Men and Dogs

By John Immel

Julie asked me to comment on SGM’s thoughts on Biblical Manhood.

I was originally going to answer some related blog posts point for point or at least premise to premise…and I may yet do that in the future. Mandated date nights? The endless squabble over  egalitarian vs complementarian gender benders? The continuous preoccupation with correct expressions of male sexuality? The obsessive preoccupation with female modesty? The prevailing assumption that men really don’t know how to love their wives and women are to be lovingly reminded of their proper place in God’s overarching plan? As I was reading through the dizzying array of thoughts on SGM-related blogs, I realized my point for point commentary is insufficient without some effort to explain the assumptions, presuppositions, and filters driving that commentary.

That is gonna take me a bit. So when you see this rather lengthy intro preceding a post, what follows is foundational ideas that ultimately address “biblical” manhood and “biblical” womanhood.

I said I would, so I’ve dedicated these articles to Julie.

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I’m hungry.

“Well, where do you wanna go eat?”

“I don’t care. Where do you wanna go?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a preference. What do you think?”

“Uhhhhh, well, I really don’t care where we eat, but let’s eat somewhere… I’m hungry.”

And so it goes.

Ever had that conversation before?

What has to happen before the “relationship” can progress?

Somebody needs to voice a preference!

Having a relationship with someone who refuses to voice their wants and desires is about as fulfilling as having a having a dog. It’s comfortable, and you always know you can get affection, and the dogs will always love you, but there is no depth. Somewhere along the line, Christians have gotten the idea that we are supposed to become spiritual lapdogs looking adoringly into God’s face and occasionally liking his hand after he lowers himself to feed us.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a lapdog.  I am a man.

Men take action, Lapdogs SIT…

Many people think the the perfect Christian expression is how well you can SIT for long periods of time. Passivity is a bad thing, always; and it is definitely not masculine. We turn our passivity into a doctrinal statement by calling it: Waiting on God. When nothing happens, we absolve our impotence by claiming circumstance to a product of God’s manifest hand. We would really like to muster the nerve to tell God, “Hey I want something else.” But we don’t. Our logic tells us that to want anything different is to defy the greatest of Christian callings: SITTING. We pray our prayers, repeating Jesus’ words in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

But in Gethsemane, God did not impose His desire on Jesus.

He didn’t command Jesus to SIT and wait for the Romans to come nail him to a cross.

It is crucial that you understand this reality.

God made a request: not a demand, not an appointment, not a determination.  God did not orchestrate inescapable circumstances for Jesus to endure.

God made a request.

Jesus had a choice.

A choice requires action. Actions require freedom. Jesus didn’t have to put his life on HOLD to gain the will of God. No, the will of God was something he could embrace and act on, and be a part of in the moment.

Men shall live by faith; Lapdogs live by handout…

Men make their own lives, prepare their own food, and accept the challenge of living. Dogs, on the other hand, wait for someone to feed them, eat the same monotonous food from the same bowl, and beg scraps from his master’s table.

Jesus was a man, and he lived his life like he was a man.

God did not array events against Jesus compelling him to make his act of consecration.

As I already pointed out, Jesus had the power to deliver himself. He could level the approaching mob with his words (i.e. John 18.).  He could let his followers start a war to defend him.

Jesus was not a victim of hopeless circumstance. He was not a prisoner of impossible odds.

I’m going to make this plain:  a Gethsemane experience requires a choice.

I just said a hard thing.

I know this directly implicates people with incurable diseases, or hopeless afflictions. Most people come to grips with hopeless situations by deferring the circumstance to divine will. If God wants things this way, then who am I to argue? If Jesus could say yes to the cross, then I should be able to say yes to _____.

What we really say to ourselves is: “If Jesus could suffer, then I should be able to suffer.” But suffering is the only binding theme between Gethsemane and hopeless human bondage.

I understand why people need to make this equation. What is more, I am sympathetic to the need to find meaning in the middle of suffering. Man can suffer many things, but the one thing he does not tolerate in any expression is futility.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Human beings abhor futility.

