It is such a badly misused and misunderstood word. I’ve watched it be used to ostracize and abuse people. This is not what God intended
Dan Allender threw out an idea in his Marriage and Family Class offered at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He talked about covenantal marriage, and headship hitting upon something most people miss. He challenged us to take fifteen minutes to look up Sumerian covenants. So I did.
Covenants were created by conquering kings as tools to help them rule. The conquering kings would severe animals in half and make the conquered king walk between them. Then the conquering king would say to the conquered king something along the lines of, “If your people cause me trouble you will be the first to be severed as these animals have been severed.” It was a sign of the conquered kings allegiance, and of his promise to the conquering king to be loyal.
God turned that idea on its head for he says to his creation, if you mess up, I will be the first to die. And then he followed through on his promise. He died for us. The old covenant is completely rebuilt around a new idea of the powerful (filled with the Spirit of the Living God, and given previously unknown freedom) giving up their freedom and, indeed, their lives for the powerless and the oppressed, even as Jesus did.
What it means for us as the church is that we too are called to be the first to die for the one that violates the covenant and sins. Doesn’t the apostle say, “Love covers a multitude of sins?” And aren’t we commanded by Paul to “carry one another’s burdens” without respect for whether they have let us down or not? We’ve missed it. We live under the old Sumerian system. If the parishioner (or member) screws up, we say, “They violated the covenant. Kick them out.” And when we do, we break the heart of the one who died for us, because we missed the point of his being the first to die.
According to Allender, and I think I agree, "headship means being willing to be the first to die." So,what would it look like for the church to walk as Jesus did, being willing to be the first to die? To come down to eat at the pig trough, to live with people and meet people in the place of brokenness and despair? What would it look like for us, the Church to carry the cost of the broken covenant for the covenant breaker, so they don’t have to? I’d like to find out.
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