Tag: power & authority

No really, you don’t have to stay

Hi friends,

This week I’d like to direct your attention to a recent blog post by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes. I read this a few days ago, and it has stuck with me.

Dr. Chanequa compares the logic of those who try to tell people they should keep going to church with the logic of those who tell people they should stay in an abusive marriage. 

(Of course, not all churches are abusive, just as not all marriages are abusive. But this is for the cases where church, like many marriages, just isn’t working. A person is not being treated well. And that person wants to leave but isn’t sure how, or if it’s okay.)

I think about this, and I think about a book I read recently-ish by a prominent (white dude) progressive Christian writer. There was a lot of good in this book. But there were also a lot of things that rubbed me the wrong way. 

At one point, this writer was offering reasons why some moderate/progressive Christians may want to keep going to church—even if their more conservative counterparts don’t exactly want them there or treat them very well. He posed this question: If all the more liberal-minded folks left, where would that leave the church as a whole? The church’s worst elements, he suggested, would prevail. There would be no one left to challenge them or offer a different point of view.

I read that and thought, oof. That doesn’t quite feel right to me. Am I supposed to be the church’s (great white) savior? Maybe this author sees himself that way. But me? I think I’m good.

I don’t really think it’s my responsibility to stay in an institution that doesn’t want or value me. Or, more precisely, one that doesn’t want or value the real me (but would gladly welcome a toned-down, suppressed, highly edited version). 

I think it’s my responsibility to be authentically myself. As Brené Brown suggests in Atlas of the Heart (check out the super chill book review here if you like), I want to “be [my]self and respect others for being authentic.” If a church works against those goals, I want no part of it. 

To borrow Rev. Dr. Jacqie Lewis’ framework from her lovely book Fierce Love, I want to love myself, my community, and my world as well as I can. That is, fiercely. And so, I want to connect myself to communities that help me live out these things—and, when necessary, divest from spaces that work against them.

To be fair, I’m not sure if the prominent progressive Christian writer I paraphrased above was saying that the issue of Where would that leave the church? is a great reason to stay. But I also don’t recall him saying it’s a terrible reason. And I think this needs to be said.

Part of what’s at play here is that church is a voluntary organization. People choose in and out. And the assumption most of us work from is that we choose in and out based on whether or not we want to be involved. That is, whether or not we think what’s happening there is good and we want to contribute to it. 

Choosing to remain affiliated with a voluntary institution, then, implies that you think things are generally going well in that institution. That you align with its values. Sure, there are always things that could be better. But in general you’re on board with what they’re about and where they’re trying to go.

If these things are not true, it doesn’t make sense to stay. Your butt in the pew—or the numbers you increase on a survey—only benefits the institution by making it seem like more people are staying (and so maybe things aren’t as dire as they are). It doesn’t benefit you. And you do not owe it to them.

It also feels worth saying that the question of Where would that leave the church? assumes a very narrow definition of church. It equates church with evangelicalism, basically. 

There are so many different denominations with different beliefs and values. There are so many different ways of being Christian. If we feel the need to “save” the evangelical stream by sticking with it, we’re closing ourselves off to other possibilities. And, ironically, we’re adding credence to the lie that the evangelical stream of Christianity is the only legitimate one. 

If we leave evangelicalism, where would that leave it? Probably about right where it would be anyway; after all, it certainly isn’t listening to us. We don’t need to save it. We can walk away and go find faith practices and communities that work for us—ones that heal us, affirm us, challenge us, and transform us in the ways we want to be healed, affirmed, challenged, transformed.

That’s what I’ve got for today. If you have an experience of leaving a church community, or disidentifying with a particular religious tradition—or of wanting to do so but hesitating—I’d love to hear. Any other thoughts on Dr. Chanequa’s reflections or mine are welcome too, of course.

Peace to you this weekend.