We crumble under the pain of toil. We lose our spirit, our will to live when circumstance seems to have no purpose.

Human beings are determined to understand “why?” Why is life so harsh? Why is there so much pain? Unfortunately, to our ever-increasing madness, life doesn’t give good answers, and somehow when we need his voice the most, God manages to remain painfully quiet.

To solve our own problem, we rush to fill the void. We need a reason for our suffering. We need life to make sense, for there to be a reason for all the madness.

This is powerful motivation to read Jesus’ words in Gethsemane to ease our need. “Not my will, but thy will…” With those six words we have answered all the questions that terrorize our soul. But for all our trying, they are not the same words; it is not the same prayer.

Jesus was really saying: “I will relinquish my ability to deliver myself, and give myself over to your method of delivery.” He was really saying: “I will live by my faith. You will resurrect me!”

We say those six words and really mean: “This circumstance is so far beyond me and my abilities that you must have created them. I don’t have the ability to deliver myself. I am hurting and I suffer. If Jesus could suffer, and that suffering brought Good, then I to will suffer in the hopes that you will bring Good.”

Jesus prayer is one of consecration. Our prayer is a prayer of victimization.

As much as I sympathize, I must point out the failure of our interpretation.   Passivity and victimization go hand in hand. And we have created a body of doctrine that creates a virtue out of both. This is why so many Christians are stuck in circumstances that destroy them.

Men are self-appointed; Lapdogs are kept on a leash…

What are leashes for? Leashes are designed to keep a dog from going where he shouldn’t, getting into things he shouldn’t, or leaving his master’s side when he shouldn’t.

I suppose that leashes say a lot about the dog: his self-destructive nature, his rebellion, his corrupt instinct. Christians are quick to develop the doctrines of the lapdog.

But leashes say as much about the master as they do the dog. Truthfully, a leash says more about the master. Dogs operate from instinct. They have no sense of right and wrong. They might understand their master’s displeasure. And being dogs, they are motivated please, but they don’t choose what ground to sniff by a profound understanding of the Ten Commandments.

Dog trainers are unanimous in this assumption: it is never the dog’s fault.  Whatever the master wanted the dog to do but failed to execute, it is the sole responsibility of the master:  to train effectively, his failure to communicate effectively, his ultimate disregard for the dog reaching its fullest expression of freedom.

Hummmm, this one is gonna hit close to home.

As I have already said: Gethsemane gets mixed into Jesus’ exhortation to pick up the cross and follow him. Now let me expand on the comment.

We have read Jesus’ words to like this: “I should be suspicious of my wants and desires. So therefore, I need to kill them at the cross everyday.” Our personal experience affirms our interpretation because we sin, and then we wonder: “If I am born again,” we say to ourselves, “how then can I do these evil things?” We then search the scriptures to find an answer. The second building block of our assumption comes from our historic reading of Romans 7. Paul outlines a basic conflict between the law and our inward drive to do right. We identify with that conflict and think it normal for all of life. We then decide that Gethsemane is a template. And that template affirms our basic assumption:  If Jesus could deny himself and suffer, then I must be willing to suffer.

Whatever the need for this thinking, it makes us miss this fact:  Gethsemane was not a lifestyle.

Jesus didn’t live his life on a leash. The actions of Jesus’ life were strikingly harmonized. Sleeping, eating, living, loving as he saw fit, even in the face of threat, and opposition, and hardship. God did not drive him to action with pain or bring him to a halt with insurmountable circumstance.

Whatever our shortcoming, however miserably we fall short of this standard, this is the freedom for which Jesus paid. The point Gethsemane was end the hostility between Man and God so we could live in the Covenants of Promise.   His CHOICE in Gethsemane was for the express purpose of giving us the power to make choices, to exercise our preference and have an individual relationship with the God of Heaven and Earth.

Men Choose. Dogs obey.