For those exiled to the wilderness…

CBMW’s review of Jesus Feminist — and the fact that they won’t allow comments on their website — prompted this epic Twitter response from Sarah Bessey. (This link is the recap Sarah posted on her Facebook page afterward.)

The most telling line in the whole review (which, to CBMW’s credit, struck a softer tone than much of what I’ve seen from them in the past) was this:

“At the end of the day I do not see how we can do that together.”

By “do that,” they didn’t mean find common ground on gender roles. Obviously that’s not going to happen anytime soon. They meant anything Christians might normally do together.

“Love the lost.”

“Proclaim the gospel.”

“Serve in ministry.”

If you disagree with us, we can’t have anything to do with you.

This, a week after the full extent of women’s exclusion from the whole Christian conference scene was laid bare. Yet again, women who feel God’s call to lead, serve, teach, etc. are denied a place at the table. Exiled to the wilderness.

The thing is, God has a habit of meeting people out in the wilderness.

That’s where he met Moses after his own people rejected him. In exile, Moses became a “foreigner in a foreign land” — not one but at least two steps removed from anything vaguely resembling home. Yet that’s where God met him in a burning bush and gave him a new calling.

The wilderness is where God met the Hebrew slaves after they were driven from the only home they’d ever known. For a whole generation, they wandered the wilderness, flanked by hostile nations who wouldn’t let them pass through, much less take a seat and refresh themselves at their tables. It was there in the wilderness that God came to Israel on a mountain. It was in the wilderness that God never left their midst, going ahead of them as a cloud by day and a fire by night.

The wilderness is where God met Jacob, not once but twice, after he fled his brother’s vengeful wrath.

The wilderness is where Elijah took refuge when the political-religious establishment of his day threatened to kill him. Elijah pleaded with God to do it for them. But instead of ending his life, God fed him. Then he revealed himself to Elijah in a gentle whisper, telling the broken prophet that he was not alone. There were 7,000 others like him, there in the wilderness.

The wilderness is where God sent John the Baptist to preach a baptism of repentance. Like the Essenes at Qumran, John lived on the fringes of Jewish religious life. Yet the masses poured “out from Jerusalem” to hear him speak. Those who could not find a seat at the establishment’s table found something even better in the wilderness.

The wilderness is where Jesus prepared a ministry in which he would confront an establishment that didn’t always like making room for outsiders and outcasts at its table.

The wilderness is where Paul, who’d made a career of driving others into exile, found his own calling and emerged with a new mission: to welcome all manner of people to God’s table.

So when they try to silence you and deny you a place at their table, don’t be afraid to go out into the wilderness and sing your song anyway. You won’t be alone. There are others there.

And more often than not, the wilderness is where God shows up.

…..

UPDATE: In honor of Kelly, who noticed a glaring omission from my list…

The wilderness is where God met Hagar, after she was spurned by the  man who had taken her as his concubine and impregnated her. Hagar and her son were sent away to die, but God heard their cries and answered them in the wilderness. He promised Hagar a legacy of her own. When her family made their home in the desert, God was with them.