On Really Valuing Someone’s Story
Note: this is the sixth post in a series exploring how Jesus related with women in his day. Find the introductory post here, and the previous posts here, here, here and here.
Danish author Isak Dinesen (Babette’s Feast, Out of Africa) once said this:
“To be a person is to have a story to tell.”
She’s right of course. Everyone does have a story. But here’s the thing: while it’s true that everybody’s got a story, it’s also true that not everyone’s story is allowed to be told.
That’s how it was in Jesus’ day. Why? Because a woman was considered to be property. Like a dining room table or your favorite pair of shoes. No personhood, no story.
This makes Jesus’ determined and persistent use of women’s stories in his teaching extraordinarily counter-cultural. Consider the widow and her single gold coin from Luke 21:1-4:
“As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Or how about the woman who anoints Jesus’ head for burial in Mark 14:1-11. Remember what Jesus says about the value of her story at the end of the passage?
“Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
What an honor.
I think one of the ways that a guy like me can surrender his privilege is to remember, understand, learn from and celebrate women’s stories.
My maternal grandmother died in January 2008. But if she was alive today, our family would be preparing to celebrate her centennial birthday on February 19th. I wrote my version of her story after she passed and I offer it below.
Be blessed by it. As I am. As Jesus is.
Don’t get me wrong, my Grandma had some quick wit. A couple years ago I was teaching on 2 Timothy and there’s this part where Paul reminds Timothy of his faith heritage, which came in part through his grandmother Lois. As I was telling the students about how I resonate with that text, I happened to mention that my almost 95 year old Grandma had once briefly dated Moses. Later, when I told her that story, she paused for a moment and said, “Mercy. Well, you know, Rob, that Moses, he was a wild man.”
So she had some quick wit, but the three things I will remember most about my Grandma were her gentleness, her faith and her toughness.
Gentleness is a lost art. Who’s gentle anymore anyway?!? The closest my Grandma ever came to swearing was an emphatic “mercy.” Getting cut off by a bad driver on Foothill Blvd would solicit a robust “oh my.” And a shanked tee shot from my Grandfather over the fence and onto the 210 at Verdugo Hills would warrant an aghast “my stars, Ford.” Gentleness. My Grandma had a kind word for everyone, she was a great listener and, even when I was dominating her in a game of Aggravation, it was clear that she was crazy in love with me.
Second, faith oozed out of my Grandma. It was authentic, real and simple. There was this one time when she and my Grandpa led their pool cleaner to Jesus. They prayed together right there in her living room and then he went out to pour in the chlorine! Amazing. I remember so clearly being challenged by her faith. When she led the pool guy to Jesus I was working hard in my dorm to love my non-believing friends, and all of a sudden I was losing to Grandma 1-0! Honestly, the thing that feels the hardest to me in losing my Grandma is knowing that I lose, though only in an earthly sense, the consistent and faith-filled prayers that she would offer to Jesus on our behalf.
Lastly, my Grandma was tough. I mean tough. The kind of tough that could grow up on a farm in Missouri, that could wrangle three wild boys into godly grown men, and that could survive a kidney operation while her wacky husband was kayaking the freakin’ Alaskan Yukon. She wanted to live to be 100 and came up just short. Toughness comes from the core of who you are, and in that sense Grandma was great to her core.
A couple days ago, Grandma told a nurse “I’m just ready to go see Jesus.” Amen, Grandma. This morning you got your lifelong wish. Enjoy your rewards in heaven and hear the voice of Jesus say “well done, good and faithful servant!” Say hi to Grandpa for us. We love you.
On Really Respecting Someone
Note: this is the fifth post in a series exploring how Jesus related with women in his day. Find the introductory post here, and the previous posts here, here and here.
In case you missed it, and I’m not sure how you could have, yesterday was the Super Bowl. Every year the Super Bowl is a lot of things: championship football game, excuse to throw a big party, must-see commercial watching, a great time to shop in normally busy stores, etc.
Unfortunately, the Super Bowl also represents an annual crescendo in our culture’s habitual exploitation of women.
The folks behind the A21 Campaign are dedicated to abolishing sex trafficking and human slavery in the 21st century, and according to their website, the Super Bowl is “the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.” Indeed, according to this Christian Post article, the 2010 Super Bowl saw an estimated 10,000 sex workers brought into Miami ahead of Super Bowl XLIV.
Sadly, in this the Super Bowl is not alone. I recently saw this report that describes how prostitutes in Brazil are taking English classes ahead of the 2014 soccer World Cup, in order to be able to service the clientele arriving for the tournament.
