Transforming in the Valley

Novel writing is, as I have come to learn while trying to write my first novel, incredibly complex. I have to juggle all kinds of details, story arcs, motivations, and characterizations. I have to balance the main thread with the key points of a conversation and describe the scene. And because it’s impossible to think of all of those things all at the same time, sometimes things can just… “show up” in the novel. Even if I didn’t intend them to be there.

At the climax of my novel, my characters have to go deep underground to rescue their friend. In order to do that though, they have to confront their own darkness and repair their relationships. The only way to make it out of the tunnels is to tell the truth and lean on each other. My dad, after reading this part, said it reminded him of Psalm 23.

“They’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death,” he said. “Imagine that God prepares a table not out of the valley, but while we’re still in that valley.” I wasn’t surprised when he told me this. I’d recently gone through a very hard period of my life where I had to walk through the valley, and it’d felt like I’d spent too much time there. It made sense for it to show up in my book, one way or another, because it was what I was thinking about.

But my dad’s connection got me thinking…

In life, we’re called to walk through the valley and sit at a dinner table with our worst darkness, our fiercest enemies, and our greatest shame.

In order to get out of the valley and into the fullness of life that God wants for us, we have to tell the truth to ourselves and face what (or who) we’re running from. That may not be a literal facing (like in unsafe situations of abuse), but one way or another, we cannot avoid walking through the valley.

In the story of Simon, the Religiously Serious Person, and the woman of the night (Luke 7:36-50), I find that the narrator takes us right to the middle of the valley, and to the table that Jesus has prepared, full of the woman’s enemies and shame.

The Religiously Serious People (this name cracks me up every time, it’s such an appropriate modern translation of “pharisee”) wouldn’t think of themselves as “enemies,” at least not in the way the Psalm describes. They’re the ones doing the right thing. They’re in the right person’s house, having dinner, following the sort of rules all of us who attend church regularly want to follow. They’re looking out for the community by testing Jesus. It feels to me like it would be kind of like if some guy from a nameless town in the Midwest came out and said that Jesus was coming back again, so a group of pastors and scholars came together to see if he was telling the truth, or if he was trying to scam people.

Because the Religiously Serious People want to follow God, be faithful to their families, pray every day, and be active in their communities. In this story, we (Christians) are the Religiously Serious (because that’s what we want to be). It’s not a bad thing to be serious about religion. In fact, God wants us to be all-in with him, and part of that is worshiping in community and taking our faith very seriously.

But at the same time, this story shows up that we can miss the point.

It tells us Simon and his friends, in their attempts to follow God and the Law, don’t see the people in front of them.

The woman caught up in prostitution isn’t a woman, she’s someone untouchable, an opportunity to test Jesus (though the story doesn’t say outright that the dinner is a set up, I think it could have been. How did the woman get into the private dinner? Why was Simon’s first thought about Jesus’ abilities and not how to get her out?).

So while dinner might be interesting for Simon, a way to see if Jesus is what he says he is, for the woman it might have been a night in the valley.

She was before a table of her enemies, people who shamed her, avoided her, and insulted her.

Perhaps some of the men at the dinner had paid for her, but they said nothing when she came in. Simon thought, “If this man (Jesus) were the prophet I thought he was, he would know what kind of woman is touching him” (my bolded emphasis).

The woman was in a dark, dark valley with people who hurt her and slandered her, reminded her of her shame and refused to see her. Yet, she cried and knelt at the feet of Jesus.

Somehow, the woman knew the way out of the valley.

She walked in, sat at the table, and knew the way out was with the strange prophet who sat with the people who hated her. She honored Jesus and cried. She could have been crying for herself. For her shame, her sin, her fear in that room. She could have been crying because she was coming out of the valley, and she was finally coming home. The story doesn’t tell us why, but it does tell us that Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The woman walked out of the valley with the words of Jesus following her: “Your faith has saved and healed you. Go in peace.”

The transformational power of Jesus’ love seems impossible to us.

There are some things we think we can never come back from. Jesus goes there.

There are things we think we can never forgive. Jesus forgives them.

There are some people we think we can never love. Jesus loves them.

We think we may never be worthy of love. Jesus loves us.

Jesus goes into absolutely-bonkers territory.

He sits with the murderer. He eats with the betrayer. He forgives the sins of the abuser, the racist, the one who drained the finances of the company. He prepares a table in the valley and guides them out of the darkness and shadow.

We can’t possibly think about navigating the valley without him.

Whether it’s loving the people in the valley or going through it ourselves, it’s the kind of out-there, unthinkable journey that’s only possible with Jesus.

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