Just a Handshake, Thank You

Isn’t the church the bride of Christ? Isn’t He jealous and protective of his bride with whom He is in covenant? Shouldn’t I be the same with my bride and my covenant of marriage? 

My wife and I have some of the same rules to protect our relationship. We agreed to certain boundaries prior to getting married that we adhere to protect each other and in the words of Paul to Timothy, keep ourselves free from sin. I believe that certain boundaries are good, healthy, and spiritually sound. 

If each of us walked around without a protective layer of skin, can you imagine what would happen to our bodies? We would be vulnerable to infection and harm from our environment. I also doubt that anyone would leave their front door wide open before going to bed at night. One can just imagine what or whom you might leave yourself open to. These are examples of good, healthy boundaries: I believe we need them spiritually as much as we need them physically. Opening your arms up to embrace someone casually is no different in the spiritual realm than opening your front door to let in a stranger. 

To be quite frank, if another man tried to throw his arms around my wife he would have to go through me first. Whether I am in the sanctuary or not, I do not take kindly to someone presuming that they have that kind of liberty with my wife any more than they have it with me. Moreover, I can assure you my wife feels the same way about a woman attempting to do that to me: my wife is a native Texan, and that would be a sure way to see hellfire and buttermilk.

Others may be comfortable embracing each other in that fashion, and that is fine for them: and to be honest, I have chosen to extend my comfort zone to include certain friends that would normally be outside my “three feet of personal space”. But I did so at my choosing, at such time as I am comfortable. Not at someone else’s urging or after hearing such things as “Oh, its okay with me.” Well it is not okay with me. 

I think we all need to respect those boundaries with each other. When someone is walking into our church, or crossing or path in the world, we never know where they have been, what they are struggling with or what they have been through (or what has been done to them). We get the dirt of the world on our feet and we often carry the pain of our past: an embrace can pass along far more than just good feelings. It can offend someone, it can make someone uncomfortable, it can even pass something spiritual from on person to the next. Physically embracing someone is an act of intimacy that should not be done lightly or casually in any circumstance.

I make it my business to know my wife well: her likes, her dislikes and her boundaries. As her husband, I am called to protect and guard her. Just as Christ is my head and my covering, I am hers. As her covering, I not only guard her but I also guard myself. I carefully consider what enters my eye gates and ear gates and what or whom gets past my “three feet of personal space”. I wouldn’t want to pass anything on to her that would make her spiritually ill any more than I would want to give her the flu. She takes responsibility for herself in much the same manner to safeguard me as well.  

I stop walking forward, stand stiffly about three feet from the greeter, and extend my free hand for a cordial handshake. I position myself between him and my wife when I do so. My wife slightly lowers her head in a polite head-bow. The greeter looks at us oddly, but quickly catches on: he looks me in the eye and shakes my hand. He then takes step back as he cordially bows his upper body in deference to my wife. 

Then we enter the sanctuary.