Liz

Peace to be fearless

Hi friends,

This Easter week has me thinking about what most of Jesus’ disciples did, as recorded in John’s gospel, right after Jesus’ resurrection. Just that morning, Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty and then saw the risen Jesus (looking a lot like a gardener; John 20:11-18). And now the disciples have gone and locked themselves in a room because they’re afraid (John 20:19-23). 

They’re hiding, afraid of what the religious authorities might do if they found them. 

I feel like we can look back and read this now and think, That’s silly. Jesus literally just rose from the dead that morning. What do they have to be afraid of? Don’t they know God’s power by now?

But I would also like to say this: Religious authorities can be terrifying.

Perhaps when we blame the disciples for being afraid of them, it’s a form of victim-blaming. Really, it isn’t really people’s fault that they feel afraid. It’s the religious leaders’ fault for making them feel afraid. 

A few months back, one of my fellow church elders—another “younger” person in the group (which, in the Presbyterian world, means under forty, lol)—told me, You aren’t afraid of anybody. 

I got what he meant. Sometimes I ask questions or share opinions in our elder meetings that could evoke a negative reaction. I took my fellow elder’s comment as high praise.

But, of course, in a literal sense, he was wrong. It isn’t at all true that I’m not afraid of anybody. I’m afraid of most people, much of the time. But I’ll still say potentially unpopular things if I feel like they’re important. 

It feels important to me that—where I have a choice, like with churches—I’m not sticking around in environments where fear is a governing force. Sure, it may feel scary to put certain thoughts out there in a room where others might disagree or might not understand. But people’s responses to my thoughts at our elders’ meetings have not reinforced my fear. People have generally been appreciative. No one is trying to intimidate me into silence.

I say this because I feel like there are many religious environments that are not this way. Not unlike the religious authorities that the disciples were hiding from in that locked room two thousand years ago, many church leaders today still try to intimidate people into conforming to particular ways of thinking and living. 

Most churches I know of aren’t trying to do crucifixion-type stuff, or Inquisition-type stuff. But the psychological terror of no longer belonging in a community you once called home and family is very real. These are, still, high stakes.

What does it mean, then, for Jesus to appear today and speak “peace”—the first thing out of his mouth when he walked into that locked room so long ago? Maybe it involves some of these things:

Peace, to know that God is more powerful than the religious leaders who claim to represent God but do not. 

Peace, to be fully yourself, to be honest about who you are and what you really do or don’t believe.

Peace, to know that you are okay, you are good, you are enough. 

Peace, to get out of environments where people are telling you otherwise, where you’re made to feel like you’re not okay, where your honesty is seen as a threat rather than a blessing. 

Peace, to no longer place yourself under the leadership of religious authorities who evoke fear in you.

Maybe this is (part of) what Easter means. Maybe a belief in resurrection can help make us fearless—not in the sense that we don’t feel fear, but in the sense that we aren’t controlled by it. 

So, peace to you this week.

Liz

On Palm Sunday (a poem)

Hi friends,

Reflecting on Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey greeted by crowds crying “Hosanna!” (meaning “Save us!”), I wrote a poem about some of the things we might need salvation from (and for).

If you connect with any of it, or have something you’d like to add, I’d love to hear.

Peace,

Liz

On Palm Sunday 

The masses weren’t thinking of pie in the sky
in the sweet by and by.
They were unwashed and shouting and impolite and 
holy. 
They turned not to the strong-looking warrior in a suit of armor*
but to the unarmed rabbi riding on a donkey.
To him they yelled out, “Save us!”

Save us, oh God, save us.
I don’t know where we go when we die
but I trust it’s a place of love, of peace, 
of communion and community.
That’s the easy kind of salvation.
But what we need is salvation now.
Save us, now. We need it, now.

Save us from the fears that tyrannize us
and keep us unjustly silent.
When we fear death, we fail to live.
Save us from the forces that immobilize us
when we could be on the move.

Save us from those who want to save us
with their own ideas, but do not know us.
Save us from those who make their own plans for us
and do not care for our wellbeing.

Save us from callousness. Save us to care.
Save us to become soft spaces where weary ones can land.
Save us when we are those weary ones;
make room for us then, too.

