“So why don’t you fix it?” Mack asked, munching on his sandwich. “The earth, I mean.”
“Because we gave it to you.”
“Can’t you take it back?”
“Of course we could, but then the story would end before it was consummated.”
Mack gave Jesus a blank look.
“Have you noticed that even though you call me Lord and King, I have never really acted in that capacity with you? I’ve never taken control of your choices or forced you to do anything, even when what you were about to do was destructive or hurtful to yourself and others.”
Mack looked back at the lake before responding. “I would have preferred that you did take control at times. It would have saved me and people I care about a lot of pain.”
“To force my will on you,” Jesus replied, “is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.”
“That’s the beauty you see in my relationship with Abba and Sarayu. We are indeed submitted to one another and have always been so and always will be. Papa is as much submitted to me as I to him, or Sarayu to me, or Papa to her. Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we are submitted to you in the same way.”
Mack was surprised. “How can that be? Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?”
“Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.”
“And that’s how you want us to love each other, I suppose? I mean between husbands and wives, parents and children. I guess in any relationship?”
“Exactly! When I am your life, submission is the most natural expression of my character and nature, and it will be the most natural expression of your new nature within relationships.”
“And all I wanted was a God who will just fix everything so no one gets hurt.” Mack shook his head at the realization. “But I’m not very good at relationship stuff, not like Nan.”
Jesus finished the last bite of his sandwich and, closing his lunch bag, placed it down next to him on the log. He wiped off a couple crumbs that still adhered to his mustache and short beard. Then grabbing a nearby stick he began to doodle in the sand as he continued. “That’s because like most men you find what you think of as fulfillment in your achievements, and Nan, like most women, find it in relationships. It’s more naturally her language.” Jesus paused to watch an osprey dive into the lake not fifty feet from them and slowly take flight again, talons gripping a large lake trout still struggling to escape.
“Does that mean I’m hopeless? I really want what the three of you share, but I have no idea how to get there.”
“There’s a lot in your way right now, Mack, but you don’t have to keep living with it.”
“I know that’s truer now that Missy’s gone, but it has never been easy for me.”
“You’re not just dealing with Missy’s murder. There’s a larger twisting that makes sharing life with us difficult. The world is broken because in Eden you abandoned relationship with us to assert your own independence. Most men have expressed it by turning to the work of their hands and the sweat of their brow to find their identity, value, and security. By choosing to declare what’s good and evil you seek to determine your own destiny. It was this turning that has caused so much pain.”
Jesus braced himself with the stick to stand and paused while Mack finished his last bite and stood to join him. Together they began walking along the lake shore. “But that isn’t all. The woman’s desire-and the word is actually her ‘turning.’ So the woman’s turning was not to the works of her hands but to the man, and his response was to rule ‘over’ her, to take power over her, to become the ruler. Before the choosing, she found her identity, her security, and her understanding of good and evil only in me, as did man.”
“No wonder I feel like a failure with Nan. I can’t seem to be that for her.”
“You weren’t made to be. And in trying you’ll only be playing God.”
Mack reached down, picked up a flat stone, and skipped it across the lake. “Is there any way out of this?”
“It is so simple, but never easy for you. By re-turning. By turning back to me. By giving up your ways of power and manipulation and just come back to me.” Jesus sounded like he was pleading. “Women, in general, will find it difficult to turn from a man and stop demanding that he meets their needs, provides security, and protects their identity, and return to me. Men, in general, find it very hard to turn from the works of their hands, their own quests for power and security and significance, and return to me.”
“I’ve always wondered why men have been in charge,” Mack pondered. “Males seem to be the cause of so much of the pain in the world. They account for most of the crime and many of those are perpetrated against women and,” he paused, “children.”
“Women,” Jesus continued as he picked up a stone and skipped it, “turned from us to another relationship, while men turned to themselves and the ground. The world, in many ways, would be a much calmer and gentler place if women ruled. There would have been far fewer children sacrificed to the gods of greed and power.”
“Then they would have fulfilled that role better.”
“Better, maybe, but it still wouldn’t have been enough. Power in the hands of independent humans, be they men or women, does corrupt. Mack, don’t you see how filling roles is the opposite of relationship? We want male and female to be counterparts, face-to-face equals, each unique and different, distinctive in gender but complementary, and each empowered uniquely by Sarayu from whom all true power and authority originates. Remember, I am not about performance and fitting into man-made structures; I am about being. As you grow in relationship with me, what you do will simply reflect who you really are.”
“But you came in the form of a man. Doesn’t that say something?”
“Yes, but not what many have assumed. I came as a man to complete a wonderful picture in how we made you. From the first day we hid the woman within the man, so that at the right time we could remove her from within him. We didn’t create man to live alone; she was purposed from the beginning. By taking her out of him, he birthed her in a sense. We created a circle of relationship, like our own, but for humans. She, out of him, and now all the males, including me, birthed through her, and all originating, or birthed, from God.”
“Oh, I get it,” Mack interjected, stopping in midthrow. “If the female had been created first, there would have been no circle of relationship, and thus no possibility of a fully equal face-to-face relationship between the male and the female. Right?”
“Exactly right, Mack.” Jesus looked at him and grinned. “Our desire was to create a being that had a fully equal and powerful counterpart, the male and the female. But your independence with its quest for power and fulfillment actually destroys the relationship your heart longs for.”
“There it is again,” Mack said, sifting through the rocks to find the flattest stone. “It always comes back to power and how opposite that is from the relationship you have with the other two. I’d love to experience that, with you and with Nan.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“I wish she were too.”
“Oh, what could have been,” Jesus mused. Mack had no idea what he meant.
They were quiet for a few minutes, except for some grunting as rocks were thrown and the sounds they made skipping across the water.
Jesus stopped just as he was about to throw a rock, “One last thing that I want you to remember about this conversation, Mack, before you go.”