Mark 5:9; Galatians 2:19-20
In our chapter for this week, out of The Deeper Journey the author uses the image of the door. This is what he writes:
What is the door on which Jesus knocks? It is the door of our false self. It is those places in our life where we have shut God out and enclosed ourself within our self-referenced structure of being…(page 79)
God calls us to open the door so that God can come into our false self… (page 80)
We might think of the door as any aspect of our false self that prevents God from being God in our life on God’s terms. It may be a habit that holds us in its destructive bondage, an attitude that deforms our way of living, a perception that warps our view of others, a pattern of relationships with others that is destructive to both them and us, a way of reacting to circumstances that hinders us, a cancerous resentment whose poison is eating away the vitals of our being… (page 80)
How do you open this door…you begin to experience his cross-shaped love nurturing you in that love, healing the hurt, removing the resentment, flushing away the bitterness until one day you realize that Christ’s love and forgiveness have become incarnate in you…Your Christ self has come to life! (page 81)
Here’s a story using that imagery. See if it helps.
There was a knock at the door. Oh, for Pete's sake, I thought to myself. I was deep into a novel, and deep into my chair. Whoever it was had jarred me right out of the world the novel had pulled me into. And I was right at a good part--Daenerys' wedding to her "sun, and moon, and stars!” Darn! I entertained the notion of letting whoever it was just go on knocking, and I'd go on reading.
Who would be out on a cold day like this, anyway. I was covered up and toasty with my down throw. Oh well, I thought. Might as well be hospitable.
I cranked down the leg rest of my recliner, stood, stretched, and walked over to the door. "Who is it?" I asked, speaking through the door. I don't open my door to just anyone. In fact I don't open my door to anyone. Not unless I know who they are.
"Who are you?" the Voice came back through the door.
I scrunched up my face at my side of the door. "What do you mean, 'who am I’”? I asked back. "I don't have to identify myself to you," I added.
"Yes you do," said the Voice.
"I'm sorry, but that's not how this works," I said.
"How what works?" the Voice asked.
"You know," I said. "Coming up MY front steps, knocking on MY door that's attached to MY house. You're the one who has to identify yourself to me. Not the other way around."
"I don't think so," the Voice replied. "I have to know who you are before I decide if I want to come in."
I scratched my head wondering what kind of joker this was. I started going through the voice recognition in my mind, trying to place the Voice on the other side of my door. It has to be someone I know who'd be pulling some kind of stunt on me. But for the life of me, I couldn't place that Voice. I was beginning to wish I had installed the peep hole last summer, so I could look out and see who it was.
"So," the Voice said.
"So, what?" I asked.
"So, who are you?" There's that question again. I glanced at my comfortable chair, the book, the down throw. I whimpered faintly. Why can't I just be allowed to enjoy my free afternoon, I thought.
"I'm me," I finally said with a bit of an exasperated tone, hoping the Voice on the other side would catch that.
"Not good enough," the Voice replied. "Everybody's a me."
"Oh, brother," I exhaled. "Look. I'm the me whose afternoon you are interrupting and slowly ruining."
There was silence for a few moments. Then the Voice spoke. "You don't sound like someone I'd like to come in and be with."
"What?" I nearly gasped. "I'm not someone you'd want to come in and see!!??" Now I was offended. "And what's wrong with me?" I asked. "You don't even know me, and now you're judging me!!??" I did a couple of quick steps between my recliner and the door and back again. “What's so wrong with me that you wouldn't want to come into my house?" I asked, affronted.
"I'm afraid I need some further convincing," the Voice stated. "I need to know more about how you identify yourself."
"Identify myself?" I barked. "You want me to slide my driver's license under the door?" I said. "This is ridiculous," I further barked through the door. "You're the one on the outside of MY door. You need to identify yourself to me!"
"Why?" the Voice asked. "I know who I am."
I did a face palm, and began thinking I really should have just stayed in my recliner and kept reading. Images of Daenerys’ wedding night were calling to me from the book.
"So, identify yourself," the Voice said again. "How would you identify yourself?" the Voice said through the door.