Save us from the ones who want our sacrifices
but do not want us to flourish,
from those who want us to value everyone else but ourselves.
Save us to choose us.

Save us from the lie that we can do it on our own,
or we are superior if we do.
Move us to lean on one another
and become those who can be leaned on.

Save us from our dreams of greatness
for ourselves, at the expense of others.
Make our hearts happy for those who rejoice;
their successes, our own.

Save us from untimely death,
from officers’ guns and civilians’ assault rifles, 
from anti-abortion laws that care nothing for women’s lives.
We simply want to live, to not be robbed of years.

Save us from accusations of weakness when we weep.
Save us from our own survival strategies,
self-destructing by holding onto habits
that served us well once, but not anymore.
Save us to feel, and in so doing, to hope again.

Save us from constricting notions of masculinity and femininity.
Save women from being trampled on.
Save men from thinking they’re manly for doing the trampling.
Save us all to be more fully human, compassionate and strong.

Save Earth who trembles and breaks
and rises up to protest what we’ve done to her.
We cannot survive without her.
Save her, God.

Save us from those who say “peace” when there is no peace,
who suppress the voices of those who suffer.
Save those who have no homes from abuses
hurled at them because they are vulnerable.

Save us from pastors who think they know best 
but do not listen, do not know, choose not to know.
What they teach will not save us.
We need more.

Save us from the judgment of those who think they are holy.
Free us from the need to conform ourselves
to their expectations of what righteousness looks like.

Save us from self-righteous Christians
and from the self-righteousness within us.
Save us from power-hungry politicians.
Save us from every force that silences,
every burden that oppresses.
Save us from injustice.
We carry the weight of it, and we perpetrate it too.

Save us.
Save us, God.
Hosanna.


*This is a reference to Roman imperial governor Pontius Pilate's simultaneous entrance into Jerusalem on the other side of the city. Empire's military power vs Jesus'...very different kind of power.

Coming soon(-ish): Nice Churchy Patriarchy

Hi friends,

I wanted to make sure you all know that my first book, tentatively titled Nice Churchy Patriarchy, is coming out sometime in the next few months. I’ve poured my heart and soul and mind (and seminary training) into it over the last three years, and I’m so excited to finally (almost) be able to share it with you all.

It’s a sort of memoir. And a sort of faith-based feminist manifesto. And a sort of “here’s what I learned in seminary about women and church that made a difference for me, and I want you to know it too.” (But, I hope, in a really accessible way. It isn’t an academic book.)

The first half tells a lot of stories, mostly from my twenties spent in a few different evangelical contexts, about ways patriarchy shows up in church communities, and how I reflect on these stories now. I feel like some of these ways patriarchy manifests can seem kind of subtle, like if you don’t know where to look, you might miss them entirely, or not consider them terribly important. I argue that they are important.

The second half gets more into how faith communities can do better, drawing on the rich resources of the Bible, history, and a diverse array of modern-day thinkers. I share some more stories and suggest some ways to do things like demasculinizing how we read scripture and unerasing women from church history.

The other day, a new friend unintentionally reminded me why I write about these things. He said something like this: “With things like women’s role in church and ministry, we can debate about these things but we’ll never really know one way or the other, this side of heaven.”

With nothing but respect for my new friend, I strongly disagree. Nice Churchy Patriarchy is basically a book about why I disagree, and why I feel so strongly about this. 

It isn’t good enough to settle for leaving these questions unsettled. We have to sort these things out. 

Our churches and our world are deeply impoverished if Christians’ ambivalence about what kinds of roles women should play keeps even one more woman from moving confidently toward what she was meant to do, from existing fully as who she was meant to be. 

It’s fine if we don’t feel one hundred percent sure. It’s good to hold the conclusions we come to openly, knowing that we might be wrong. But, with all the caveats about human fallibility and the uncertainty of everything (after all, it’s good to change our minds), at the same time, we really can’t just sit around saying we’ll never know. 

