Religion – Kanisha's Classroom

OH MARY, DID YOU WEEP?: Holding Space for Those Who Are Grieving During The Christmas Season

by Kanisha L. Adkins

MARY DON’T YOU WEEP. That’s the title of a gospel song made popular by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. My title, however, isn’t Mary DON’T you weep. It’s Mary DID you weep. And it’s based on Luke 1:27 – 56. It’s the story of a young girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old, whose parents have entered into a contract with another family. Their daughter will be given to the other family’s son. The daughter is Mary. The son is Joseph. Mary will be his wife. The contract is final. For all intents and purposes, the couple is married. It’s a done deal. Joseph’s family will pay Mary’s family and Mary will go live with her new husband. But for right now she still lives with her family.

She’s been a “good girl”. She’s done everything she was supposed to do and she hasn’t done anything she wasn’t supposed to do. And then it happens. She gets a divine message that, in spite of the fact that she has never had sex, she’s going to get pregnant, have a son who will be the son of God and a great king. And to top it off, Mary is supposed to be happy about this. That’s what we’ve been taught. That’s what the text suggests. Of all the women in the world, God chose Mary. She’s blessed and highly favored. She should be over-the-moon happy.

But let’s slow down. And before we rush off to happily ever after, let’s give Mary a moment. Oh Mary, DID you weep? She’s been promised in marriage to a man (more likely, an older boy, about 19 or 20 years old) who she has probably seen but doesn’t know very well. She’s treated like a piece of property. The parents make a deal (more likely, the fathers make a deal). She’ll leave her family to go live with this little-known of boy and his little-known of family. Oh Mary, DID you weep?

She doesn’t really have a vote in this pregnancy process. It’s GOING to happen. (In spite of what folk like to say about freewill and God allowing us to choose to have a relationship with the Creator, there are times when God doesn’t ask our permission or our opinion.) Oh Mary, DID you weep?

When she tells her family about the pregnancy, they may disown her. Joseph may refuse to take her as his wife. Everyone would think that she has committed adultery. Adultery wasn’t simply a sin. It was a crime! Would she be convicted and punished for breaking the law? Would her punishment be death? Oh Mary, DID you weep?

When she heard that her elder-cousin Elizabeth was pregnant, was she shocked? Elizabeth was an “old lady”! She and her husband didn’t have children. And now, after all these years, they were finally going to have a child. Did Mary wonder whether it was a miracle? Did she wonder if God had done the same thing to Elizabeth that was being done to her? Was it a blessing? Was it a miracle? Was Elizabeth favored by God? She should be happy for Elizabeth – but how could she? Their situations were completely different. Oh Mary, DID you weep?

Did she welcome this divine assignment when she told the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said”? Or was she simply resigning herself to the inevitability that it was going to happen? Oh Mary, DID you weep?

When Mary saw Elizabeth, in her old age – pregnant – just like the angel had told her, when she heard Elizabeth, her wise, elder- cousin, shout praises to God for blessing Mary to be the mother of the son of God and praises to Mary for honoring her with a visit, Mary sang a happy song. Finally, she shouted, “Glory to God from the depths of my soul.” She was able to call blessed what God called blessed: both herself and the child she would carry and birth. The situation hadn’t changed. But finally, after processing the situation with the angel, with Elizabeth and with herself, she was able to laugh and smile and sing. But before she celebrated, we must seriously ask the question Oh Mary, DID you weep?

And we must seriously entertain the reality that Mary DID weep. Why? Because during this advent season, as the Church commemorates and celebrates the foretelling, expectancy and birth of the Christ, there are many people who are hurting. They are believers and Christ has come, is come and will come for them too. They are walking in the Advent season. But their worlds have been turned upside down. Jobs have been taken, loved ones have died, illness has been pronounced, bank accounts have been closed, businesses have gone bankrupt, evictions have been served and so much more. The heaviness of the holidays is settling in on them. And while some people are happy and excited and singing happy songs, others are weeping.

Let Them Weep! God will send divine messengers (it may be you – it may NOT be you) to remind them that buried under the burden of the turmoil, there is a hidden blessing. It may take some time to find the blessing but it’s there. And they will find it. But first, they must weep. So, let them! Give them love and space. And trust God to help them find their way, in their time, to that place of celebration.

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SHE’S NOT A WHORE – SHE’S A BUSINESSWOMAN

A 3 minute read

They called her Rahab the Prostitute and for good reason. She earned money and favors by having sex with men who lived in and visited the city of Jericho. She couldn’t deny it. She wouldn’t deny it. Prostitution was how she earned her living and how she supported her family.

But Rahab wasn’t just a prostitute. She was a businesswoman. She made it her business to know what was going on in and outside of Jericho. She made it her business to know who lived in Jericho and who was visiting. And when there were visitors, she made it her business to know why they were visiting.

So when two strangers came to the city to Rahab’s house – looking around and asking questions – she immediately knew who they were. They were spies from a nation of people called the Israelites. She had heard that Israel planned to invade and take over Jericho and that anyone who was not part of the tribes of Israel would be slaughtered and wiped off the face of the earth.