Clearly, we have a problem when the world’s greatest sporting events are linked with the exploitation of women though prostitution and sex trafficking.
But it’s not just prostitution that makes the Super Bowl so tragic in this regard. It’s also those famous commercials. You know, the ones where the women dress in skimpy frocks to essentially serve as the object of male desire. Yesterday, the people behind the Miss Representation film encouraged twitter users to call out sexism in the media by slapping the twitter hashtag #notbuyingit on on Super Bowl ads that they found to be offensive.
For instance:
Silly me, I thought women could be sexy and smart. Oh wait, they can! @GoDaddy, change all your ads to respect women or I’m #notbuyingit
Really disappointed with your Super Bowl ad, @CarlsJr. Please try to sell your burgers without selling out women and girls. #notbuyingit
Whether it’s through pornography, prostitution or the more subtle influence of advertising, the objectification of women is endemic in our culture, and it’s a key way that male privilege is propagated. Heck, while I’m at it, how these ads depict men isn’t so great either!
In John 8, Jesus faced a situation where a woman was being exploited. And I mean really exploited. The kind of exploitation that involves having her sexual sin publicly exposed in order to serve as a pawn in someone’s personal vendetta. Here’s the story:
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman,where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Don’t you just love how Jesus turns this situation on its head?
The accusers become indicted. The accused becomes pardoned. The objectified becomes free.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? When we talk about how Jesus treated women in his day, we have to talk about how he respected them, how he resisted allowing them to become objects, and how he defended their honor and removed their shame.
May it be so with us.
What about you? What did you think about the Super Bowl commercials?
On Really Teaching Someone
Note: this is the fourth post in a series exploring how Jesus related with women in his day. Find the introductory post here, and the previous posts here and here.
Yesterday I had the joy of spending the morning in our daughter Grace’s first grade classroom. We did math. We corrected sentences. Maybe my favorite part was playing a game called “whole-number domino war.” It was terrific. Gracie loves to learn and it was profound for me to see her enjoying being in school.
Unfortunately, in our world not every 6 year old girl can have Gracie’s experience.
This is true around the globe, but let’s just look at Africa, and one part of Africa at that. Last Fall, I partnered with an organization called Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education, in a fundraising campaign. According to Camfed, there are right now 24 million girls in sub-Saharan Africa whose families cannot afford to send them to school. More to the point, because of their impoverished condition, these families are forced to choose to send either their boys or their girls to class. Convinced that boys have a better chance of getting a paid job after graduation, it’s the girls who get left behind.
Whether the barriers are economic, cultural or physical, unequal access to education is a global crisis.
The world Jesus was born into was sadly similar. Girls and women were denied access to education as a matter of course. According to The Dictionary of New Testament Background, “…girls were afforded limited opportunities for education. They were schooled by their mothers in the household arts and in those parts of the law that dealt with purity issues and the responsibilities of women.”
In other words, for women in Jesus’ day, their schoolhouse was in their own kitchen.
So this morning, let’s set the record straight. In contrast to the culture of his day, Jesus embraced women as learners. As disciples. As people who were deserving of receiving instruction.
And there’s no better place to see this than in Luke’s Gospel, in 10:38-42:
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Friends, I need to tell you that this passage is seriously scandalous. It’s nothing less than social revolution. Because the fact of the matter is that Mary should be in the kitchen with Martha. Put it another way, everything in the culture would push against Jesus choosing to allow Mary to stay where she is.
In the first century, sitting at the feet of another was the position of learning. It was where a disciple sat. And so in allowing Mary to remain where she was, in defending her right to sit there, and in going a gigantic step further by actually rebuking Martha for not joining her sister, Jesus was saying for all to hear that:
Women are worthy to be taught.
So this morning I’m thankful for Jesus, that he welcomes women to sit at his feet and learn from him. That he’s counter-cultural. That he’s pro-women. I’m grateful again for Jesus the gender revolutionary.
On Really Trusting Someone
Note: this is the third post in a series exploring how Jesus related with women in his day. Find the introductory post here, and the previous post here.
Turns out we have a little candy thief in our house. I won’t identify this person, but her name may or may not rhyme with “juicy.”
At any rate, time and again we’ll catch our little sneak with a mouth full of Starburst, or with hands full of Snickers wrappers.
And what follows is the trust conversation. You know, the one that says “mommy and daddy want to be able to trust you, and when we catch you sneaking candy like this, it makes it difficult for us.” And then what follows that are a few tears accompanied by heart-felt promises of that it won’t happen again. Until the next time. All of this illustrates something important:
Trust is at once vital and fragile.