Women deserve better. Women don’t deserve faith communities that aren’t quite sure what to make of them, whether to consider them men’s full equals or not. We don’t deserve to be subjected to endless debates about what we should or shouldn’t be doing.

Women deserve better, and so do whole faith communities. Churches that prohibit women from leadership don’t even know what they’re missing out on.

 
These are some of the things Nice Churchy Patriarchy gets into. I’ll try to keep you updated on the publication process over the next few months, and I hope you’ll keep it in mind if it sounds like something you or a friend might enjoy!

Advent prayer: Favor

A poem/prayer on the theme “favor.” Perhaps a loaded word depending on the church-y circles you may have been in. I’m wrestling with that here, as well as more generally what favor could mean in an unjust world. 

Favor

God,

I don’t want the kind of favor 
where I have more and someone else has less.

I want your favor for everyone I know.

Favor in the good things they’re doing.
Favor in the good people they are, 
the good inside of them.

Favor to know they’re loved.

Favor that gives confidence 
to keep trying, keep growing, keep moving.

God, I don't know that I want unconditional favor.

I want the kind that will get my attention 
when I start to go the wrong way.

The kind that will direct and redirect 
my feet onto good paths.

I don’t want the kind of favor 
that keeps me happily singing Jesus songs
while my theology, my words, my actions, my attitudes 
make others suffer.

I want the kind of favor 
that opens up a new world.

Favor to level mountains and raise up valleys.

Favor such that all are valued, 
all live freely and in joy.

Favor toward a world where barriers, hierarchies, injustices 
are washed away.

Favor like the sun’s warmth 
after weeks of rain.

Favor like the smile of a baby 
who has not yet learned to distrust.

Favor that holds us together 
when everything falls apart.

Amen.

Unrelatedly, a few other updates:

Advent prayer: Wisdom

Continuing with the theme of “Advent poem/prayers from 2021 that I’m still feeling”… The word for this one is “wisdom.” 

Wisdom

God,

There is wisdom in our souls, deep down.
There is so much we don’t know.

We carry some wisdom 
and we need other humans for the rest.

We need the whole of creation
as our wisdom teachers.

The wise ones move in cycles of receiving, giving,
mutual respect, gracious attention.

God, in our world 
the wisest ones often go unheard.

We clamber after the confident ones, 
the smooth-talking ones, 
the quick-thinking ones, 
the shiny put-together polished ones.

But wisdom is carried 
in bodies who keep the score of suffering,
in wrinkled faces who have laughed and cried too much 
to bother putting up a front.

Wisdom is slow-moving.
She refuses to be commodified. 
We often rush right past.

God, help us not miss wisdom 
in our rush to say the right thing.

Help us not miss wisdom 
in our inattentiveness, 
in our tendency to think we know things.

Help us not miss wisdom 
as we still ourselves and wait.

Give us patience, as long as it takes.

We wait in the dark, where wisdom hides, 
that we might find her.

Amen.

Out there on the web: asking for what we need, and Christians with questions

Hi friends, there have been a couple additions to the “out there on the web” category of things since I last posted an update.

  1. I Didn’t Know How to Ask (Or What Would Have Happened if I Had) (Guest blog for Rose Madrid Swetman)

This is a guest post as part of Rose’s series on being a woman in ministry in a patriarchal world. Since she used the word “pioneering” in her series tile, I thought of that one time I started a new on-campus Christian group at my alma mater.

It was a good time in a lot of ways – well, really mostly just because the students were great, and also because it was exciting to try new things and dream of what could be – but it was also a rough time. This essay explores part of why it was rough, and how I see gender and patriarchy playing into that.

I imagine these reflections are relatable for anyone who’s had a hard time asking for what they need – or who has asked but has not been received well.

2. The People Who Have Always Had Questions (Feminism & Religion)

I liked this piece by Jemar Tisby about evangelicals as “the people who don’t have any questions,” and I see my essay for Feminism & Religion as a sort of addendum to it. I’m not disagreeing with anything so much as wondering out loud how gender plays into everything.

