuse her. Her task is to risk development of the gifts and graces the world needs so very desperately.
Focusing on sin, in my view therefore, is a traditionally masculinized cowardice to live into stories of connection. And women who refuse to develop themselves, learn their own stories, find their own voices are cowards for the sake of safety and security, learned down the broken-motherlines of patriarchal habits of generations. Our earth needs women to wake up to their own gifts, graces, potentials. Our earth needs men able to soften, to risk connection (and therefore risk rejection), and be willing to live into new stories of connection. And you know the best way to do that? Imagine the goodness in human beings we share, not the divisions and separations "sin" paints.
To be fair, I know I'm barking up a branchless tree here. Most men-identified folks don’t know how to begin, let alone behave differently in much of this. We’ve all shaped boys to prioritize separation. We’ve lived into marriages with internalized patriarchal assumptions handed down, completely unaware we are living old patterns that hide gifts and neglect graces. I’m prime candidate number one here. It took me well over 15 years to realize some of the patterns I was living in my own marriage were ones that I had inherited, completely unconsciously. They were well hidden because I was such a powerfully-spoken professional theological woman on the outside. Inside? I was the woman I had seen growing up–deferential, submissive, detached from my body, passive-aggressive, withholding. I did it so well, my husband had no idea, though he felt bereft when I began to behave differently. Even so, I’m still this woman from time to time. And I’m evolving into a new/better partner, a more compassionate companion, a conscious feminine woman who loves her husband and refuses the continued impositions of old.
Which makes it more complicated for him, for us both. He cannot trust my body's wisdom about a tradition he loves dearly. I cannot trust his faith's devotion, nor receive quietly old stories that are unhelpful and potentially abusive.
So, to be clear, I didn’t hate the sermon. It was well-thought out, well-delivered. I'm sure it was meaningful for many, including many women. It was probably even faithful to a tradition that has betrayed women's best interests for centuries.
Clearly, it is touching the age-old wounding of sin imposed by the church upon the Feminine, for me. It brought Scriptural weight–perceptions of being sacred–to the same old tired storyline, using sin as a cop-out for both men and women against living more fully into Life, Love, Hope and more.
How long must we continue to learn and unlearn this pattern before we get to live stories of belonging in a cosmos full of mystery and Adoration?
Tolkien's phrase "the long defeat" resonates deeply for me as well. So we labor, regardless whether those we love can listen or bear it...a certain nobility moving from failure to failure without diminished enthusiasm, commitment.
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