The Brave Space beyond Safe Space...

"What do you want me to do for you?" 

                                                    -Mark 10:51

I am not a miracle maker. Maybe there are ministers out there who can perform miracles but I am not one of them. If there is some way to go about life in a way that God will provide all one needs, plus more, I do not know it. I am not sure that if I knew such a path I would follow it myself, much less would I share it with those around me. I have never been convinced that miracles and worldly wealth have much long term use. Eventually the miracle or the opulence becomes the new mundane and new issues will come to the fore just as pressing, if not more so, then the old.

I can, however, help create space. I can help define the type of space I am in. I can work to transform the space around me into something dynamic. A space that is not only safe but brave... a space where people can take risks... a space where people do not fear answering the question "what do you want me to do for you?" in a full and honest way.

That is the real crux of today's Gospel in my mind... not that Jesus can be your personal miracle worker but that we can create a space where people can honestly name what their hearts long for before God. 

I do not think, however, that we do this naturally. Like the followers of Jesus this morning we have a propensity to silence individuals, and the questions and wants they carry, from unknown quarters. We like having a community of similar individuals, with like minded questions, like minded answers, and similar wants and needs. It makes our lives and patterns easy.

What we have to remember is that Jesus calls us not only to let those from unknown quarters come into our midst, with all their ideas, questions, and wants... but that we are to rejoice that such a one seeks to come into our midst. The key then, as Jesus' question "What do you want me to do for you?" represents, is that we do not then assume we know what that individual seeks, what their needs might be, and how best to answer them. We allow the individual to name those needs themselves.

Then, outside of a miracle, the real work starts. The work to honor that person as a valuable member of the group. The work to discern and understand the questions and ideas the person brings to the community. The work to answer the question "what do you want me to do for you?" as we open ourselves to the new awareness such questions bring. 

This does not mean that we can answer all the questions, it does not mean that every want can be, or should be, fulfilled... it does mean that people should not be afraid to name what they need from our communities... it does mean that we should not have standard answers that cannot put to a full and complete review... it does mean that we need to recognize that often it is the community that needs to be transformed and not the outsider.

This is what will take us beyond miracles and towards a transformative community that is brave and able to live into full fellowship with each other and the Holy Spirit because of our patterns of being not because of a need for like mindedness and one shot miracles.

Rebuilding temples and undoing systematic violence against women…

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

                                                            -Jesus

International woman’s day is a yearly call for us to first recognize how our prevalent so

ciety inherently destroys the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental temples of the women in its midst, and calls us to create an environment where they can be rebuilt in full. This caustic realm of sexism that has deprived women of the necessary components needed to build up the temples of their personhoods has perpetuated for thousands of years and the bitter and hard won battles of the feminist movement over the past centuries show that there is no three day miracle to be had. This does nothing but make the Spirit’s call to enter into this work even stronger and more requisite for the church.

The role of the church in the midst of this is clear. For good reason on this day when Jesus speaks of his own body the temple our lectionary points us to one of the earliest of Christian writings, the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, where he speaks for many chapters on the role of leaders and preachers in aiding individuals in building up the temples of their being. Paul notes that

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.                                                                                       1 Cor. 3:10-15

Paul here is specifically talking about himself as a builder, in comparison to Apollos or Cephas, and how at the end of days the leaders of the church will be held responsible for the materials they gave to their followers. That, in fact, if the builders have systematically given individuals low grade materials with which to build upon the sure foundation of Christ that they will face a fire in inverse relationship to the shoddy materials they have provided. I take this reading to be very clear, that those given shoddy materials by the church will be refined to the glory they should always have been, while those who provided the shoddy materials will face a burning purgation for the atrocity they allowed to perpetuate.

I work on a campus where there are no full-time ordained female chaplains, where only a handful of ministries recognize the capacity of women to be priest and pastors to the world and openly discern towards such vocations. The full feminist voice simply is not allowed to be heard in most of the ministries with which I work alongside. As a gay man who is a fumbling profeminist I strive to create a space where all women have the freedom to discern that which the church and the world have provided them with which to build their temples, but the work to be undone and done is staggering, in both the micro pastoral care level and the macro societal injustice issues. The concept of a ministry that strives to create a safe space for all women, regardless of race, regardless of being cis or trans, regardless of sexuality, regardless of class, regardless of any other characteristic, remains a staggering one for myself and for the church in which I work. Attempting to create that space isolates my ministry in some ways and places a barrier of expectations for those who might come and visit us.

This is the same barrier, however, that creates a safer space for those vulnerable and hurt in the world. It is the same barrier that forces myself and the other men who participate in the ministry here on campus to face and process our privilege in this world. It is true that this barrier may indeed keep some out, but to remove it is to no longer require us to truly discern what materials we are giving our followers to use in the building of their temples. To remove this barrier is to begin building up our members on the false lies and expectations of patriarchy, a material of the weakest and basest sort imaginable.