Reading bell hooks’ The Will to Change at the same time as I was thinking about these things felt relevant and fruitful. This need for certainty as a means of control, this impulse to have an answer to every question and to coerce everyone to agree with these answers – all the things Tisby names – are endemic to white evangelicalism, and also to patriarchy.

(Agree? Disagree vehemently? Read Tisby’s The People Who Don’t Have Any Questions, read my The People Who Have Always Had Questions, and let me know what you think.)

Hope you enjoyed this brief update and find these articles thought-provoking! As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Super chill book review part 2: The Will to Change (bell hooks)

This is part 2 (of 2) of some reflections on bell hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Here’s part 1 if you missed it or want a refresher. 

The Will to Change was also very much on my mind as I was writing this essay, posted yesterday at Feminism & Religion: The People Who Have Always Had Questions. Check it out if you like.

Otherwise, since super chill book review thoughts #1-3 were in part 1, I’ll jump right back with…

4) I appreciate hooks’ clarity in laying out how exactly patriarchy harms men. It’s not only that everyone is harmed when women are prevented from flourishing fully, although this is true. It’s also that, in a world shaped by patriarchal thinking, men are subjected to violence, and they are expected to do violence to themselves. They are cut off from full humanity in their own way.

hooks explores the impact of patriarchy on boys during childhood; for example:

“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem” (66).

And she explores the impact of patriarchy on men during adulthood; for example:

“Men who win on patriarchal terms end up losing in terms of their substantive quality of life. They choose patriarchal manhood over loving connection, first foregoing self-love and then the love they could give and receive that would connect them to others” (72).

I thought this was an interesting way of framing things. Men are pressured to compete and win patriarchal contests that are not actually good for them. There’s a toxic construction of masculinity that’s at odds with real “loving connection”—both self-love and love shared with others.

For men, divesting from patriarchy entails healing from the “psychic self mutilation” that is pushed on them from a young age.  

I appreciate these perspectives, because I feel like sometimes we tend to think of justice in terms of one group with outsized power needing to hand some of this power over to those who haven’t had enough. But it’s not just that—it’s not just about men, or white folks, or other privileged groups giving up some of their privileges, although sometimes that needs to happen. It’s also about making a way for men (and white folks, etc.) to regain the fullness of their humanity—the self-esteem, the emotional richness, the loving connection, the love of self and others, all of which has been cut off by a violent system of domination that isn’t actually good for the ones trained to dominate.

5) I have a long quote for you. But at least it’s the last one? I would have made it shorter, but it’s just all so action packed… 

hooks writes:

“Many of the critics who have written about masculinity suggest that we need to do away with the term, that we need ‘an end to manhood.’ yet such a stance furthers the notion that there is something inherently evil, bad, or unworthy about maleness…

“There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a nondominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence.

“Patriarchal culture continues to control the hearts of men precisely because it socialized males to believe that without their role as patriarchs they will have no reason for being. Dominator culture teaches all of us that the core of our identity is defined by the will to dominate and control others…

“To offer men a different way of being, we must first replace the dominator model with a partnership model that sees interbeing and interdependency as the organic relationship of all living beings. In the partnership model selfhood, whether one is female or male, is always at the core of one’s identity. Patriarchal masculinity teaches males to be pathologically narcissistic, infantile, and psychologically dependent for self-definition on the privileges (however relative) that they receive from having been born male. Hence many males feel that their very existence is threatened if these privileges are taken away. In a partnership model male identity, like its female counterpart, would be centered around the notion of an essential goodness that is inherently relationally oriented. Rather than assuming that males are born with the will to aggress, the culture would assume that males are born with the inherent will to connect” (114-117).

Whew. That’s a lot. But there’s so much good stuff there. 

I like this idea that we’re not looking for an end to manhood or masculinity, but an end to the patriarchal kind of manhood that harms people of all genders. We’re looking to transform the meaning of maleness. 

