The Board Room

Eyebrows. Let me see your eyebrows and I will tell you what you are feeling. When my husband and I fight I will often ask him to change his eyebrows and because he loves me and knows my story he works hard to change the look on his face to communicate his desire to engage in the process of repair. I feel sudden shame, fear, and worry when someone’s eyebrows look at me with disdain. 

My husband is a pastor and together we’ve been in ministry for 20 years. In order to teach about the kindness and love of the Father he will often have his students imagine the face of God and have them describe what they see. This illustration comes to mind because my deep attachment I have with God can be full of anxiety rather than trust. When I see his face looking at me it is not always full of kindness and compassion, but eyebrows of dissatisfaction. 

Often when I think about God and where he spends his time, it’s in the board room surrounded by a group of white men making rules, laws, declarations and decisions that affect the whole of his people. Yes, all their eyebrows are facing down. 

I wept in the scene of the Barbie movie when she walks into the headquarters of Mattel and into the board room. Who is in the board room making decisions about her and her influence in the world? Men. Powerful men in suits. 

Sometimes all I can see is Jesus in the board room, but this is not where Jesus is. This is the Jesus of the religion we have created in our Christian culture. In our church culture. This is the view from where I sit as a pastor’s wife. This is the view from my membership in a denomination where men rule and women are told to get in line. Where position papers are continually rolled out by those men in the board room who say what I, as a woman, am allowed or not allowed to do. The board room is where declarations about my husband have been made. He is too “woke” he is “progressive” and he’s not like “us.” These images I see from the boardroom come with assumed power that these are the declarations of Jesus himself. These declarations and images of leadership and power have caused pain and damage in my own heart and I know I’m not alone in these feelings. 

You see the interesting thing is somehow these men think that Jesus is with them in this board room and somehow they have made the rest of us believe that Jesus is with them too. But where is the fruit? When we look at the current church in America, what do we see? When we look at the words of Jesus, what do we hear? 

“Woe to you scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.” Matthew 23:23-24

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Matthew 23:27-28

The fruit we see is a massive group of people deconstructing and walking away from “religion.” We hear “I love Jesus, but I want nothing to do with his church or his people.”  We see abuse running rampant in churches. We see leaders abusing their power. We see women being silenced when they bring their abuse stories. We see leaders shrugging their shoulders when confronted with the ways they have hurt so many people and saying, “Ok, but I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to lead any differently.” We see people with disabilities and their families being isolated and pushed out of churches. We see the pro-life banner being waved, but story after story of families who have adopted children being unwelcome because their children are too much of a disturbance. 

In John 9 Jesus heals a man born blind and the Pharisee’s invited the man into the “board room” to tell them his story. 

“So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you alreayd, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from” The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

THEY CAST HIM OUT!! You know what Jesus did when he heard that this man was cast out? Jesus went and found him. Jesus didn’t go to the “board room” and affirm the Pharisees he found the broken man who had been healed. I imagine Jesus’ eyebrows were full of compassion. The man didn’t shrivel in shame or fear, he worshipped Jesus. 

Friends, do you feel cast out by the people in power who are in the boardroom? Do you think that Jesus is with them in their abuse of power? Have their declarations over you caused the deepest of wounds? 

Hear these words from John 10 after the story of the blind man. 

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Jesus has never been in the board room making decisions, he’s been in the streets healing the blind, feeding the poor, showing compassion to the children, healing the mentally, emotionally, and physically broken. He went to the cross and laid down his life that one day all brokenness would be over and this world will be made new. The men in the boardroom like the things of Jesus, but don’t want Jesus himself.

Jesus is not in the board room. I am learning this alongside you. This is a lonely journey, but we aren’t alone. 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)