My Portion

I read The Taming of the Shrew this week. It was really funny, probably one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Alongside it, I read chapter 8 of this “companion to Shakespeare” guide to help us understand the times better. 

“The bride’s family promised to give to the married couple a dowry made up of property, valuables (silver and jewelry, for example), and cash. This was also called the bride’s portion…”

Portion. I’ve heard this word before (I mean, other than in the context of a meal). I thought of a line in “Amazing Grace” - The Lord has promised good to me; His Word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

If Christ is my portion…if Christ is my portion…that means everything. The church does not deserve to be the bride of Christ. Not one bit. Has there ever been a more uneven match? Has any husband (even the husband of a “shrew”) ever had such work cut out for him? Of purification, of reconciliation, of unfailing love towards a continually adulterous bride? 

In the Renaissance, a portion was a promise. It secured a husband for the bride (her primary goal in life) and ensured that the young couple would survive as they began their lives together. But once there was a bride that was so unsuited for her would-be husband, so far beneath him, that no dowry her family could possibly give would appease her fiance’s Father. However, as unattainable as this perfect husband was, he was the bride’s only hope. Without him her life would be meaningless. Without him she was nothing.

What if, instead of rejecting the bride, telling her there was no hope, that she would never have this husband, the fiance's Father allowed the marriage? Of course, before doing so, he set up plenty of ground rules to make her a better match for his Son and to save her from herself. You would think the bride, in her thankfulness, would be the best wife possible, with a constant heart and a thankful soul. But it was quite the opposite; the son did everything he could for his bride, serving her though he was infinitely above her, coming to her rescue when enemies threatened her, listening to her though he was infinitely wiser, and treasuring her as a jewel though she was far uglier than he. She, on the other hand, desired another man – charming but insincere, deceitful and selfish, alluring and dangerous, who seduced her but said she could not have him until she murdered her husband. 

So she killed her only hope.

After her hope was dead, she ran into her new lover’s arms, only to be repulsed, beaten and laughed at. He left her completely alone in despair. Of course, now and then he would come back, promising that this time he would be faithful, that this time she would find the hope and joy anew that she had killed…but she would always be left alone, scorned, in a frightening and solitary darkness. 

But the Father…the Father, though it would have been just to avenge his son, though it would have been completely fair to leave the bride to die in her hopelessness with her deceitful lover, had pity. He saw this shamed creature, saw what she could be, not the ugly thing she was, and offered her a new identity if she would only leave her unconstant lover behind. Once again, she needed no portion – only to acknowledge the sacrifice the Son had made for her and exchange her ways for his ways. And so, upon her acceptance, the Father took her to a new place, gave her a new name, gave her a new face. He made the ugly beautiful. He made the old new. He gave her the most complete love she had ever known – an eternal security and yet also an eternal adventure. And best of all, she learned that her husband had never and could never die, though he was no longer physically with her. He would forever live on to battle her deceitful enemy, who had wooed her and thrown her away, and worse, who had mocked and attacked him and his Father, until that enemy was no more. And, once recreated, once she had abandoned her old self, she was fit to join him in that battle for Good, to war against all things untrue. And fit to share in the victory when He triumphed.

Nothing less than a perfect Life was a sufficient dowry for this woman. Nothing less than complete recreation could make her see the truth and stop believing lies. And yet the Father, who is in the business of creation, gave it all willingly, for he forever gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.