are compatibility and complementarity at odds?

Owen Strachan has penned an interesting piece in which he states that perhaps nothing has been more damaging to male-female relationships than the notion of compatibility. He opens with this thought: “Compatibility. Has any concept done more to hinder the development of love?” Such a statement must surely have in mind a narrow working definition of compatibility, something along the lines of a Match.com profile and the self-serving search for the perfect soulmate. And I get how that's not healthy. But in complementarian marriage, is the desire for compatibility out of place? In the minds of most, the two terms Strachan juxtaposes would be defined briefly like this:

Compatibility: what is shared between a man and a woman

Complementarity: what is different between a man and a woman

So, do these two ideas live in opposition to one another? We find a carefully constructed story in Genesis 2 that I believe addresses this question directly. It is a story in which God creates man, notes he needs a suitable helper, then commands him to give names to every living creature. The animals parade by: ostrich, camel, alligator. Adam obediently names each one. It must have been a very long line of creatures great and small, as Adam “gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field”. Yet none of them is a suitable partner for him. Though half of them share his maleness, none of them share his humanness. They are beautifully formed, but they are not formed in the image of God.

Imagine Adam’s state of mind as the animals parade past him: “Ostrich: not like me. Camel: not like me. Alligator: not like me.” He becomes increasingly aware that, though surrounded by God’s good gifts, he is in a very fundamental sense, alone. You and I know what the solution to his aloneness will be, but the text takes its time establishing that his state is “not good” before pulling back the curtain. Before Eve can be prepared for Adam, Adam must be prepared for Eve.

And then, after a brief nap, Adam awakes. And there she is, at last.

Adam bursts into poetry:

“Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ishah (woman) because she came from ish (man).”

Don’t miss what Adam is saying. After the animal parade of one not-like-him after another, at last he sees Eve and rejoices that she is wonderfully, uniquely like-him.

“Same of my same, same of my same. She shall be called like me because she came from me.”

The Bible’s first word on man and woman is not what separates them, but what unites them. It is a celebration of compatibility, of shared humanness. Ours is not a faith that teaches “men are from Mars and women are from Venus”. Rather, it teaches that both man and woman are from the same garden, created by and in the image of the same God, sharing a physical, mental and spiritual sameness that unites the two of them in a way they cannot be united to anything else in creation. Before the Bible celebrates the complementarity of the sexes, it celebrates their compatibility. And so should we.

To make how-we-are-different our starting point is to reinforce the tired idea that men and women are wholly “other”, an idea that lends itself neatly to devaluing and objectifying, rather than defending and treasuring. It is the very idea that fuels the cultural stereotypes of the incompetent husband and the nagging wife. I push away and discredit what is not-like-me. I cling to and elevate what is like-me. Compatibility is what binds us together, like two Cowboys fans finding each other in a sea of Eagles jerseys.

No one goes on a first date and remarks, “Wow, we had nothing in common. I can’t wait to go out again.” Same-of-my-same is what keeps man and woman in relationship when differences make them want to run for the exit. Same-of-my-same is what transforms gender differences from inexplicable oddities to indispensable gifts. Because my husband is fundamentally like-me in his humanness, the ways he is not-like-me in his maleness elicit my admiration or my forbearance, instead of my disdain or my frustration.

Compatibility. Has any concept done more to nurture the development of love?

So, no, complementarity and compatibility are not at odds. And it is precarious to pit them against one another. Compatibility is the medium in which complementarity takes root and grows to full blossom. Until we acknowledge our glorious, God-ordained sameness, we cannot begin to celebrate or even properly understand our God-given differences as men and women. This is the clear message of Genesis 2, so often rushed past in our desire to shore up our understanding of what it means to be created distinctly male and female. But we cannot rush past it, any more than Adam could rush past the parade of animals that were not-like-him. As Genesis 2 carefully reflects, a world which lacks the beauty of shared human sameness between the sexes is a world that is distinctly “not good”. But a world in which compatibility undergirds complementarity is very good indeed.

when dad doesn’t disciple the kids

Three kinds of “single moms” exist in the church: the literal single mom who is raising children on her own, the mom whose husband is an unbeliever, and the mom whose husband professes belief but does not partner in the spiritual nurture of the family. For the true single mom and the mom married to an unbeliever, the task is clear: train your children in the Lord because no one else will. For the wife of the believing father guilty of spiritual absenteeism, the lines are blurry. She lives in the tension between wanting to honor her spouse and wanting to spiritually equip her children. All three “single moms” desperately need the support of the church, but in this post I want to focus specifically on the third mom, a woman trapped in a dilemma.

