LUKE 13:34
Two issues are making the rounds of the cyberworld as I write this reflection. Baptist minister John Piper is stirring up controversy for wanting a masculine (and male hierarchy dominated) church to match his masculine Christ. And Christopher Hedges is blaming the Black Bloc (anarchists who believe in damaging property) for tearing apart Occupy Oakland.
On first glance, there’s not much in common between John Piper and the Black Bloc. Chris Hedges refers to the behavior of the Black Bloc as “hypermasculine,” breaking windows indiscriminantly and calling it victory. John Piper on the other hand believes men need to take stronger “masculine” leadership to protect women and to lift up the “rugged” Christian life Jesus calls us to. His notion of masculine Christian leadership
is about lifting heavy burdens and bearing lashes and receiving challenges without selfpity.
But what unifies these two news-makers is this: underneath the violent rage, or underneath the compassionate but rugged manhood, is fear. Fear that this country’s widening economic gap will continue to crush the poor. Fear that women in ministry will diminish the value of men and take away the vital role they have held for so long.
When Jesus looked out at Jerusalem, he saw the Pharisees desperately trying to save their people through rigorous orthodoxy. He saw the zealots fighting against the oppressive Roman regime. And in reaching out to those hypermasculine groups, he didn’t respond to their anger. He responded to their fear. And he responded in an almost feminine way, mourning that he couldn’t gather them all to his breast like a hen with her brood. As a woman whose approach to life is a lot like John Piper’s description of “masculine ministry,” I see what Jesus has to teach me about evangelism. Jesus responds with tenderness and nurture. You’d think the Black Bloc and John Piper would both sneer at this approach. But in that moment and in that week, Jesus ministered through
his vulnerability to those who could not admit how vulnerable they felt. May we evangelize with the same vulnerability.
Prayer: May we, like you, show vulnerability and love to those living in fear, whether they show it or not.
Amen.
Sandhya Jha serves as Missional and Reconciliation Minister for CCNC-N.