One small story in the podcast series, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,” is the illustration about the Nachos. When Mark Driscoll is trying to illustrate how to be a good wife, he gives the example twice about how a good wife could present her husband with nachos when he comes home. It should be stated that he feels that’s where a woman should be and the man should be out conquering the world. He actively encouraged women to stay home, have babies and support their husband as the hierarchical leader of the family.
Without getting into the complementarian debate or the misogyny involved in all this, I just want to consider something simple. What if the woman had a bad day managing the household, preparing meals, getting kids to school and dealing with all the other challenges of being a person. One could almost hear her saying, “You drove by Taco Bell – where’s my nachos?”
If you know the Mars Hill story, it’s all about the power and control of the patriarchy. The ways and means they used to control are way more serious than the nachos, but this simple example shows where thing get side-tracked. We assume someone else or their position is less honorable, so we disrespect them. That’s what it boils down to. They would never say women are less valuable or honorable, but their actions show the favoritism.
It was all cloaked in leadership and love and good-sounding things at Mars Hill. In Christian circles, they call it submitting. It’s not that we shouldn’t wash peoples feet or do nice things for them, but when we assume the shit we had to deal with was worse than anyone else’s, we demote their feelings and begin expecting them to make us feel better. If we demote genders, we very soon can justify demoting other races or nationalities – that is called racism. Many of the isms we end up supporting (nationalism, racism, classism, etc.) boil down to this nacho speech that stresses that I deserve something more than you because whatever I am or whatever I do is more important than you!
Maybe, it boils down to a pride that grows out of our fear. Maybe it’s that we assume someone else is responsible for our happiness.
I just left my daughter’s house. She is the one that goes out to work and her husband stays home with their two children. They do well at respecting each other as far as I know because they seem to realize that life if hard on all of us. I come home every day and fix supper for my wife because I’m better at cooking. The bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with fixing nachos for someone if that is what you want to do. Kindness is a good thing, but if you tell someone to fix nachos for someone just because they assume they have it worse than others, be ready for them to ask you “where’s my nachos?” or “fix your own nachos” or “why don’t you help me get the gum out of my hair before I give you something you don’t even need?”
Why don’t we just stop grouping people? Obviously there are differences, but generally we should be ready to fix our own nachos. We could look for ways to value our life other than how many people serve us. We can still look for a way to make other people happy. We can be kind, considerate, compassionate and as we stop grouping people into categories. We can love our neighbor which includes our spouse.
Kindness is what conquers the world. Mark Driscoll doesn’t understand this, or maybe he just forgot. He saw himself as a warrior, but he lost the narrative. Lack of kindness is the main reason Mars Hill cratered the City of Seattle. It was one of the reasons he was disqualified as an elder. Thinking someone owes you nachos is just the beginning. It evolves from there.
One reason, women tend to ask men how was day is because they want men to ask the same question. Maybe if we listened more, we would know when someone needs some nachos, not because they are a man or a woman but because they’re hungry and they had a shitty day.
Let all work on it.
Be where you are, be who you are,
Karl
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