To Wait or to Act?

This mom walks in a great deal of anxiety, particularly in more conservative environments where emphasis is placed on fathers leading spiritually in the home. She sees her children going to bed each night with no family time spent in the scriptures or in prayer, with no conversations broached on the critical subjects that help kids transition to adulthood with the wisdom they need.  She has gently raised the suggestion that dad initiate these teaching moments, to be met with apathy or with short-lived token attempts. And because she has been taught that God wants men to be the ones to lead such conversations in the home, she begins to believe that the only course of action open to her is to sit silently, not wanting to usurp authority, confused about what her role should be as mother and wife, praying that the Lord would change her husband’s heart.

Not that prayer is a give-up position. It is a far better use of mom’s words than berating or begging dad to be more involved. Prayer for dad’s heart and for the hearts of the children should always be the first action mom pursues, both in homes where dad is spiritually present and in homes where he is not. But in homes where dad is spiritually absent, I believe mom is called both to pray and to act.

Step into the Street

When my children were in early elementary school I would walk them to the corner where the crossing guard would help them across a busy intersection to the school. She wore an orange vest and carried a stop sign. She had a whistle. She knew the traffic patterns. It was her job to make sure the cars stopped and the children crossed safely. As a parent, I did not have authority to tell my kids to cross the street when the intersection looked clear to me. That was the crossing guard’s job.

But let’s say for a minute that the crossing guard doesn’t do her job one morning. Let’s say she sees me coming with my little ones but decides to stay in her lawn chair scrolling through Instagram.  Let’s say that I ask her to help them across the intersection, but she ignores my valid request. What should I do? I don’t have an orange vest or a stop sign. I don’t know the traffic patterns like she does. Should I turn to my children and say, “Well, good luck – I’ll pray you make it safely to the other side!” 

Of course not. I should do what she has chosen not to do. I should watch for an opening in the traffic and walk my children safely across the street. I should submit to a higher authority than the crossing guard in the interest of doing what is safe and right.

Moms dealing with spiritually absent dads rightly feel anxiety for their children. In the busy intersection of life, it is neither safe nor right to leave children untrained in spiritual matters. In fact, it would be reprehensible to do so. But don’t worry - it’s possible to honor your sacred responsibility to your children and their Heavenly Father while still showing honor to their earthly father.

Make Disciples

The Great Commission calls followers of Christ to make disciples, teaching them to obey all He has commanded. Parents are charged with this very call within the home. A mom who can’t count on her husband to partner in fulfilling it will need courage and humility to move ahead in obedience to Christ. As His disciple, she can and must spend her efforts to make disciples of her children, teaching them to obey His commands. Moms, not only do you have permission to take this on, you have a mandate.

In the absence of dad’s help, move forward to fill the gap. Without vilifying dad, simply begin having the conversations necessary to guide your children safely to adulthood. Continue to pray for dad. Continue to invite him periodically to join the conversation. Continue to honor him by committing to speak well of him to your children. As you ask the Lord to help you in your efforts and to soften your husband’s heart, keep confessing any resentment or self-righteousness you might harbor. Lean on your Christian community for support. But don’t let fear of usurping an authority dad does not exercise keep you from equipping your kids with the fear of the Lord. The Lord delights in those who do His will. Train those kids. Remind yourself that God is their perfect Heavenly Father, and trust Him to care for them and shape them to be like His Son.

on daughters and dating: how to intimidate suitors

I have two teen-aged daughters, so it was with some interest that I read a recent post entitled “Application to Date My Daughter”. It was pretty funny, playing on the idea of the stereotypical shotgun-toting father and the mortified daughter as they negotiate the tricky terrain of a first date.  Then Christian bloggers grabbed the concept, and for the most part, these versions were funny, too. There were some common themes: slouchy-panted unemployed suitors, dads breathing out Chuck Norris-inspired threats. I didn’t lose my well-developed sense of humor until I made the tactical error of glancing at some of the comments. And then I was just flat-out sad.

Here is the comment that made me the saddest, posted by a well-meaning young Christian father:

“Bro, this is awesome. My daughter’s only 2, but I am printing this for my fridge. Thanks for your godly example.”

Oh dear.

Okay, joke’s over. Bro. Let’s talk strategy for a second. Is that all you’ve got? You need a better plan than these low-level intimidation techniques. After all, she’s your DAUGHTER, for Pete’s sake. So let’s talk frankly about what you need to do to guard her interests when it comes to dating. Instead of brandishing a shotgun or breaking out an application, you need to build a wall.

