Are You Safe?

Three short words, but such a powerful question, with multiple implications.

We recognize the physical nature of the question.   Are you in a good place?  Are you safe from physical harm and danger?  We ask this in situations of crisis or disaster.  Checking on our loved ones and friends, making sure they are okay.  Making sure they survived and weathered the storm.

There is a deeper way this question is asked.  One that reveals more about the character of the listener, than their situation.  And one that gets to the heart of what we seek in those around us.

Are you a safe person?

Can I trust you?

It’s a question of self-preservation.  One that we ask to keep ourselves from being hurt.  We may not ask it out loud, but we definitely evaluate in internally when we are deciding who we can share our hopes, our dreams, our sorrows, and our fears with.  When we determine who we can authentically be ourselves around.

Our church is currently working through a series entitled Leave the 99.  It’s about venturing out and going forth to be about His purpose.  Leaving the 99 in the flock to look for the one lost lamb.  And that passage of scripture, with the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son is well tread scripture.  It is well taught and well read.  

But something jumped out of the passage last night to me for the first time, right at the very beginning.

Luke begins chapter 15 with a verse summarizing the situation.  “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him [Jesus].  And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

The New Living Translation describes the crowd as “tax collectors and other notorious sinners.”  To put it mildly, these were the ultimate outsiders of Jewish society.  They were those people.  The ones that “respectable people” did not want to even be seen near.

Jewish society divided everyone between clean and unclean people.  The pious were clean and were the “worthy” in society.  Everyone else was unclean and needed cleansing.  But even within the unclean, there were levels.  These people were the “dirtiest.”

The tax collectors were seen as abusive and traitors, siding with Rome over the Jewish people.  Profiting off their own people through usury and graft.  The other notorious sinners likely referred to prostitutes, to drunkards, to beggars..to the undesirables.

People whose sins real and perceived were harder to hide.

And yet, they were still drawn to Jesus.

The question that hit me last night was why were they drawn to Jesus and not to the Pharisees?  Why would they feel comfortable coming to Jesus, drawing near to Jesus?

Because they felt safe.

Despite their sin, despite the station in life, despite their outsider standing, they knew they were safe to come to Jesus. 

They were safe to present the totality of their life before the feet of Jesus.  To bring everything they were, to bring their pride, to bring their shame, to bring all of it and just be in his presence.

They knew they weren’t safe with the Pharisees.  They knew how that would go.  The Pharisees would come forward with a long list of things that would need to be cleansed – the path to be made clean, which would have to happen before they could even hear the message.  Before they would even be allowed in their presence.

But they were safe at the feet of Jesus.  They were seen at the feet of Jesus.

And similarly, I think that is the highest compliment people could give us as Christians.  That they feel safe in our presence.  That they feel seen by us.

Which raises a question –

Do people feel safe around you?

Are they able to share their frustrations, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, themselves with you?  Or are people guarded around you?  Are things kept at a surface level?  Are interactions short?  Are people uncomfortable in your presence?

Perhaps a better question is, which people feel safe around you?

Do all the people that feel safe around you look like you?

Is a woman able to tell you all the ways she feels threatened, has been threatened, felt objectified and feel you hear her? Would she feel safe in sharing her concerns regarding her health and safety? Or do you try to minimize the concerns?  Explain the experiences?

Does a minority feel safe to tell you of the injustices they have faced in their life and feel seen?  Would they feel safe explaining their fears of what is ahead?  Or do they feel overlooked, minimized by your experiences?

Would a refugee or migrant feel safe in telling you their status?

Would an LGBTQ person feel safe in sharing their fears for the status of their relationships?  The status of their marriages?  Or is that part something that has to be kept hidden?

We have a real problem in the American church where we have lost the ability to make people feel safe.  We’ve lost the idea of church being a sanctuary and hospital for the wretched.  For the sinners that we all are.

And I wonder if the church failing to do its job in this area is what has led to things like the “safety pin” symbol or the blue friendship bracelet.  Tokens designed to be symbols identifying the wearer as an ally to anyone who needs it, regardless of race, gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, religion, immigrant status, etc.  Designating themselves as safe people.

In engaging in this train of thought, I recognize I have to address two oppositions that will arise.  First, the idea that not all people felt comfortable around Jesus.  And this is correct.  The Pharisees very obviously did not feel safe or comfortable around Jesus.  They found him antagonistic.  Isn’t it curious that the people that designated themselves holy, “clean,” in their own eyes felt uncomfortable?  Maybe as if you had to let go of the front before you felt seen, whole, and safe?  That’s ideally how church should work, we should be able to drop the mask, to drop the front of being perfect or pious, to present ourselves as the broken people that we are all trying to support each other to do and be better.  That makes a safe space.

Second, I can hear the choruses of people that will point out that though Jesus hung around and ate with sinners, he didn’t leave them there.  He would then tell them like the woman caught in adultery “go and sin no more.”   

This is true.

But there are a couple of important points to this story that are also left out.  Especially as the woman caught in adultery provides a beautiful illustration of how Jesus made people feel safe.

In this story, we have the woman caught in adultery (and it’s always interesting that it is just the woman caught in adultery and not the man as well), dragged out by the Pharisees to be stoned, the punishment prescribed by the Mosaic Law.

We all know it is a trap for Jesus.  If he says stone her, they will ask why he breaks other Mosiac laws.  If he says to not stone her, they will ask him why he doesn’t respect Mosaic Law.

Of utmost importance to understand in the story is that the Pharisees care nothing for the woman.

But Jesus does.

Jesus’ response in this story amazes me to this day. 

First, he affords the woman her dignity.  There is no telling what state of dress or undress this woman was presented.  For them to catch her in the act could have several implications in this respect.  The Pharisees looked down on her and dragged her before them.  She was made to face them down.

But Jesus refused to engage.  He turned away.  He bent down, and began writing in the sand.  He afforded her her modesty.

And when the Pharisees demanded a response, he provided her security.

Instead of engaging in the Pharisees trap, he told whomever was without sin themselves to cast the first stone.  Whomever was truly righteous could stone her.  He called out their hypocrisy.  For this he straightened up, looked them in the eyes, and then returned to his writing.

And of course, they left.

Because of all of them there, he was the only one who could judge her.

Finally, when it was just Jesus and the woman, he provided her visibility.  Only when everyone else left did Jesus straighten up and face the woman standing before him.  Here he showed how he saw her, how he viewed her.

He freed her, in all senses of the word.

And yes, there he told her, go your way and go and sin no more.

But he did it in order.  He made her feel safe and protected.  He made her feel seen, and then he told her to sin no more. 

All too often, we want to jump to sin no more, then come to us and we’ll recognize you.  The Pharisee problem all over again.  Go get clean and then we’ll associate.

We have to get better at making the outsider, the downtrodden, the different, and the outcast feel safe and seen.  Only then do we earn the right for the second part of that conversation.

So, I ask again, and hope we take a hard look for the answer.

“Are you safe?”

“God help the outcasts, or nobody will.”