We’re looking to “become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity,” to find a new “place for the masculine” and new ways of being men. We’re looking to “replace the dominator model with a partnership model”—with interdependency, interconnectedness, and a healthy sense of self esteem at its core. We’re looking to assume males are born with the desire and need for connection, mutuality, and love. 

If you don’t mind a religious turn to a not-super-religious post so far, all these things—hooks’ visions of what a healthier, more life-and-love-affirming version of masculinity could look like—remind me of Jesus. 

In the Christian tradition, Jesus’ maleness is an interesting thing. God is not exactly male or female, but when God took on human flesh, that flesh was male. Some people use this fact to suggest that God was showing God’s preference for masculinity, perhaps demonstrating the naturalness and rightness of male authority in the world. Jesus’ maleness has often been among the arguments used to support solely male priesthood or solely male pastoral leadership. 

What if, instead, Jesus’ maleness was meant to call forth a better kind of masculinity—better than that of the patriarchal cultures Jesus was born into, and better than what we see in today’s patriarchal cultures as well? If any man was disloyal to the ways of domination—rejecting power plays, remaining true to his core self, partnering with others, respecting and loving others at every turn, always speaking peace and moving toward healing—surely it was the God-man who came to serve and not be served (Mark 10:45). The one who made sure everyone was fed. The one who made sure women knew they could be disciples as equals alongside men (Luke 10:38-42). The one who did not use his equality with God to his own advantage but embodied humility in every fiber of his being (Phil 2:5-11). 

Perhaps as we imagine healthier ways of being male—and just being human—in this world, we can look to the gospel stories. (And we can notice how at odds all of this is with the patriarchal evangelical masculinity Kristin Kobes Du Mez did such a great job of detailing in Jesus and John Wayne—super chill book review here and here.)

Well, as always, there’s a lot more that could be said. But I’ll leave it here, for now anyway. bell hooks has some hard-hitting words, and you might be thinking some thoughts and/or feeling some feelings. If you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear about it!

Super chill book review part 1: The Will to Change (bell hooks)

I started reflecting on bell hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (Washington Square Press, 2004), and it got kind of long. So, here’s part 1! 

In all the “super chill book reviews” I’ve done so far (and I believe I’ve done twenty now in total—check ‘em out here if you like), I haven’t written yet about any of bell hooks’ books. In the last year or so, I’ve read All About Love: New Visions, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, and, mostly recently, The Will to Change. 

bell hooks is one of those authors I’d heard about and seen quoted a lot before I ever actually read any of her stuff. I’m very glad I started reading. Because quotable quotes are great, but they don’t begin to scratch the surface. There’s so much depth, so much insight, so much courage, so much omg that’s still true a couple decades later and I wish it weren’t but I’m glad she named it so directly and brilliantly. 

There’s also, at least for me, some I don’t know if I fully agree with that, but I’m glad she said it, because there’s definitely something there worth talking about. This is also valuable. 

So, here are some thoughts on The Will to Change, just because that’s the book I’ve read most recently—but I’d recommend them all. (And maybe there’s a bell hooks book—or something else related to these topics—I haven’t read yet that you’d recommend. If so, I’d love to hear!)

1) I was interested in how bell hooks writes about the separatist impulse that can sometimes arise in feminism. Personally, I haven’t really been involved in any separatist movements (is that still a thing, or is it more tied to the second wave feminism of a few decades ago?), but I do very much appreciate women-only spaces. 

I sometimes find men frustrating—certainly not all men all the time, but many men, much of the time. I really enjoy the chances I have to seek friendship, mentoring, perspective, advice, etc. from women. I think this is all good. 

At the same time, hooks writes, “It is a fiction of false feminism that we women can find our power in a world without men, in a world where we deny our connections to men. We claim our power fully only when we can speak the truth that we need men in our lives, that men are in our lives whether we want them to be or not, that we need men to challenge patriarchy, that we need men to change” (xv-xvi).