After all, what’s more important that trust? And yet what’s more tender? You and I know the joy of being entrusted with something important, and we also know the pain of trust trampled and broken.
Jesus was born into a world where women were not trusted with much. In fact, outside the narrow confines of their domestic roles, women basically weren’t entrusted with anything. In particular, in Jesus’ day, women were not allowed to be witnesses in the court. Why? You couldn’t trust their testimony. Here’s how commentator and theologian Craig Keener puts it:
“Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries held little esteem for the testimony of women; this reflects the broader Mediterranean culture’s limited trust of women’s testimony, a mistrust enshrined in Roman law.”
With this in mind, we have no choice but to describe Jesus’ decision to entrust two women with the first news of his miraculous resurrection as utterly, spectacularly:
Revolutionary.
In Matthew 28:8-10, Gospel writer Matthew records the story this way:
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Let’s be clear on this: in a culture where women weren’t entrusted with anything outside the home, much less serving as witnesses in a court of law, Jesus entrusted the first message of the resurrection to two women.
Yep, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were the first humans to bear witness to the most pivotal event in human history.
It’s revolutionary, but it’s also a pattern. Just ask the woman at the well in John 4, entrusted not only with the Messiah’s revealed identity but with bringing the good news to her town. Just ask Susanna, Mary and Joanna the wife of Chuza, entrusted in Luke 8 with bearing the financial burden of supporting Jesus’ work. Or just ask the unnamed woman from Mark 14, entrusted with the task of anointing Jesus’ body for burial.
One of the effects of male privilege is that as a culture we are slow to place our trust in women. Need a plane flown right? Get a man to do it. Need an important decision made? Find a man. Need a sermon preached right? Hopefully there’s a male pastor nearby.
Our bias is to trust men more than women.
This morning I’m thankful (and challenged) that Jesus had a different bias.
What about you? How you are hard-wired to trust men over women?
On Really Seeing Someone
As a culture, one of the ways we perpetuate male privilege is through some outdated and archaic social conventions. Consider the following tweet from a dear friend of mine, a woman who knows a thing or two about being “tertullianed“:
“I feel like chopped liver when our mail comes addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. <Husband’s Full Name>.”
Now I’ve never had chopped liver, but it doesn’t sound good. In fact, it sounds bad. Like the sound of feeling unseen. Of feeling small. Of feeling ignored. It’s the sound of feeling overlooked.
I don’t know about you, but I really hate feeling unseen.
Jesus was born into a world where women went routinely unseen. It was a world where women had only marginal and narrowly-prescribed social, political or ecclesiastical access. In Jesus’ day women were little more than property. First-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described it this way:
“The woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the authority has been given by God to man.”
Friends, it’s hard to be seen when you are by law inferior in all things.
As we spend time these next two weeks looking at how Jesus treated the women of his day, I want to start with a notion that on the surface sounds simple but underneath is utterly profound. It’s at once basic and revolutionary:
Jesus saw women.
That is, he paid attention to them. He stopped to talk to them. He laid down privilege and gave them the time of day. When he mailed them a letter, it had their name on it and not just their husbands’. For Jesus, a woman was not someone to be ignored, she was someone to be fundamentally seen.
To illustrate, I could talk about a lot of women in the Gospels, from the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5 to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 to the woman at the well in John 4.
But one of my favorite “Jesus sees a woman” stories is from Luke 7:11-17:
11 Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
14 Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” 17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
What a story! The dead are raised and the Gospel spreads. Indeed, “God has come to help his people.”
But all of that happened because first God came to see his people.
How many people walked past this woman that day without more than a quick glance? For how many was this widowed women just a part of the landscape? Great things happen at the end of this passage, but it started with Jesus seeing this woman. Seeing beget compassion. Compassion beget action. Action resulted in miracle.
Think about all that Jesus gave this woman. He gave her her only son back. He gave her a reason to rejoice. In a real way, he gave her her life back. But perhaps most significantly, in really seeing her, Jesus gave her:
Dignity.
And what could be more important than that?
What about you? How can you really see another person today?
Jesus the Gamechanger
Several weeks ago, I was troubled–no, that’s not strong enough–horrified, to read this story on the web. Let me sum it up for you:
Dentist in Iowa, a man, fires his long-time hygienist, a woman. Why? Not because she was bad with tartar. Not because of her gruff manner with patients. Not because she was chronically late. Why?
Because he was attracted to her. Because he found her “irresistible.”
It’s true. He fired her because he was worried that to continue working with her would lead him astray. That’s horrific, right? Well, it gets worse, for two reasons.
