Today I’m thinking about love and pain.

Not long ago, Lori and I went to see a Broadway show called “& Juliet.”

Told through the songs of the Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin (Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Bon Jovi, etc.), the show offers a reimagination of Romeo and Juliet with a life-changing question: what if Juliet didn’t kill herself after losing Romeo?

Now, since, for some of us, ninth grade English was a little while ago, (the ‘80s say hi), let’s review.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story of star-crossed lovers that hinges on emotion and misunderstanding. Two young people fall in love. Their families, however, are bitter enemies. Things are doomed from the start. A conflict that gets out of hand leads to the accidental murder of Romeo’s friend, Mercutio, by Juliet’s brother, Tybalt, and then the murder of Tybalt by Romeo. The families are in a blood feud. There is no way that Romeo and Juliet can be together…until they come up with a plan.

Juliet’s well-meaning friend, Friar Lawrence, has a brilliant scheme. Juliet will fake her death by taking a sleeping potion, so she can be taken to the Capulet tomb, where Romeo will be told to meet her, and then they can run away together.

The problem is that Romeo doesn’t get the message, so he thinks Juliet is actually dead. Devastated, he kills himself in the tomb beside her. Awakening and finding Romeo dead, Juliet follows suit. This tragedy inspires their two warring families to end their feud.

Written over 400 years ago, Romeo and Juliet remains, for many, the quintessential love story to this day.

“& Juliet”, by contrast, looks at a woman making different choices, each of which pose great questions about agency, relationships, and self-respect.

& Juliet asks the question, what if Juliet woke up, saw this horrific development, but decided not to kill herself?

What if she didn’t respond to Romeo’s impulsive, self-destructive, misinformed decision, with an impulsive, self-destructive, fully informed decision?

What if she didn’t let her life be defined and ruined by her dude’s choices?

For me, though, it raised another question: why do we see self-destruction as noble?

We have myriad cultural tropes exalting people who give their lives for a cause.

We laud the warrior who dies fighting for their country.

We honor heads of state and leaders of movements, assassinated for trying to bring progress.

We admire people so committed to their mission that they are willing to risk their lives.

Sometimes, however, we sacrifice ourselves unnecessarily. Sometimes other people ask us to. And we can easily romanticize these as noble when they are just toxic.

Love is self-sacrificing, not self-destructive.

I love you by prioritizing you. I go the extra mile for you. I work harder so that I can provide you with nice things. I spend time with you when I could just as soon spend it doing what I want. I center your concerns instead of just worrying about mine.

I do not, however, subject myself to things that destroy me in the hope that you will become less cruel. That’s not love.

I do not embrace an abusive relationship out of some sense I am being selfless. That’s not love.

I do not sacrifice my purpose out of a sense that yours is so much greater. That’s not love. That kind of thinking usually comes out of a wound. And the person who encourages it for their benefit is neither loving nor leading you. They are using you.

I do not cut my hand off with the thought that you might feel safer having it on your keychain as a good luck charm.

No rabbit gives up its foot up willingly.

The idea of benevolent self-destruction is not noble, It’s harmful, and approaching pathological.

It’s textbook codependency.

Psychology Today characterizes Codependency as “a dysfunctional relationship dynamic where one person assumes the role of “the giver,” sacrificing their own needs and well-being for the sake of the other, “the taker.”

You can have a codependent relationship with a mate, a parent, or a friend. You can have a codependent relationship with an organization.

Codependents will often use their self-harming behavior to attempt to control the destructive behavior of someone they love. They are people-pleasers who compensate for chaos. They placate and shrink. They manipulate and pretend.

Codependents function in a space where if I’m good enough, you will love me. So I work constantly to prove my worth, and earn your approval. And I sacrifice my desires, my needs, and even my identity in the process. I become who I think you want me to be. And I think I’m doing something good.

In the movie Seven Pounds, a man (Will Smith) who accidentally killed his fiancée and six strangers in a car crash because he was texting while driving, sets out to redeem himself by finding seven people who needs organ donations. He then commits suicide and gives them his organs.

And I remember watching the movie, and finding it insanely offensive, because it presented suicide as a heroic act. It seemed to me both a distorted and misplaced messianic impulse.

Now at this point, we can fairly ask, don’t you live by the example of Christ? Isn’t the ultimate measure of a choice “what would Jesus do?” And isn’t this something he would do?

And I would argue, absolutely not.

First, my question is not “what would Jesus do?”, but what is he telling me to do. There is potentially a huge difference. There is also a huge difference between someone who lays down their life for a cause, and someone who looks for an opportunity to die.

Jesus does not give us a picture of redemptive suicide. He did not pursue his own death. He did not check out early. He knew how much time he had, and used every minute of it to teach, to heal, and to set the captives free. And if you believe in the theology of the atonement, you believe that he came to Earth for the purpose of dying for someone else’s sins.

We, however, did not.

While we, therefore, may be called to a sacrificial life, we are not called to a substitutionary death. We can’t pay the price for anyone else’s sins. We don’t have that power.

I would further argue that, even if you decided to live your life making up for your crimes, you would accomplish far more by sticking around and doing good, than by sacrificing yourself and divvying up the parts.

I will never minimize the pain of someone wrestling with suicidal ideas, or desires. That does not mean, however, that I am willing to see it as a good idea.

Suicide offers the promise of quitting the work and ending your own emotional pain. And it’s a false promise that ignores the pain we will cause in the process.

Whether we are sacrificing our lives in quick death, or a lifelong decision to serve someone else’s dreams, we are making choices that do not serve us and do not serve the greater good, because we are sabotaging the purpose that brought us into the world

In “&Juliet”, a young woman starts making her own decisions. She starts living her own life.

It does not mean she will have less pain.

It does mean she will truly be living.

And that, for me, is food for thought.

(Photo Credit: RDNE Stock project)