Pull up a chair.

on recent events (aka, "Female Rage: The Musical)

Last weekend, while the Indianapolis pride parade and festival were happening only two miles from my house, a man in a white pick-up truck taped a Neo-Nazi flyer to the door of my Little Free Library.

We weren’t home at the time. We had gone to pick up the kids from a day camp, and then out to ice cream afterwards. But as we pulled up to the house, I saw it right away. There was no missing it: 8.5x11, bright red background, huge black swastika, blocking the view of any and all books inside the box. I practically jumped out of the car to tear that thing down. We looked at blurry photos from our doorbell camera and our neighbor’s security camera, but they didn’t give us much information beyond what we might have assumed on our own: white male, big pick-up truck.

As I said, Pride was happening that day, and we are flying a pride flag at our home. I assume that’s why this guy targeted our home that day, but in speaking with someone from the local Jewish Federation later in the week, I learned that Little Free Libraries have been a recent preferred target of local Neo-Nazi groups.

Over the next few days, the kids and I had many conversations about that flyer. They just can’t fathom a world in which anyone would think it’s acceptable to hate someone or commit violence against someone because of where they are from, what they look like, who they love, the god in whom they trust. And then that someone would feel the need to post those abhorrent views prominently in the neighborhood? Ruthie kept saying, “Ugh, this just makes me so mad!” Me too, love. Me too.

Ruthie also asked, “If he doesn’t like our pride flag, why didn’t he try to take it down or something?” The answer to this question, of course, is that he is a coward.

I don’t mean to imply that hanging a pride flag makes me brave, in any way, but this experience did remind me why I hang it. My kids are growing up in a world in which people will try to tell them—over and over again—that only certain kinds of people are right, only certain kinds of people are strong, only certain kinds of people are lovable, only certain kinds of people have the right to be themselves and take up space. Someone tried to spread that exact message right here in our neighborhood, in our front yard, on an ordinary Saturday. I hang a pride flag because it’s a simple and easy way to say—to my children and to our neighbors—that as far as I’m concerned, they are welcome and beloved. And I hope and pray that Jesus is at work in my life in such a way that my actions and words speak louder than the flag on our porch.

---

Yesterday, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gathered here in Indianapolis. They voted, as I’m sure you saw in the news, to reaffirm their exclusion of women from pastoral ministry and to condemn in vitro fertilization. (To be clear, the vote on female pastors failed, but only because a small portion of voters felt the measure was redundant. The SBC already bans women from pastoral ministry; this would have just added language about it to their constitution.)

Gratefully, I am not and never have been a member of an SBC church. However, it’s basically impossible to be a person in America—let alone a Christian in America—and not be affected by the SBC; it’s the largest protestant denomination in the U.S. I couldn’t ignore these developments yesterday, for a whole slew of reasons—like, you know, being a woman.

---

All day long, I kept thinking about a story from the Gospel of Luke. Chapter 14 begins, “One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.”

Here Jesus is, surround by his disciples and a group of local religious leaders. It’s the Sabbath, a day for resting and feasting, but among them is a man who is described as having “abnormal swelling of his body.”

Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.

(I have so many questions about what, exactly, led to this interaction. Were Jesus and this man having a conversation? Did someone make a snide remark about the man’s condition? Who knows! But that’s also not the point here.)

After healing the man, Jesus continues to talk with the group, exploring this idea of what is or is not lawful on the Sabbath. He basically says, “Of course I should have healed that guy. If one of you has a child in danger, you’re not going to let them die just because it’s the Sabbath, right?” Right.

He goes on to tell a story—one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture—called “The Parable of the Great Banquet.” It goes like this:

A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’

People in the SBC have plenty of reasons to vote the way they did, but I hear them all as excuses.

“But there’s a verse in 1 Timothy I think applies. Please excuse me.”
”But life begins at fertilization. Please excuse me.”
”But the Bible is clear. Please excuse me.”
”We’re only asking people to think carefully. Please excuse us.”
”But we’re affirming traditional views. Please excuse us.”

As my friend Andrea so rightly said to me yesterday, the people in power are willfully misinterpreting Scripture in an attempt to consolidate power and administer control over the women in their midst (and beyond).

In a world that says only certainly people are worthy of an invitation to the feast, Jesus says, “Pull up more chairs. Make a little more room.” Jesus asks us to stop making excuses for welcome, for love, for affirmation and inclusion.

There are moments when I am desperate for the SBC and others like them to realize they can not have it both ways: They can not bemoan dropping church attendance and the rise of the “nones” while simultaneously alienating large swaths of the population and calling it faithfulness.

But then I remember this parable.

---

I have not always done this well. Even now, I feel the temptation to mute all the voices that don’t obviously and immediately line up with my point of view. I am someone whose theology and practices have led to exclusion in the past, and possibly now in ways I’m not yet aware of. I’m still debating whether or not to post my blurry security camera footage all over the internet. I have been so, so angry this week, about all of this—neo-Nazis, patriarchy, war, gun violence, the full gamut—and I’ve also been so convicted of my own complicity. I know there are areas of my own heart still be examined and uncovered. I know I am more like the religious leaders Jesus questions than I am a latecomer to the party. But I’m doing my best.

I fill my Little Free Library with more books, and I straighten out the Pride flag hanging from my porch. I pray for my neighbors who might feel threatened or unsafe, and I ask God to forgive my own complicity. I pray for peace in Gaza and Ukraine, and I vote accordingly. I try to imagine a world in which everyone has enough and no one needs to be afraid, and with God’s help, I try to do my part.

I set another place at the table, and I open the front door.