I definitely agree that “men are in our lives whether we want them to be or not.” And, of course, even though I’m very frustrated with the way many men often act, especially in groups and/or in positions of power, I also have connections with men that I value deeply. 

And so, I appreciate hooks’ perspective: the point isn’t necessarily to build female power apart from men, but to speak our truth about the ways we want to see men change—for our good, and for their good too.

2) This was an “oof” for me:

“The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy. When females are in emotional pain, the sexist thinking that says that emotions should and can matter to women makes it possible for most of us to at least voice our heart, to speak it to someone, whether a close friend, a therapist, or the stranger sitting next to us on a plane or bus. Patriarchal mores teach a form of emotional stoicism to men that says they are more manly if they do not feel, but if by chance they should feel and the feelings hurt, the manly response is to stuff them down, to forget about them, to hope they go away…

The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, ‘Please do not tell us what you feel’” (5-6).

For any men out there—I’m curious how you’d respond to this. It kind of feels right to me, but…it’s not exactly my lived experience. 

When I read this, I thought about Brené Brown’s research and reflections on how men are shamed above all else for being (perceived as) weak—and how many men want to be more in touch with their emotions and more vulnerable in sharing their feelings with their loved ones, but their partners sometimes shame them for doing so. (Unfortunately I’m not totally sure which Brené Brown book this was in—maybe I Thought It Was Just Me?)

I wonder if men today sometimes get a mixed message—“it’s okay to feel feelings, I want to know what’s going on, you don’t have to hide it and be so stoic,” but also “oh, you have that feeling? I’m surprised by that and don’t know what to do with it, so I’m going to laugh at you or criticize you for it, or respect you less because you shared that with me.” Or something like that.

It was helpful for me to hear bell hooks frame this expectation of stoicism in terms of patriarchal thinking that harms us all. Being deeply concerned with women’s experiences and committed to calling out ways women are not regarded as fully human does not have to be at odds with paying attention to men’s pain, hearing how men are hurting, caring about their unhappiness.

Really, these things go together. Each gender’s different ways of becoming liberated from oppressive patriarchal norms help liberate us all.

3) hooks writes, “Despite the contemporary visionary feminist thinking that makes clear that a patriarchal thinker need not be male, most folks continue to see men as the problem of patriarchy. This is simply not the case. Women can be as wedded to patriarchal thinking and action as men…

Patriarchal thinking shapes the values of our culture. We are socialized into this system, females as well as males” (23).

I always appreciate—and, to be honest, often need to be reminded of—a hearty distinction between maleness and patriarchy. hooks has some helpful ways of writing about this. 

She is very clear that the issue is “patriarchal thinking,” and it’s a “system” we’re all “socialized into.” Women and men are impacted by it in different ways, and liberation from it looks different depending on gender (and other things)—but we all need to consciously choose to reject patriarchy, to divest from it, to change.

That’s all for now. More to come next week! I welcome your thoughts, as always. I know gender and patriarchy and masculinity are such complicated things, and I bet you have thoughts and/or feelings. I’d love to hear them (and will attempt to throw my subconscious expectations of stoicism out the window!).

Switch those seats (reflections on Luke 14:1,7-14)

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.

But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

-Luke 14:1,7-14

This week I’ve got another (longer version of my) lectionary reflection from the church eblast for y’all—on taking up space, adopting a learning posture, expanding our circles, and questioning the assumption that some people cannot repay:

In our scripture passage this week, Jesus has two things to say. The first is for people invited to a banquet. Don’t sit in the place of honor, he says. Sit instead at the lowest place. The second is for those hosting a banquet. Don’t invite those who can repay the invitation in turn. Instead, invite those who can’t.

These are instructions born out of a world pretty far removed from my own. I don’t immediately relate to this idea of seats of honor—or, in the Greek, it’s possible that this refers to a whole different room, or at least a different table, where the most valued guests are seated. 

I also don’t readily connect with the idea of throwing a banquet for the people Jesus calls the poor ones, the maimed ones, the lame ones, the blind ones. For one thing, that sounds like it calls for more house space than I have on hand. The best I generally have time and energy for is inviting a couple people over for brunch. (My husband Ken makes a mean buttermilk pancake.)

