It feels more like dying than deconstructing
We talk about deconstruction a lot at 40 Orchards. Many people in our community use the term to describe the process of taking down the theological constructs they used to hold. It’s about leaving behind a faith or church or way of seeing the world and (hopefully) reconstructing something new.
I feel a disconnect with the term deconstruction. Not because it is wrong, but because it doesn’t feel like it captures the depth and breadth of what is happening.
Deconstruction sounds both complete and linear. It seems like once we deconstruct what didn’t work, we can rebuild something new and be done with it. But often, leaving behind and letting go feels both more cyclical and ongoing than that. There are some parts of my theology or practices that have had to go through this process multiple times over. Not only that, I may be deconstructing one part of my faith while reconstructing another, while not even asking questions about another. All at once.
Deconstruction also sounds like a conscious choice, like somehow I can control the process. It almost gives the impression one can wake up, choose to take a few bricks down from a wall, and move on with their day. But I don’t feel like I am choosing or controlling the deconstruction— it is more like I am submitting to it, and all the grief, struggle, confusion, and anger that rise up in the process
To be honest, it feels more like dying than deconstructing.
And I wonder if that’s actually what Jesus was inviting us to do when he said,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (John 12:24)
We have often interpreted this as a one and done statement about dying to self and choosing Jesus in order to have eternal life. But if that were the case, this metaphor wouldn’t make sense. Kernels of wheat die on a cyclical basis. There is a pattern of life, death, and resurrection embedded in creation that happens at least once a year— sometimes even more, depending on the plant.
Searching the Sacred recorded a special podcast episode for Holy Week in which we looked at the crucifixion of Jesus in Mark. We wrestled for ways to expand how we saw Jesus’ death beyond a payment for sins according to penal substitutionary atonement theology.
I wondered out loud in that episode whether at least part of what was happening at the cross was letting our picture of God die. Jesus was asked to show his power and save himself, and refused to do so. He didn’t operate the way people were expecting. I think that this is actually what made people mad enough to kill him in the first place.
What if the cross is an invitation for all of us to wonder what expectations or pictures of God we need to let die. What nice, tidy, enclosed seed of our theology do we have to let fall to the ground so it can be expanded into new fruit?
What if we tried on the imagery of life-death-rebirth as a replacement for construction-deconstruction-reconstruction?
There is death when we lose a church community we once called home. There is grief in no longer having certainty about things that once felt neat and tidy. There is pain in reckoning with damage done because of ways we used to operate in the world. There are ongoing sacrifices embedded in opening to see God, ourselves, other people, and the world in more expansive ways.
Do we really believe in resurrection if we don’t let anything die?
That’s one of the questions I’m carrying into this Easter.
-Steph
Are you ready to wrestle with some old scripts and enter into the cycle of life-death-rebirth in how you hold the Bible?
Are you ready to wrestle with some old scripts and enter into the cycle of life-death-rebirth in how you hold the Bible? There is a Sons of the Torah Roots group starting up- next week. It is a virtual 10-session program that will meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month from 7:00-9:00 pm CST, starting April 11 2023 and ending January 9, 2024. This program will be looking at the characters identified as male in the Scripture, but in a way that honors the story of people of all genders, and even works to combat toxic masculinity. Each study will look at someone commonly thought of as a patriarch of faith, but look at them in light of their interaction with an “other” or “others.” Find more information and register here.