First, because following her lawsuit, the State Supreme Court, made up of–you guessed it–7 males, sided with the dentist. Yes, at least in Iowa, it is legal to fire someone because you have romantic feelings for them, because you find them to be “irresistible.”
But here’s the second reason why it gets worse, and honestly this is the one that gives me the biggest headache. Because, before he decided to fire the woman, the dentist visited his pastor for counsel. And the pastor counseled him to fire the woman. Not only that, the pastor was present when the dentist did the firing.
Don’t get me wrong, fleeing temptation can be right. Caring for your marriage is always right.
But not at the expense of another person. And not without a careful examination of what’s happening in your own soul. What ever happened to self control? Or accountability? Or confession? Or confronting your brokenness head on, in the context of a loving Christian community?
Do people still wear those “WWJD?” bands these days? Because I think it’s a good question to ask in this case. More to the point, I want to know, “Would Jesus handle this like that pastor did?”
Friends, I submit to you that the answer is an emphatic no. Why? Because Jesus is unafraid to call someone out on their personal brokenness. Because Jesus has a knack for changing hearts not situations. Because, and this is big, Jesus cares for and defends the powerless, the defenseless and those who’ve been wronged. And, from all that we know, this woman fits that bill.
So, let’s talk about Jesus. For like the next 4-5 posts or so. OK with you?
Because in thinking about what it looks like for men to respond to the reality of male privilege (my framework of “admit, submit and commit”), we must take our cue from Jesus. I’ve already shared some thoughts about how Jesus viewed power. Also, I’ve talked about Jesus as Lord here and here. Now, for the next couple of weeks, I want to make some observations about how Jesus interacted with women in his day.
So, together, let’s meet this Jesus:
Truth teller. Sin confronter. Healer. Protector of the weak. Defender of the “irresistible.”
Game changer.
What about you? What “Jesus and women passages” stand out to you?
More About Our Church Mothers
Have you ever had the experience where everywhere you turn you encounter the same teaching? Like the Sunday sermon will be about a certain passage, then a friend will randomly share it with you the next week, then you see it on a wall hanging in a receptionists office, etc., etc. You know what I mean?
Ever since my post from Monday about the Church Mothers, I’ve had that same experience. So, as a follow-up, let me share two postscripts.
First, several friends sent me the link to this article by former President Jimmy Carter. The article, entitled “Losing My Religion for Equality,” begins with the story of Carter’s decision to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after 60 years of membership, based on the Convention’s decision to declare women as “subservient” to their husbands and unfit for pastoral ministry. That’s where his article starts, and the whole article is brilliant, but check out where his article finishes:
I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.
The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
Next, yesterday I started reading a book by Peruvian missiologist Samuel Escobar entitled The New Global Mission. In the book, Escobar discusses the seismic shift that has seen the locus of Christianity shift from the west to the global south and its implications for the next generation of missionary activity. In chapter 2, as a part of a historical survey of evangelical missions, Escobar laments the lack of voice, respect and dignity given to women throughout the church’s long history. He writes:
“This loss of memory in the way of telling the story is due to what American historian Ruth Tucker calls a ‘male dominated institutionalized church [that] has deeply entrenched concepts of power, authority and office–and women have not fit into the scheme.’ Tucker wrote her book Guardians of the Great Commission precisely because her research into the history of missions showed how deeply involved women were both overseas and on the home front. However, when she studied the standard English works by well-known authors on the history of missions, women were absent, which reflects an incredible loss of memory…”
Tragic, right?
So, believe me. And also believe a devout former president and one of the world’s most respected missiologists:
The Church Mothers were and are legit.
Don’t let male privilege tell you otherwise.
What about you? How do these accounts challenge your perspective?
What About the Church Mothers?!?
Some twenty years ago, in another lifetime, I studied History. And I liked it. So much so that upon graduation from Cal Poly, I set my eyes on grad school. In particular, I loved learning the stories of the past in order to help interpret the present and plan for the future.
And one thing that any historian knows is that those stories of the past come from storytellers. And, almost always, those storytellers are only telling one half of the story. In fact, paraphrasing one of my old professors:
“History is told by the winners, not the losers.”
Sad to say, when it comes to church history it’s the same reality, and the “winners” of course are male.
I have a dear friend who is just starting seminary. Yesterday I got an email from her with a subject line that read “Dissonance in Theological Education.” Here’s a quote that sums up her experience in her seminary class thusfar:
“I feel dissonance…because all of the theologians I know of from the period of Christianity’s development are men…are there any founding ‘mothers’ of the faith? Sorry for this, it’s just that from the first page of my text I don’t feel, as a woman, invited into the historical conversation, especially since the agreed upon name for the first 100 years of Christianity is ‘the Patristic Period.'”