Rahab, like everyone else in Jericho, was terrified about what the Israelites planned to do. She also knew that the King of Jericho would be looking for the spies to stop them from going back with a report on the best way to capture the city of Jericho. Rahab weighed her options and decided that she would make a business deal with the spies. She was, after all, a master negotiator.

Rahab hid the spies. When the King’s messengers came looking for them, she told the messengers that she didn’t know the men were spies. She also told them that the spies had already left the city, but if they hurried, they might be able to catch them.

Then, after the King’s messengers left, Rahab went to the spies and propositioned them. She had saved their lives by sending the King’s messengers on a vain search. In return, when the Israelites came to take over Jericho, she expected her life, along with the lives of her mother, father, sister, brother and all who belonged to her, to be spared.

This was the arrangement Rahab negotiated. This was the arrangement that the spies agreed to keep. And when the armies of Israel came to Jericho, before they destroyed the city, Rahab and all of her family were escorted outside of the city to safety. Because Rahab wasn’t simply a whore. She was a businesswoman.

The Story of Rahab as told in this blog can be found in the book: LESS THAN VIRTUOUS-MORE THAN CAPABLE: Affirmations for Everyday Women. Read more empowering stories of women in the Old Testament. Click here to purchase.

No portion of this story may be duplicated in writing or in any other recorded form.

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When A Sin Becomes A Crime

The church has long taught that sex outside of marriage is a sin. People who’ve spent any amount of time in evangelical, apostolic, or fundamentalist churches are familiar with verses like, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.” (I Thessalonians 4:3 KJV) Forget hunger, poverty, and unemployment. Sex outside of marriage is what makes the church cringe on any given Sunday. For the record, the word “fornication” used in the biblical text is taken from the Greek word porneia, which means ‘selling off or surrendering sexual purity and promiscuity of any and every type’. Marital status isn’t mentioned in the original Greek definition of fornication.

You’ll notice that I’ve highlighted the words surrendering and promiscuity. That’s because some people don’t seem to understand that “promiscuously surrendering” is NOT the same as being forced to engage in sexual activity. Being forced to engage in sexual activity is sexual assault at the least, and rape at most.

Why am I making this distinction? Well, in case you haven’t heard, a major Christian organization has come under fire for overlooking reports of rape and sexual assault. No, the organization isn’t a mega church or a religious denomination’s national or state conference. The major Christian organization I’m talking about is Baylor University, the nation’s largest Baptist University.

Over the course of the last several years, several female students have come forward and reported being sexually assaulted or raped by members of the Baylor University football team. The university, however, didn’t appropriately investigate these reports. In fact, according to one news report, the University didn’t look into the allegations made by at least one young lady until 2 years after she reported the assault! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/05/26/baylor-reportedly-fires-football-coach-art-briles-amid-teams-sexual-assault-allegations/

A columnist, who is also a member of a prominent family, many of whom are Baylor graduates, recently wrote that for religious schools like Baylor, “the question is how to balance the country’s encouragement of sexual assault victims to come forward with the school’s rules that restrict sexual behavior.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/05/25/the-ken-starr-baylor-story-shows-the-struggle-of-religious-schools-to-deal-with-sex-assault/

According to Baylor’s sexual conduct policy students, faculty and staff are expected to express sexual intimacy in the context of marital fidelity. http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php?id=39247

Surely, this prominent columnist can’t be suggesting that sexual assault is an act of intimacy. But it sounds like this is exactly what he is implying: that because the policy prohibits sexual intimacy outside of marriage, persons who are sexually assaulted are reluctant to report these actions to campus leaders because they have engaged in a prohibited sexual intimacy. No they haven’t engaged in an intimacy! They’ve been criminally assaulted. Sexual assault is NOT the sexual behavior that is addressed in Baylor’s policy on sexual conduct. This is a bunch of double talk. And quite frankly, it’s a bunch of bull.

I believe (and some might even agree) that Baylor’s leadership failed to appropriately address the reports of these young ladies who alleged to have been sexually assaulted by members of the football team for one reason. MONEY! When the football team started winning and finished with a championship win in 2010 under head coach Art Briles, big bucks started rolling in for Baylor! The leaders of this prominent Christian university didn’t just delay looking into a sexual conduct policy violation between consenting adults. These leaders turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to sexual crimes on their Christian campus! And an attempt to reframe the issue of a crime in terms of a policy violation is an epic fail. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/25/baylor-university-prepares-fire-president-over-handling-assaults

Sexual activity outside of marriage may be a sin. But sexual assault is a crime. It’s time for Baylor and the many faces of the faith community including colleges, universities, secondary schools, churches, fellowships and religious conferences to put as much attention on crime as they do on sin.

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No written portion of this article may be used without obtaining written permission from the author.

Henrico, VA 23228 – phone 202-854-1963 – email: info@kanishaladkins.com

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THE DOORS OF THE CHURCH…ARE CLOSED??

Let’s just jump right in. Many people reading this blog are tired of or know someone who is tired of church! This is not to be confused with being tired of God. God and church are two different things. People love God. In fact, if it wasn’t for their love of God, they would have given up on “church” a long time ago. Still, they’re tired of church. And this is not to be confused with The Church: that invisible and universal, timeless and eternal “body of Christ”, group of believers who have professed Christ as God’s son and their Savior and Lord. People are not tired of The Church with a big C, they’re tired of church with a little c.

