This is a long one today. If you make it to the end, let me know by leaving me a comment, and I’ll bake you some cookies. Hopefully I can get back to crafting soon.
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Today I want to talk about the concept of escape. I’ve gone through some trying times in the past 10 years. My faith in God is important to me when attempting to navigate these trials. I pray, and I also cling to the messages in the church. We were part of a church for 6 years or so in which I would cling to every word the pastor spoke and try to follow it to the letter.
One of these messages was of profound forgiveness within the body of Christ. We are to be a family to each other, to the extent that there should be nothing to separate us from one another. I can see my pastor holding up his hands, folded together with fingers intertwined. “The local church family should be so intertwined together, that it will be painful to rip it apart.”
The teaching of the church, whether regarding marriage, friendships, or fellow church members, is that we’ve made a commitment to one another, and we don’t break that commitment. We work it out. We pray it out. We forgive if we are sinned against, and if we sin, we repent. It sounds ideal.
I was wholeheartedly devoted to this kind of thinking. The problem is that boundaries are not taught. Nor is the concept of escape from harm. I suppose the teaching was a pushback to cultural American individualism - being an “island” as individual Americans. So am I the only one who fell into this trap of thinking people are wrong to have boundaries?
Here’s what I’ve been trying to form into words in my head for some time: if someone sins against me, I have a right to confront that person for their sin. But if I sin against a person, and that person chooses to distance themselves from me, I do not have a right to confront them. Let me flesh this out. In my mind, if I come to the person I sinned against and say, “I am sorry. I should not have done that. I know it must have hurt you. Will you please forgive me,” and that person refuses to reconcile with me, I might think they are sinning against me. But they are not.
For the longest time, I believed that the unforgiveness and unwillingness to reconcile was the bigger sin. But this is not true. If I made someone uncomfortable, or if I made them feel unsafe, or if they think it’s best for their family to keep me away from them, it is their prerogative. I used to think, “God commands them to love me, therefore, their unforgiveness is unloving, therefore, they are sinning against me, therefore, I can confront them.”
But this is not true. They did not sin against me. I sinned against them. Their decision to refuse to recognize my repentance is not a sin against me, it is a sin against God, but ONLY if God has instructed them to continue a relationship with me. And that is not for me to know.
The reason it took me so long to recognize this is because I believed I needed to tolerate people sinning against me. I took the command to forgive my brother 70x7 more seriously than the command to refuse to associate with wicked and evil people. I did not know, especially within a marriage relationship, that it was right to seek safety from someone who repeatedly sins against me and against God. It was not only right, but commanded. Especially if this person is not repentant or is falsely repentant. Now in marriage, false repentance is a lot harder to recognize, and so I give myself grace.
I also have to give myself grace for not recognizing that it is good and right for someone to escape from me when I have sinned. It is not my responsibility to prove my repentance to anyone, and it is not anyone’s responsibility to know my heart as to whether my repentance is genuine. It is only my responsibility to genuinely repent. It is only their responsibility to escape from harm, whether I caused it intentionally or not.
Speaking of escape, I need to put this into terms that make it easier to understand. (Side note, I know it is taboo to compare my life to a slave’s, and I acknowledge the horrendous generational trauma that black Americans have suffered due to the great evils of slavery, and I hope not to diminish their experiences by my experience. I just am not sure how else to provide a good analogy.) Imagine that a man comes into church and tells the pastor, “I am a slave. This man here owns me, and I have been serving him, but I don’t want to be a slave. I want to be a free man.”
Now imagine a woman comes to church and says to the pastor, “I am being mistreated by my husband. He is disrespectful and unloving to me, and he twists things around to make it seem that I am disrespectful to him.”
What would the pastor say or do to the first man? If he is a wise pastor, he would not say, “Well, the Bible tells slaves to submit to their masters, so just keep submitting.” No, he would say, “it is illegal for a man to own another man. And it’s not only illegal, it is also immoral and unconscionable, based on the inalienable rights we have been granted by God for liberty and justice.” That pastor would investigate if it were true, and he would go to the authorities to help that man to be free. And that man would be eligible to serve and lead in the church, despite his status as a slave or a free man. Because eligibility is based on your status in Christ, and not your status in the world.
But what would the pastor say to the woman? Even if he is a wise pastor, he would tell her, “The Bible says to submit to your husband.” He would probably accuse her of being disrespectful, he would investigate into the husband, and would find out his side of the story, and he would label her disrespectful. This woman would get no help to free her from bondage to her oppressor like the man would. In fact, she would be reabused, she would be ineligible to serve God, despite her status in Christ. And she would be told to stay, and that she has no right to leave.
But she does have a right to leave. She has an obligation to leave. Because she is a human being with inalienable rights that grant her liberty and justice as well. We are taught that escaping is a sin, because it punishes the one who loves us. But escaping is not a punishment for the one who loves us.
When I confronted and tried to guilt the person I sinned against into reconciling with me, I said I did it out of love. But that is not love. If I love someone, I will let them go. I will give them their freedom. And if the woman who is being oppressed leaves her husband, and her husband feels it is a punishment, he does not truly love her. She is his slave. I do truly love the ones I sinned against, and I have repented, and I have let them go. They are gone out of my life, which hurts, but I know it is best.
And so, if a man is hurt by his wife leaving, in order to escape his sinfulness against her, he is not being punished by her. Yes, he is experiencing consequences, which might feel like punishment. But if she is escaping, she is not sinning. And if God calls her to reconcile with him, it is between her and God. The abuser does not have any right to confront her for being unforgiving or for not reconciling. It is her decision and she gets the freedom to make her own choice.
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What do you think? Have I missed anything?