“I…I…I’m an architect,” I said.
“I don’t care what you do,” the Voice replied. “I want to know who you think you are. What kind of person you think you are.”
I leaned my head against my side of the door. Why me? I thought. Why can’t I get normally weird people to come to my door? Like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witness’? Or even just a Girl Scout selling cookies? That would be nice. Why this crackpot trying to invade my calm—my castle, my domain?
“I’m a pretty good person,” I finally said.
“‘A pretty good person,’” the Voice replied, with a bit of a snicker. “Really? That’s all you got? You’re going to stick with that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with being a pretty good person.”
“Do you feel blessed?” the Voice asked.
Do I feel blessed? Do I feel blessed? What kind of question is that? I wondered. “Uh, not particularly,” I said. “I’ve got my own stuff I’m trying to deal with. You know. Everyone’s got their own stuff. I’ve got mine. You’ve got yours.”
“‘Stuff?’” the Voice asked.
“Stuff,” I replied.
“What kind of stuff?” the Voice asked. “Would it be like bad habits you can’t or don’t want to get rid of? Or attitudes that get in the way of you living well? Or perceptions that keep you from seeing life correctly? Or brokenness that sabotages all your relationships and keeps them from being healthy? Or constantly reacting to life rather than enjoying it? Or carrying long-held resentment that is eating away at your sense of vitality?”
“Hey,” I said, putting the palms of my hands against the door, and leaning in, as if I were trying to hold back the flood. “You’re getting a little personal, aren’t you!!??”
I was quiet for some time. The Voice had struck a nerve. “There’s some stuff you didn’t mention,” I said quietly on my side of the door. I don’t know if the Voice heard me, because there was stillness from that side as well. “Stuff like a pool full of guilt,” I whispered, “that would just as soon drown you as let you swim in it forever. And fear the size of a whale that swallows a person whole. Or ego that just plain gets in the way of everything good in life.”
“True that,” the Voice said after a long silence. “True that. Now you’re answering the question I’m asking.”
“What’s the question, again?” I asked, a couple of tears running away from my eyes.
“Who are you? That’s the question,” the Voice said.
“And who are you?” I asked the Voice.
"I'm dead," the Voice on the other side of the door said.
"Dead?" I asked incredulously.
"Dead," the Voice replied.
"You sound very much alive to me," I said.
"Oh, I'm very much alive," the Voice said enthusiastically.
I shook my head. This was starting to get crazy again.
"And guess what?" The Voice asked.
"I can hardly guess," I exhaled.
"You can be dead too--you can die with me!" the Voice replied. "All you have to do is open the door and you will die with me."
I jumped back from the door. All I could imagine was some nut-case on the other side of my door, wearing a vest strapped with explosives. Some black ski-masked ISIS character with a long sharp knife. Or armed with several guns like those crazed and angry people who attack post offices or schools.
“I don’t want to die!” I nearly yelled.
“But that’s the main problem with all your stuff,” the Voice called back. “It needs to die!” the Voice said adamantly. “And here’s the problem: you don’t want it to. You’d rather hold on to it, thinking you can eventually deal with it all.”
“But I will,” I promised. “I will deal with it. I’ll get to it all some day. I’ll read a couple of books—maybe even the Bible, and gradually all my stuff will be taken care of.”
“Sorry,” the Voice said.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“It doesn’t work that way. All your stuff has to die. With me,” the Voice said. “You have to open the door so that I will die, and you will die, and all your stuff will die.”
“I…I…I don’t know. It all sounds so…painful,” I said. “What happens after that?” I asked.
“You will live” the Voice said softly.
“I’ll die. Then I’ll live.”
“Yes,” responded the Voice. “But without your stuff. Instead of all that, you will have me, in you, and you will be alive. Really alive!”
“I’ll have you—the Voice—in me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“But I’ll die.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll live.”
“Yes. But free!” the Voice said.
I stood there breathing. In, out. In, out. In, out. I closed my eyes. I reached out. I put my hand on the door knob.
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