Friends, this stuff matters.
In her book When Women Were Priests, Claremont Graduate School Professor Karen Jo Torjeson argues that the vital role of women in the development of the first church has been purposefully obscured for centuries. Again, the winners were men. Still, sounding a note of hope, she writes:
“The last thirty years of American scholarship have produced an amazing range of evidence for women’s roles as deacons, priests, presbyters, and even bishops in Christian churches from the first through the thirteenth century.”
So this morning let’s set the record straight. Without question God worked through the Fathers of the Church. Thank the Lord for Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Loyola, Gregory and, yes, Tertullian. More recently, let’s thank him for Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, Lewis and Tozer.
And yet God also worked through the Church’s Mothers. And so let’s also thank the Lord for early saints like Lydia from Philippi, Junia from Romans 16, Paula who worked with Jerome and Teresa of Avila. More recently, let’s thank God for the lives, teaching and witness of Catherine Booth, Mary Slessor and Frances Willard.
Jesus is in the business of making so-called losers into winners. And so when it comes to sharing the history of the church with the next generations, let’s be like Jesus. Let’s balance the ledger. Let’s remove male privilege from the history books.
What about you? Which “Mothers of the Church” are you thankful for?
The Beauty of Feeling Awkward
If you’re like me, you’re not used to being in the minority. You know? I mean, unless I opt into it, being displaced is a pretty infrequent experience for me. For instance:
I’m a white person, and I spend most of days around white people.
I’m middle class, and most of the people I interact with come from our middle class neighborhood.
I’m male, and the cultural bent toward male privilege means that I’m comfortable in pretty much every situation I encounter.
So the bottom line is that being in the minority only happens for me when I choose it, or when I’ve worked hard over time to create such contexts. As one example, on the ministry team I lead I am actually in the minority in terms of gender, and that’s the result of a lot of intentionality on my part and on the part of others.
With all of this as prologue, let me tell you about my adventure at our school’s PTC (Parent/Teacher Club) meeting this week.
Because the homework was done, the dishes were in the wash and the children were in the bath, Amy and I decided that this week was our week to finally make our PTC meeting debut. I mean, it’s only taken us 7 years.
So I got my jacket on, walked over to school, found the library, walked through the door and immediately thought:
“Ah, so THIS is where female privilege lives!”
Yep, aside from our school’s principal, who is paid to be there, I was the only man in sight.
So, feeling all sorts of dissonance, I took my seat at the PTC table. Let me offer a couple of reflections on my PTC displacement experience:
First, I felt keenly out of place. As in, “one of these people is not like the others.” It was awkward. And where do you think I sat? Yep, right next to the principal. After all, there’s strength in numbers! I couldn’t help but think about how awful it must be for folks on the margins who feel this way day in, day out.
Next, as we started to work through the agenda, I realized that I was going to be spending the evening being the expert on all things male. As in, “so, would dads want to come to an event like this one we’re talking about?” I kept thinking, “wait a second, I’m just one guy, and I think I’m pretty unusual or atypical, so don’t ask me to speak for all of the men at this school.” Again, how often does this happen to the marginalized around us?
After 17+ years in campus ministry, I can testify that displacement is a helpful thing. More than that, I think it’s just about the main thing. I’ve seen it time and again, where students grow more through even a brief displacement experience than during a whole semester on campus.
Simply put, there’s power in choosing to be the minority.
As I wrestle with how to hold my male privilege, I want to continue to choose displacement. It’s important for me to feel out of sorts, as it both gives me a chance to grow and it helps me to empathize with others.
At the end of the night, the PTC president asked if I wanted to give my phone number so she could invite me to be more involved. My answer? “Yep, but I’m bringing a buddy next month!”
What about you? How can you choose displacement this week?
“Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
The more I talk about power and privilege, the more I’m drawn to Luke 5:1-11. First, it’s a beautiful passage. Second, for me it serves as the most compelling grid in Scripture for how to experience a life spent following Jesus.
Want to make Luke 5 even more beautiful? Feast your eyes on this dramatic piece from Urbana 2012:
Pretty awesome, yes?
Jesus, thank you that you fish for us. In response, help us to be like Simon. Help us to embrace you as our leader and Lord. In particular, help us to follow you in the area of our power and privilege. Jesus, we want to put what we have to work in order to bless those around us. Show us how to do this in our lives! Finally, thank you for the call to fish for others, and for how that gives our lives such joy-filled meaning and purpose. Amen.
Challenging Tertullian 