That’s right, you heard me – build a wall. Go all “Rapunzel”. Build it so high that only the strongest of suitors can scale it. But don’t wait until your baby girl is a teenager, Bro  – start now. Start yesterday. There’s no time to waste.

build a wall

In Song of Solomon 8:8-9 we hear a family’s hope that their young sister will grow into a woman of strength and dignity. Can you guess what metaphor they use to describe that kind of woman? A wall. Their sister assures them in verse 10 that she is indeed a wall, complete with towers. Her statement indicates an assurance that she is not only strong, but able to defend herself against any unworthy suitors. That’s what you want, Bro – you want a wall.

Here’s the problem with shotgun jokes and applications posted on the fridge: to anyone paying attention, they announce that you fully expect your daughter to have poor judgment. Be assured that your daughter is paying attention.  And don’t be shocked if she meets your expectation. You might want to worry less about terrorizing or retro-fitting prospective suitors and worry more about preparing your daughter to choose wisely. And that means building a wall.

Instead of intimidating all your daughter’s potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own. Because, you know what’s intimidating? Strength and dignity. Deep faith. Self-assuredness. Wisdom. Kindness. Humility. Industriousness. Those are the bricks that build the wall that withstands the advances of old Slouchy-Pants, whether you ever show up with your Winchester locked and loaded or not. The unsuitable suitor finds nothing more terrifying than a woman who knows her worth to God and to her family.

too strong?

But here’s a hard reality: if you raise that daughter, she’ll likely intimidate her fair share of “nice Christian boys” as well. Because a decent number of those guys have some nutty ideas about what it means to be in charge. I’m amazed and saddened at how often I hear young single guys say of bright, gifted single women, “Wow, she’s so strong I don’t think I could lead her.” At which point, too many bright, gifted single women begin to consider ways to “tone themselves down” or “soften themselves a bit”.

Raise a strong daughter, even if – no, especially if it means potential suitors question whether they can “lead her”, whatever that means to them. You’ve just identified those suitors as ineligible, without so much as an application process. Leadership is not about the strong looking for weaker people to lead. It’s about the humble looking for those whose strengths offset their weaknesses and complement their strengths. Strong leaders surround themselves with strong people, not with weak ones. Rather than finding the strengths of others threatening, they celebrate them and leverage them. This is Management 101, but I fear young Christian men and well-intentioned Christian parents of daughters have gotten a little fuzzy on the concept.

put down your shotgun

I often think that if we scrutinized our parenting with the same intensity we plan to turn on our daughters’ prospective suitors, we’d stop speculating about shotguns and applications and start building that wall. So, my well-meaning father of a two-year-old, please don’t hit “print” on that application just yet. Instead of cross-examining the man your daughter brings home, cross-examine the man who brought your daughter home from the hospital. She does not need the belated braggadocio of your intentions to protect her from slouchy-pants fools when she’s a teen. She needs you to hitch up your own and invest in her character - now.

So put down your shotgun. Pick up your Indian Princess guide book, or your coach’s clipboard. Take a seat at a tea party. Teach how to change a flat and start the mower. Discuss politics and economics and theology. Compliment a new outfit or an A in math. Tell her you think she is absolutely beautiful. Kneel at a pink chenille bedside and pray your guts out. Raise a daughter with a fully loaded heart and mind so that a fully loaded shotgun isn’t necessary. She shouldn’t need you to scare off weak suitors. Let her strength and dignity do the job.  Resolve to settle for nothing less than the best protection for your daughter. Resolve to be the kind of man you want her to bring home. Resolve to build a wall.

“What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver…” Song of Solomon 8:8-9

hope for the broken home

I am a gardener, after my mother’s example.

I remember the simple script, hung by a nail next to the sugar canister: “Bloom where you are planted” -  a red geranium sketched in the bottom left corner. It hung in the five-bedroom house, the one with the father who went to work and the mother who made a home and the children who arrived to her greeting after school. It hung also in the two-bedroom house, the one with the mother who went to work and the children whose keys unlocked a silent kitchen and the father who came on Saturdays.

Both houses were mine. When I was nine years old, my parents’ divorce was final, and our family, like so many others, was left to make sense of the aftermath.

The conference ends and a woman approaches me at the podium. She is on the verge of tears.  She has approached me before – no, not her, but ten others with the same question brimming in the corners of their eyes. I have spoken for almost an hour, but she remembers one passing detail: “You come from a broken home. Thank you for saying it.”