The only time I’ve really come close to throwing a banquet was when Ken and I got married. But we made a seating chart and had everyone pick up a card with their name, table number, and dinner order on it as they walked in, so that everyone would know where to sit. No one needed to be moved from a more honorable place to a lesser one, or vice versa. Problem solved. (Although all of our guests pretty much fell in the “friends and relatives” category, so I suppose we didn’t exactly follow Jesus’ second instruction.)

I wonder if—for those of us for whom throwing massive feasts and being invited to such feasts is not necessarily part of our everyday lives—the specific context of a banquet is not the only way for us to understand what Jesus is saying here. I wonder if his words could be taken as a broader life philosophy—relevant, really, whenever we walk into a room. I wonder if they’re more about our general mindset as we approach life and show up in community.

We might not be explicitly ranking people by level of honor and seating them accordingly. But when we gather, there are certainly those who take up more space and those who take up less space. There are certainly those who walk into a meeting expecting to speak whenever they feel like it and be heard, and there are those who expect to mostly listen, perhaps speaking only when spoken to.

Cathy Park Hong’s words from Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning have stuck with me: “The man or woman who feels comfortable holding court at a dinner party will speak in long sentences, with heightened dramatic pauses, assured that no one will interject while they’re mid-thought, whereas I, who am grateful to be invited, speak quickly in clipped compressed bursts, so that I can get a word in before I’m interrupted” (p. 185). 

Maybe this is one way the idea of seats with more or less honor plays out in our world today. Who feels free to speak their mind, and to do so at their own pace? Who is struggling to get a word in? How can we all be more mindful of these dynamics so that those who tend to dominate can learn to make more room for others, and those who feel insecure can learn to speak confidently?

When Jesus invites us—and particularly those of us who would not naturally assume we belong there—to take the lowest place, I see this as an invitation into a posture of learning. I’m reminded of theologian Willie James Jennings’ reflections on “the tragic history of Christians who came not to learn anything from indigenous peoples but only to instruct them, and to exorcize and eradicate anything and everything that seemed strange and therefore anti-Christian” (After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, p. 37). 

Christians as a group have often seated themselves at the head of the table. How different our relationship with the world around us would be if we learned to sit in the lowest seat—if we learned to engage with our broader communities as people here to learn, here to listen, here to serve. Not here to judge or instruct, and certainly not here to control or to try to eradicate anything we don’t like. We want to walk into rooms with a posture of humility and openness.

When Jesus talks about what to do and not do—or really, who to invite and not invite—when you’re hosting a banquet, then, maybe we can think about this too in the context of how we show up in community. 

Jesus invites us to expand our circles. To think beyond the people who immediately come to mind as the first people we want to hang out with. To take the risk of reaching out and trying to make a new friend—not knowing whether or not this person will be able to “repay” us in whatever ways are meaningful to us. 

More than just being open to expanding our circles, though, I think Jesus also invites us to consider what we’re hoping to get out of a relationship, and to be willing to hold these things loosely. We’re not just looking for a transaction. We’re not just looking for what we can get from others. We’re looking for a genuine, mutual relationship. 

Personally, I doubt that the host who throws a banquet and only invites those who supposedly can’t repay them really doesn’t receive anything in the process. They might not get a banquet invitation back—because who has the resources for that these days?—but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t something in it for them—in a good way. The guests may have been written off by a society that only values people for their money or beauty or status, but I have no doubt these folks have stories and gifts and personality quirks and character qualities the banquet host would be honored to be in the presence of—not to mention just enjoy.  

It’s a matter of learning to see differently from how our capitalistic society sees. In God’s beloved community there is no ranking of people. There is no one unworthy of a seat at the table.

Those who come to the table thinking they don’t belong are assured that they do indeed belong. And those who come to the table with their own agendas and arrogance and assumptions are invited into a different way of being.

Peace and belonging to you this week.