Who Is It About, Then?

 If it's not all about men and male church leaders and what they think, feel, want and how they want to teach and direct the church, then who is it about?

Well, I'm pretty sure that if we look at the words of Jesus, we can get an inkling. There are tons of amazing examples. But  I'll pull out this one because it gets straight to the heart of the matter.

Luke 10:30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

This story is not about religious leaders, except to expose their failures to represent God. As many church leaders today fail to take care of the vulnerable, broken, and wounded, so have these religious leaders failed to show God's heart toward the beaten and half-dead man on the road to Jericho.

Rather, this story is about a man who takes care of the broken, beaten, wounded and vulnerable. This is the story of what is important to God. Because it is all about the broken, wounded, and vulnerable and those who take care of them.

These are the kinds of things Jesus taught us. This is what is important. Years of men wringing their hands over what women and teen girls wear is a gross departure from what is important to God. It is a distraction away from what is near and dear to Him.

It's all about healing the broken hearted and binding up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). This is what God loves to do. And God loves those who join Him in this ministry.

It's Not About You

 Back in the day, someone loaned me a copy of "The Purpose Driven Life".

I couldn't get beyond the first few lines of the first chapter.

The book opened up with the sentence, "It's Not About You."

My response?

"No kidding, 'it's not about me'! It has never been about me. It's always about him."

Who was I talking about when I said 'him'? My ex who is on the Narcissistic spectrum. Being married to a Narcissist taught me early on that it would never ever be about me in our marriage. It could only be about him. When people asked me why I divorced him, my short answer was, there wasn't room in our marriage for two people. Only one. And that one was never me.

As God was trying to lead me into His healing work on my heart, I began to learn that, actually, yes, sometimes it is about me. It is about my healing from Narcissistic abuse. And it was about my eventual escape from that relationship.

That book, "The Purpose Driven Life" was a huge best seller. And the message in it to not be selfish, definitely has its place. It was written by a man, Rick Warren, to all Christians. I suspect that he thought  that all others needed to hear this "Don't be self-centered" message just like he needed to hear it.

But the problem with projecting this on everyone is that it doesn't apply to everyone equally.

I gave a personal example above. Now I will tie it into the most recent To Love, Honor, and Vacuum post: "On Modesty: We shouldn't sacrifice Teen Girls Well-being for Adult Men's Comfort".

I read the post when it came out on Friday and this part kept going around in my brain.

...I had rather polite interactions with men (on Twitter) who seemed like totally reasonable guys, explaining that we were supposed to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper, and men were visual and do lust, and so women and girls should dress accordingly.

When I said, “if we’re to be a sister’s keeper, and if we know this message does harm (to teenage girls), then when does she get to matter?”, the response from several was, “that’s certainly sad, and we don’t want that to happen, but it needs to be understood how men are.”

So once again–men’s comfort matters more than women’s well-being.

And it just reminded me of the first few words of Rick Warren's book. "It's not about you."

These men live in the land of, "It's all about me". Their comfort and all Christian dialogue has to be about what men need, think, and feel. Women don't count. It's never about women, including teenage girls.

The male-centric message you teach from the pulpit hurts women and children? Sorry, that's just the way it has to be. It's all about men. Women and children need to understand how men are. Men don't need to understand how women and children are because it is all about men

Here is where Rick Warren's words should be applied. Men need to stop making it all about them. Because in God's economy, it isn't just about men.