Nothing Left to Protect

On peacemaking, protection, and whose table we're sitting at

The Do-Over

“How can I pray for you?” I’ve heard this question one hundred times or more, yet today the words seemed foreign to me. Not that I didn’t understand the question, but rather the intent of the question seeped of care and concern. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t a formality. It was an act of solidarity from one hurting human to another. An unexpected voluntary tethering to my pain. A pain I didn’t recognize existed.

Those words hung between us as I scrambled for an answer. We don’t know each other well. I’ve been to the church he shepherds several times—one of the four churches I dare to vouch for when people ask. He’s vaguely familiar with the work I do in Oklahoma City. Today we met because I needed the council of someone who both loves the church, and loathes the harm that comes when power isn’t paired with accountability.

I shared what I knew to be true. Things I’ve witnessed. Things I had participated in. I told him of my friends who view me as their pastor—these friends who have sat around our table and shared bread and tears. These flickering-light-souls who shine bright, but only for a moment before their pain reminds them of the horrors a slim few are capable of and the silence a vast majority of us prefer when our comforts are challenged.

I vented about the men who affirm that my friends aren’t crazy. Who encourage them to share their stories—but not like that, not with that publication. Men who will set a coffee meeting, offer their wisdom and advice, and will even share their stories—off the record of course. Men who stop short of walking along side these brave women as they bare the brunt of backlash, the victim shaming, the accusations that they’re harming the witness of Jesus, lest they catch a stone themselves. Opting instead for the safety of the shadows.

I lamented my growing judgement for all of it. The few who directly harm and the masses that whisper in hallways, but find reasons to stay silent.

Including myself.

I suppose it only makes sense that I asked him to pray that my heart would stay soft. That when I prayed for these people, I would mean it, because lately…I don’t. We gathered our things as we wrapped up the conversation. He said he would, and I believed him, but it was no comfort. I felt like I had been granted one wish and blew it on a Toyota Corolla…it’s fine, I guess.

By the time I got home I wanted a do-over on my prayer request. I recognized I was trying to hold two incompatible worlds together. Like opposite magnets, or holding a volleyball under water, there was this consistent struggle of trying to place something someplace it was never going to belong. I felt like I was failing at being a peacemaker, failing at being a bridge-builder, and worse—letting my friends down. Sitting in my driveway I sent my pastor-friend the following text.

“Here’s the real prayer…that I wouldn’t be so scared. Scared of disappointing people. Scared of hurting people when trying to help. Scared of being too much. Scared of being not enough. Scared of doing the right thing with the wrong motive. Scared of doing the wrong thing with the right motive. Man…it’s exhausting.”

He replied with a beautiful prayer…most of which I won’t share here. However, there was something in that prayer that I’ve never encountered in Christian spaces. Something that made the tension manageable. He didn’t ignore my first request, but rather addressed it with the following statement.

“Also, so you have capacities to love and minister to those who especially need your love now, let me be the one to pray for (x, y & z), the enemy and the imperial systems that have done so much damage, and for justice to come about so you can focus on your hurting friends at this time.

This is one burden I can lift off you until you’re ready to pray for them again.”

I didn’t know how much I needed that prayer. I didn’t know how much I needed permission to let one of those worlds go. Maybe the exhaustion wasn't from trying to love everyone. Maybe it was from pretending there were no sides.

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Spoiler Alert

I remember the first time reading through the Gospels. I was brand new to this Jesus thing and highly skeptical. I wasn’t reading for study, but for story. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? What is the conflict? The good guy was easy to spot, but I had a hard time assigning the role of villain to the Pharisees. Despite their faults, they genuinely thought they were doing the right things. They had centuries of traditions and laws to protect. They saw the faith as something that needed to be defended.

Some of my earliest journal entries are prayers that I would never become so certain in my faith that I would miss Jesus if he were standing right in front of me. It’s easy to stand outside of the story once it’s told and judge their self-righteousness. But in real time, as the story unfolded before their eyes I couldn’t help but wonder if I wouldn’t have done exactly the same. Spoiler alert. I did.

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The Address of Jesus’s Table

I used to say that Jesus ate with Pharisees and sinners alike as a way to temper the criticisms of those who would challenge the church. It was the perfect rebuttal because it explicitly implies grace for all, while implicitly maintaining a hierarchy of power. We’re all in the same boat, but some of us are in charge. Platitudes like this allowed us to ask for forgiveness while maintaining the status quo.

The fact is there is something at play in the Gospels when we watch who Jesus shares a table with. And there are two fairly distinct groups. But it’s not Pharisees and sinners because those things aren’t separate. That’s like saying cocker spaniels and dogs. I think it’s more helpful to categorize Jesus’s dinner guests into those who had nothing to lose, and those who had something to protect. Tax collectors, sex workers, beggars, and common people didn’t have pristine reputations to uphold. They had no social status. They weren’t rich in traditions or laws. They were on the outside looking in. If people felt some way about them dining with this radical from Nazareth, so what?

On the other hand, the Pharisees had their religion that gave them a deep sense of purpose and meaning. They had all the answers to the social ills that befell their people. They “knew” they were under Roman occupation because their people hadn’t been faithful enough to the Law. They had their temple system and the economic security that came with it. Most of all, they had their certainty. They “knew” they were the faithful remnant that would inherit the Kingdom.

And yes, Jesus ate with both groups—meaning everyone is welcome at the table. But if you look closely there’s a pattern. When Jesus is in charge of the guest list, it’s the ones with nothing left to lose, nothing to protect that are invited. We see it at Matthew’s home, and again at Zacchaeus’s. You see it echoed in the parable of the Great Banquet where all the dignified guests had other things to attend to so the host brought in all of the outsiders for a feast.

When he ate with the Pharisees it was because he was invited to their table. But he never stayed. Jesus’s table was, and is, located in the margins with those pushed out of the systems of power and control. This table is open to everyone—Pharisees included—willing to show up with nothing left to protect.

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Moving Like Jesus Moved

I’m not Jesus, but I’m trying to become more like him and that means doing a lot of what Jesus did—moving like Jesus moved. So, you’ll find me sitting with the unhoused, the addicted, the non-religious and the broken-hearted more often than you’ll find me serving on a Sunday morning.

And when it comes to culture wars, I’ll defend the people being dehumanized before I defend the church because that’s what I see in scripture.

And when friends’ lives have been devastated from the acts of a select few, and the silence of the rest, and I have to choose a side…

I’m going to choose the side where I’m most likely to run into Jesus.

✌🏼🧡

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