“Broken home” - the term is hers, not mine. A single mother, worried that her children will be consumed by the devastation of her failed marriage, that their trajectory is faithlessness, bitterness and sorrow. She sees me and wants to know: how did you bloom?

What formula I can offer? The fracturing of a marriage can look many ways. There are no hard and fast rules for how to cobble together hope. I can only tell my story, one shaped by three gifts my parents gave.

The first, of course, was a great deal of prayer. On my behalf, across many years.

The second was a great deal of selflessness on the part of both of my parents, and my stepmother as well. All three of my parents gave me permission to love and cherish all three of my parents. They treated one another with mutual respect, both in their words and actions. I was not asked to choose one parent over another. When a marriage fails, the resulting web of relationships is not always made up of honorable people. By the grace of God, mine was. I knew they had deep hurt toward each other, that thirty five years later they still do. But I knew they placed my relationship needs above their own hurt.

The third gift, astonishingly, was a high view of marriage. Who would believe it? But no one in my family would say that divorce is a simple solution to a difficult marriage. It never gets easy, never stops aching, never slips completely into past-tense. It is a measure of absolute last resort. Rather than teach me to hold my marriage lightly, my parents taught me to hold it in high regard, to enter into it with care, to guard it with determination.

An incomplete account, of limited help, but my story nonetheless. I feel deep gratitude toward my parents, somehow able to recognize that just because their marriage was a failure didn’t mean that their divorce had to be. Finding their family planted in rocky soil, they determined, as far as it was possible with them, to help us bloom.

I have been blessed with three devoted parents, but I believe - and have witnessed - that even one devoted parent can foster blooms in the desert. Do I come from a broken home? I do. And so do all of us, I suppose. I have known more love and respect, more kindness, more selfless pursuit of relationship in my “broken home” than many know in their traditional families. Take heart in this, mother in the aftermath – a failed marriage does not doom you to a failed family. No malediction guides your course. Surely the grace of God is for homes both broken and intact. Surely, if any of us blooms, we do so by that grace alone.

I am a gardener, after my mother’s example. And my step-mother’s as well, truth be told. I carry a sentimental attachment to a particular flower, tracing back to my childhood, to a sign on a nail next to a canister of sugar. My yard spills over with geraniums. The Victorians assigned a meaning to that blossom - though other flowers symbolize peace or healing, the geranium symbolizes folly.

A fitting emblem for this child of divorce, this child of God. For it is folly to believe that something whole can come from something broken. Yet God chooses what is foolish in this world to shame the wise. He chooses the weak, the low, the despised. He chooses the broken. And these, against all logic, he redeems. Mother of a “broken home”, lift up your eyes. Find hope in the folly of the gospel - it is for you. Ask the Father to give all that is needful, all that is good.

I pray hope and wholeness bud beneath His care. I pray you and those you cherish bloom.

weaker vessels

Recently my husband and I attended an outdoor concert for a band we both like. At the beginning of the first set a fight broke out behind us between a woman and a man. Both appeared to have lost track of their beverage count, and the woman was hitting and pushing the man, yelling that he was a child and an idiot. The man gently tried to calm her down, but after smacking him on the chest a few more times she stumbled toward the exit with him trailing behind. There was awkward laughter in the surrounding seats, and then everyone started listening to the music again.

Except me. I started thinking about weaker vessels.

In the study of First Peter I taught this spring, we covered those tricky passages on submission in Chapters 2 and 3, finally arriving at Peter’s words to husbands in 3:7:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Peter’s comments to husbands are a subset of a discussion about how to live among unbelievers in a God-honoring way, urging submission to others as an expression of submission to God.  Having just addressed how a believing wife ought to live with an unbelieving husband, Peter addresses believing husbands about how to live with an unbelieving wife, describing her as the “weaker vessel”.  In the study homework I asked the women what Peter meant by “weaker vessel” – was he saying that women were morally weaker? Intellectually weaker? Emotionally weaker? Physically weaker? Their responses were telling: almost everyone correctly checked “physically weaker”, but about half of the group checked “emotionally weaker” as well.