I’m not making this up. And I’m not speaking solely out of my own personal frustrations. I have hard facts, first-hand knowledge, that people are tired of church. These hard facts are conversations with people who have said point blank, “I’m tired of church” or “I’m all churched out!”

You need more facts? Here they are: Look around your church over the course of the next month or so and you’ll notice some people are missing. The Baby Boomers (ages 51 to 69, give or take a year or two) and Generation X (ages 35 to 50, give or take a year or two) who have been raised in the church, who have been faithful in talent, time and tithe are taking sabbaticals from being overworked, uninspired and unmotivated (not to mention being under and unappreciated). These long time church members who usually show up every time the doors of the church open are going on hiatus from that Sunday morning same old, same old. They’re finding reasons and excuses to not show up on Sunday morning.

These Old Faithfuls, as I’ll call them, have grown tired of routine and scripted Sunday morning worship and weekly activities and they’re slowing stepping away. Sometimes it’s not apparent because they’re still showing up but just not as frequently as before. They’re still showing up, but they’re not as active or as vocal as before. And little by little, one service at a time, one hymn at a time, one collection plate at a time, “Old Faithful” is inching towards the door and they’re just one pew away from being one of The Dones.

The Dones is a phrase coined by the research of Josh Packard, a sociologist at the University of Northern Colorado. The Dones are those people who are done with church. The Dones have not (I repeat, HAVE NOT) abandoned their faith, or their belief in God or God’s son, Jesus, but they’re ‘done’ with church as usual. The Dones may attend a service every now and then. After all, community and connection are still important to them. But don’t look for them every week singing a rousing chorus of “give me that old time religion.” It may have been good for their dear mother or father, and it may have been good for the Hebrew children, and Paul and Silas, but don’t get it twisted…it’s NOT good enough for The Dones. They’re done with that!

And as Old Faithful inches closer and closer to becoming part of The Dones and giving less and less time inside the four walls of the church, along with Old Faithful goes a big portion of the church’s talent and tithe because Millennials (ages 18 to 34, give or take a year or two) aren’t waiting in line to be pew members. They aren’t interested in being “seat-fillers”, like people who are hired to attend television, theatre and movie award shows so that the house looks packed. Millennials (and those whom I’ll call millennial-minded) want to be involved and active. They love good music, preaching and teaching but they’d rather spend half of the day doing service and outreach projects and not half of the day being benchwarmers. To borrow from the words of Thom Schultz of the Group Publishing and Lifetree Café, like The Dones, The Millennials don’t want to “plop, pray and pay. They want to play. They want to participate.”

And then there is Generation Z also known as “Generation V” (for virtual), the “Internet Generation”, or the “Google Generation”. These are the ‘tweens and teens who are still dependent on adults to provide for their every need. These are the children who often sit through church services and activities that are geared towards adults and they either end up falling asleep or playing with electronic games. And before the Google Generation becomes part of the Millennials and they decide that it’s more beneficial to get a job and work rather than worship on Sundays, church as usual has got to change.

Corporate worship is important and I (for the most part) enjoy it. But attending church services and activities shouldn’t be the highlight of our existence as Christians. And attending church services and activities shouldn’t be the requirement that people have to meet in order to prove that they are “living right”.

Years ago a friend of mine asked the question: “why are we [the same people who’ve been coming to bible study for 20 years] still coming to bible study and still talking about the same thing? At some point we should be going out and putting into action what we’ve learned!” I think she has a valid point. Church should be a place where we enter to worship and depart to serve.

The gospel writer Matthew said that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples went to Galilee, just as Jesus had instructed them. And “when they saw him, they worshiped him;… Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:17-20)

This is the Great Commission! It’s short and it’s sweet. It tells us that when people see Jesus, they will worship! And after we have worshiped, we are instructed to GO! GO into the world! GO and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! GO and teach people everything that Jesus taught.

The world has changed! And yet, some of our churches are doing the same things they’ve done for the last 20, 50, 75 and even 100 years. We can no longer continue to do church as usual. We can’t afford it! It’s time for us to stop doing church and it’s time for us to start being the CHURCH! Worship extends beyond the one, two or three hours that we spend in church on the Sabbath. In fact, the magnitude, the demonstration and the evidence of our worship should be what we do after the benediction…on our jobs, in our homes, in our communities. Instead of putting so much emphasis on “coming to church”, perhaps it’s time for us to give the benediction, close the doors of the church and GO!

…And by the way…relax…Jesus promised that He’d be with us.

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Sources: *https://baptistnews.com/culture/item/29535-new-term-recognizes-christians-who-are-simply-done-with-church

**http://www.churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-articles/177144-thom-schultz-rise-of-the-done-with-church-population.html

No written portion of this article may be used without obtaining written permission from the author.

P.O. Box 28483 Henrico, VA 23228 – phone 202-854-1963 – email: info@kanishaladkins.com

Follow me on twitter @kanishaladkins

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