A Woman of the City

Ever seen a cartoon get hit on the head? They fall on the ground and little birdies chase each other around and around. That’s how I’ve felt all week. Thoughts swirling around my noggin’ like little birdies, around and around.

Thoughts from this article, this video (if you’re a man, please watch this especially) , conversations about the sex industry and Amarillo with a sweet friend who is doing something about it, and especially North’s new series “I Love My City”. There’s a righteous rage boiling just under the surface, one that’s going to take a few blogs to write out. One that I believe is going to see my lifetime to walk out. But I’m willing to count that cost.

There’s a real “smile and wave” mentality in our culture today. Much is going on behind closed doors, but it’s terribly uncomfortable to talk about what’s in “the dark” of our lives, relationships, and even in our city. Once again, our worship of what is comfortable supersides reality. Kind of ironic when our generation claims to be relevant and love what’s “real”.

I want to say this up front, loud and clear, you can’t passionately love Jesus if your not willing to open up your heart to Him…even the deepest darkest parts. He’s not asking for the pretend. He’s not asking for the good Christian girl. He’s not asking for you to sing the right songs and raise your hands at the part where the music gets loud. He’s not asking for the right answers. Just like He’s not asking for the right hair, makeup, and clothes. He’s asking for your heart, all of it. Likewise, you can’t really love the people around you, if you’re not willing to fight for them. If you’re not willing to go to the dark places with them, not to pat their hand and tell them “it’s ok,” but to pull them out and tell them their not alone. And HOW IN THE WORLD, do you think you can love your city if your OK with the people all around you faking it. If your OK with the fact that their are hurting people standing next to you in line at the bank. If its NO BIG DEAL, that they are desperately trying to find out who they are in everything the world has to offer, and you go to church every week and hear that “Jesus loves and Jesus saves.” It’s not that it doesn’t mean anything to you; it just doesn’t mean ENOUGH to you.

I’m sick over it. I’m so sick over it, I’m practically immoble. Am I sick enough to change? God, change my heart!

Amarillo, Texas.

Try finding statistics on crime, poverty, drugs, abuse, and the sex industry. You can’t. Talk to a police officer or paramedic if you want the truth. And the truth is dark. There is one side of the city that’s practically impenetrable to police; organized crime and the sex industry is rampant in this transit town of Route 66 (I-40). Amarillo has been prositution hotspot in the country since around 1890 when the railroads ran through here. Darkness has history here. There’s only a 3 man taskforce that deals with sex crimes in Amarillo, noone who deals with human traffiking. And drugs and human trafficking are the two money-makers of organized crime. You probably only know a fake, pretend version of the city you live in. And you can only love a pretend city with pretend love. It’s sad, but most of the time, we love our comfort a whole lot more than we love God…let alone the people around us.

The stereotype used to be that most passionate churchgoers where women.

Church women who dragged their cleaned up husbands to church. I don’t see that anymore. When I look around I’m beginning to see a stirring of men in church. Men who are longing to give their lives to a greater cause. But where are the women? I still see women in the church, but many times their eyes are wandering for that Godly husband. Thinking their purity and moral efforts will be able to “cash in” for the perfect “Ken” church man. I see hearts so hardened by deals with God…’I go to church why am I alone or struggling or sad’. I see conversations resorting to gossip and comparision. There’s so much strife, so much unhappiness, so much unfulfillment, because there is so much MORE!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

God has called you to do something radical with all the passion, all the beauty, all the hate for the injustice, all the love for the broken. It’s an amazing life. And it starts with getting honest with yourself and getting honest with God. I can’t stop reading this story in Luke 7, as Jesus went to some very important church-folks house for a meal:

“And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.’ And Jesus answering said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ And he answered, ‘Say it, Teacher.’
‘A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’

Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.’ And he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this, who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

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This “Woman of the City” , the most bold woman I have ever heard of, did the most uncomfortable thing imaginable. Aware of her sin. Aware that the “church men” knew her sin. Aware of the fact that Jesus is the only one who could actually condemn her. She didn’t pretend. She didn’t compose herself. She didn’t talk the “right” talk. She didn’t handle herself the “right” way. She didn’t pretend that she didn’t have darkness in her life. She didn’t act like she had it all together.

She threw herself at the feet of Jesus. Weeping over the sins she had committed and those I’m sure committed against her. Consumed with love, she gave Jesus everything she had. All in front of the eyes of her city’s “leaders,” church people who were missing it! This “woman of the city” made one of the greatest statements in the Bible. She loved too much to pretend.

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Are you a woman of your city?
Do you see the pain around you? Do you see what Christ has done for you?
Do you love Him in such a way, that it makes a statement to everyone around you?
Or, are you just like everyone else?