I was bothered by this. It is probably fair to say that, generally speaking, women have easier access to their emotions than men do. But what message, implied or stated, had these women absorbed that led them to view this as weakness? Emotions are not a sign of weakness – emotions unchecked are. And anyone who has seen men hurl remote controls at sports coverage can verify that unchecked emotions are a problem for both genders. Both men and women can sin by letting emotions run wild, or by locking emotions away.  “Weaker vessel” must mean something else.

help from history

This is where historical context becomes our friend.  At the time Peter writes, Roman law had begun to soften towards women. During the first century A.D., laws began to be passed giving women rights of property ownership and protection from domestic abuse, but for hundreds of years before this, the concept of the pater familas had reigned in the lawbooks and in the home.

The pater familias, or “family father” held sway in the home on all decisions regarding property and family. All property remained legally his until his death – should he live to be eighty, none of his adult sons could hold property. Moreover, he held the power of life and death (vitae necisque potesta) over every member of his family. Infants deemed too expensive to be raised could be left on the temple steps at his order, either to die from exposure or to be taken and raised as slaves.  Adult children could be executed by fathers who believed them to be rebellious or deceitful. And most relevant to our discussion, wives whose husbands held the legal power to put them to death could hope for little protection from domestic violence.

So, the Rome to which Peter writes, much like the American South in the eighty years following Abolition, is a Rome in which new laws are on the books but practices remain much the same. Peter instructs wives on how to live carefully with an unbelieving husband who could cause them (or their children) physical harm for having converted to a new religion, and then he admonishes husbands of unbelieving wives not to deal harshly with them, even though the culture would allow it.

fragile or useful?

So the intent of “show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel” would not seem to be "tiptoe around your wife's emotions" as my study members had speculated. Nor would it seem to be “treat your wife like fine china”, as is often taught. Though it is well-intentioned, I wish we would stop teaching that. Fine china is fragile, rarely used, rarely useful, and largely decorative. I don’t believe that is the picture Scripture paints of godly women, here or elsewhere.  Even Peter’s use of the word “vessel” should point out that usefulness to God is inherent in defining not just womanhood but personhood. Peter uses the term “weaker vessel” to point to the general truth that women are comparatively physically weaker than men. Take, for example, the fight I witnessed at the concert: Because she was hitting him we had an awkward moment. If he had been hitting her we would have called security. Peter is reminding husbands of this relationship. He is warning them not to use physical strength to intimidate or harm their wives.

Peter in no way diminishes the worth or capability of wives by comparing their physical strength to that of their husbands with a simple word picture. He is, in fact, guarding them from being treated contemptibly. Wives, your emotions are not a sign of weakness – they are a gift from the Lord and can be a great strength. You and your husband share equal potential for strength or weakness in all things moral, intellectual and emotional - question any teaching that states or implies otherwise. Husbands and wives, may we treat each other at all times as honored vessels of different kinds, as vessels of mercy, as co-heirs of grace ordained for high and holy service to our Lord.

the hope of advent

We crowd into the room, shuffling songsheets so everyone can see, children in front. I turn so Jeff can read the chords, the neck of the guitar jutting awkwardly in front of me. We have an audience of two.

He lies next to her on the bed, on her left. He is neatly dressed, his white hair carefully combed. She lies slack-jawed, eyes staring up to the ceiling. Purple blotches cover her arm. Her right hand rests loosely on a baby doll placed on her chest. He is holding her left.

He smiles and wishes us a Merry Christmas. He has a request: could we sing “O Holy Night”?

We find it on our songsheets and begin to sing. The key is a bit high, and we search for the top notes of the chorus.

He closes his eyes as we sing.

They have been married for fifty years. She has been in this room for three. When the dementia blossomed, she forgot his name and began asking for the man who left her a widow in her twenties. He requested a larger bed be brought into the room so they could lie next to each other. So he could hold her hand. Some would say he belongs outside this building, but he does not agree.

We marry ‘til death do us part, but we do not choose the manner of our parting. We speak with longing of the desire to grow old together, but we do not picture this. And yet he stays, and he waits for what is next, and he holds her hand.

“Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother. And in his name all oppression shall cease.”

Oppression ceasing. No more slack jaw, no more vacant stare. No more hours of airless waiting, marked off by the whir of the blood pressure monitor. The death of death at the birth of Christ. O Holy night.

My eyes are pulled to the hand strumming the guitar.

I will hold that hand. I will hold it. Or it will hold mine. I do not know what the years will bring, but I know this with increasing certainty: that hand will stay in my hand. And we will wait together, for as long as we are given, for the end of oppression.  He has come. He is coming.

“Thank you, that was beautiful.”

He is being kind – we are not great singers. I am the one who should speak those words. Thank you. Thank you for the hope in your hand.