On Putting Christ in the Friend Zone

Well, apparently I've cut down my posts to a bi-weekly standard, which is unfortunate, since I have great thoughts pretty well all day long, but am too selfish to share them with the world. On the other hand, most of my thoughts end up looking like this, so maybe it's actually better for y'all. At any rate, I've got a bit of an excuse this time: last week I graduated with my MA in Theology, which brought my dad and brother in town for the week, which was, of course, awesome. And now I'm a Master, so you can expect my words to carry a lot more weight. Just the other day I settled a dispute in the supermarket checkout line concerning the divinity of Christ.

How did I do this? Merely by announcing my credentials, presenting my diploma, and declaiming "Jesus Christ is LORD." It was that easy, thanks to my multi-year schooling. Now all I have to do is buy a wallet big enough to fit my diploma in. Or maybe just hang it around my neck.

It'd look something like this. Except that Flav is a far snappier dresser than I. And yes, I've only just learned how to add text to pictures.

So congrats to me! And on to the thought of the week(s):

Having been out of high school for nearly 10 years now, I've only recently come across the verb to "friend-zone" (what can I say? I was only relatively recently disabused of the thought that the word "leggings" referred to those frilly knit things girls in the 80's used to wear on their lower legs sincerely and girls in the 00's wear ironically. Not the case. Those are "leg warmers." I hope you're taking notes). Wikipedia, that fount of knowledge, defines the "friend-zone" thusly:

"In popular culture, the "friend zone" refers to a platonic relationship where one person wishes to enter into a romantic relationship while the other does not. It is generally considered to be an undesirable situation by the lovelorn person."

Thankfully, the wikipedia article also points out that the term was only popularized in nineteen-ninety-freaking-four. So I've only been out of touch for nigh on 20 years. Whiiiiiiiiiiich I'm totally fine with.

I'm not particularly interested in the application of this concept in human-to-human relationships, as undesirable as it may be. I don't give dating advice, I'm a theologian (and a Master, at that). But it struck me that this same sort of dynamic is often present in our relationship to Christ.
There come times in our faith life that demand commitment, maybe more than we are willing to give. Those are the times that I think we can tend to relegate Christ to the friend zone, to think to ourselves "Me and Jesus? We're buddies! It's cool, he's a great guy, but that doesn't mean he can make any demands on me."

The problem with this, of course, is that Jesus doesn't want to be our friend. Jesus wants to be our lover. He doesn't want a piece or a part of our life, he wants our life. He wants to give us life, but the only way he can do that is if we give him our lives. Giving our lives to Christ is as easy and natural as falling in love, which is to say it is the most difficult and run-from experience in our modern world. 
Why? There are too many reasons to list, and this blog is already overlong, so I'll just suggest one: we're afraid. We think that if we can just keep Christ in that friend zone, we've got him contained, and those of us living the general human way of being in this day and age will always contain or run from that which will change us in unpredictable ways. We're far more likely to try to change ourselves in ways we have control over (e.g. weight-loss, "self-help" books, exercising, all in the mistaken belief that we can form our own perfection). Call me male, call me American, call me twenty-something, but submitting to a higher authority scares the bejeezus out of us.
So when those hard times come in our faith (and they will, and if they've already come and gone, they will be back), when being conformed to Jesus demands something from us other than a vague fuzzy feeling and a commitment to "not harm other living beings," we are very often afraid. Look at Scripture, and the many times when God, whether through angels or in the person of Jesus, says, "Do not be afraid." Why is this repeated so often? Because God knows what a knee-jerk reaction it is for us. 
What if we fail? What if other people were turned off by our faith? What if being loving opened us up to criticism and mockery? Are we really capable of loving? Does love exist? Does God really know us personally? Can God really will the existence of a sinner like myself? What if we really are the failures we believe ourselves to be? What if God really knew the depths of our hearts and how dark those depths are or can be? 
Those are some of my fears, and just like the early disciples, I know that it is a constant struggle to act from love instead of fear, because love demands that we be lost, while fear demands that we draw back and hold onto ourselves at all costs. Luckily, the great John Paul II reminds us that even in the face of our very real limitations and failures to love, "We are not the sum of our fears and failures. We are the sum of the Father's love for us."

Look at that frickin' Mr. Coolguy McPope.

We are not defined by our sins. We are not defined by our fears. We are not defined by the eyes which look at us in criticism and judgement, even if they are our own. We are defined only and solely by love. The more we realize this, that we are defined by God's love for us, and not by our actions, however good they may be,  the more we will be able to let go. Realizing that we are loved first is an act of submission that demands all of our being because it means that we have utterly no control over God. Which is a very, very good and freeing thing indeed.

P.S. one of my readers pointed out that even though this blog is called "Inklings of Cleveland," there's precious little on here about either Inklings or Cleveland. Please see the below picture and eat your heart out. Thank you. More Cleveland flavor in the future.

No way! That's waaaaay too pretty to be Cleveland!