Sermon preached by the Rev. Lillie Mae Henley, Sunday 22 Oct 2006
Have you heard about Adam, the first man?
And his sons Cain and Abel?
Have you heard about Noah and how he built the ark?
Have you heard about Abraham, the father of many nations?
Have you heard about Isaac and his covenant with Yahweh?
Have you heard of Jacob who wrestled with the angel?
Have you heard about Joseph and his coat of many colors?
Have you heard about Moses who parted the Red Sea?
And you’ve heard of Job, and Jonah, and Saul and Solomon?
So many men.
How many more men do you know from the Bible?
But, what of the women?
Could you name as many women from the Bible?
There’s Miriam and Sarah and Hagar, Bathsheba and Delilah; there’s Deborah, there’s Ruth and Esther. There are more women; however, there are not as many women stories as there are “men stories” in the Bible.
As so many women have been left out of humankind’s story, so have many women been left out of the Jewish Christian story.
Before I say any more, I do recognize that in the last four decades, more recognition has been forthcoming for women’s contributions to all fields of work, but there was a time, when women inventors, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, were unrecognized and left out of the canons of our western culture.
Jane Austen was not, in her time, considered a sophisticated writer, and certainly, no one would have compared her to Shakespeare. The reason she was ignored for almost hundred years, is because she wrote about “the family” not about “the world.”
However, in literary critique today, the only writer who has been the subject of more papers than Jane Austen is Shakespeare.
And why were women’s contributions in science ignored? Some writer’s say it goes back to the invention of the vacuum pump in 1663. The story is told that women could only view the invention from a distance, because they had no mind to comprehend such things.
Mind you, I’m not complaining or blaming anyone—or any storical time—the many reasons for patriarchal and androcentric dominance are complex. We cannot change the past.
Like many others, what I want to do is help clarify the issues; make a contribution to the discussion. Today, we will explore the stories of a few women from the Old and New Testaments. What I hope will happen, is that we will discover another way of reading their stories.
What we need to keep in mind, always, is the cultural context for these old stories from the Bible. If we look at the Middle East today, we will see some cultures that are not that different from these cultures of 2,000 or 3,000 years ago in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Women were the property of men and were not as important as the male sons of the family. Women and their daughters had, perhaps, a little more status than slaves, donkeys, camels, and sheep.
Miriam
Moses sister. She along with her brothers Moses and Aaron led the Israelites out of Egypt. The story tells us she took up a tambourine and danced the “Song of Miriam” and led the women into the desert. It is however, Moses who is favored by Yahweh. When Moses takes a Cushite wife, against tribal prohibitions, Aaron and Miriam talk against Moses. Yahweh calls them to account, but only Miriam is punished.
Sarah
The only purpose of a woman’s existence was to have children. If a woman in Biblical times was barren, it was tragic. As we know from the Abraham and Sarah story, Sarah was barren, and gave to Abraham one of her servants Hagar so Abraham could father a son. After Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, the scriptures tell us Sarah and Hagar’s relationship deteriorated.
Eventually, Sarah, at 90 gave birth to a son.
Once Sarah gave birth to a son, she has to get rid of Hagar and her son Ishmael who now threaten her Sarah’s son’s inheritance. Sarah had Abraham send Hagar away.
Deborah
A prophet and a judge of Israel before the days of King Saul, and the reign of Israel’s kings. A prophet and a judge!
The story tells us she was the leader of Israel and she held court judging wisely the people’s disputes.
It is to Deborah that Yahweh gave the prophecy and the instructions on when and how to go to war against Israel’s oppressors.
It is to Deborah that Yahweh gave the prophecy that by a woman’s hand Israel would win victory over their enemy. That woman was Jael, and she killed the enemy leader in a violent and brutal way.
Two women Deborah and Jael.
Elizabeth and Mary
Elizabeth, a descendent of Aaron, the same Aaron who was Moses’ and Miriam’s brother. Elizabeth was an old woman in the story from Luke in the New Testament. Her husband Zechariah was even older. The angel Gabriel came to Zechariah, a priest, and announced that Elizabeth would have a son, and that son would be named John, and he would prepare God’s people for the Messiah. Zechariah, because he and Elizabeth were so old, did not believe the angel. For his disbelief, he was struck mute.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was ecstatic, and praised God, and was no longer embarrassed because of her barrenness.
Five months later, Mary is told she is to have a child who will be called “Son of God.” Mary questions the angel. Gabriel then tells Mary that her barren cousin Elizabeth will also have a child, and add, “… for nothing will be impossible with God.”
God waits for Mary’s agreement, once she accepts, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word,” she becomes pregnant.
Mary then goes to visit Elizabeth. When Mary calls out to Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth’s womb “leaps” and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. It is Elizabeth, a woman, who declares Mary blessed and her child blessed, and it is Elizabeth who declares that Mary is the mother of the Messiah.
Women in Antiquity
Scholars like Leonard Shlain who wrote The Alphabet Versus the Goddess tell us that women were more prominent in the oral traditions of antiquity. It was only when the alphabet and the written word became the dominant way to convey story, that the dominant figures became men.
Other scholars, like J. J. McKenzie who wrote I Will Love Unloved, tell us that as more and more of the stories were written down, “Women gradually, insidiously, have been edged out of their part in the Hebrew/Christian religion.”
McKenzie, who takes a translationist approach to the study of women in the Bible tells us that in the surviving ancient texts of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites had a number of words for their Deity that represent a plural G-d, and they used words for a plural deity nine times more often than words that referred to a monotheistic G-d.
Do you remember the creation story in Genesis, Chapter 1:26 that says that God made man first? Scholars tell us they have found in the surviving ancient texts the wording “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’”
Phyllis Trible, world renowned theologian, in her book Feminist Approaches to the Bible tells us that in the ancient surviving Hebrew Scriptures, God made humans from the dust, not man, but humans.
In the face of this late Twentieth Century research, is there a way we can look at the stories of the women in the Bible and find empowerment? And if not empowerment, then at least a more balanced perspective of women.
Miriam
The oldest of the stories, is the one closest to the oral tradition. Perhaps that is why she is a tribal leader with Aaron and Moses when they led the Israelites out of Egypt. When Miriam and Aaron speak out against Moses, why was only Miriam punished? Was the written message—women who have the audacity to think they can be leaders—be warned—you have no place in leadership. That is the most likely reason.
I choose, however, to embrace Miriam’s story as one that demonstrates the leadership of women in any endeavor, and God’s punishment as a metaphor for challenges. Leaders, sometimes, have to speak a truth that no one wants to hear. Sometimes, the truth facilitates transformation, sometimes, it is too hard for people to accept, and the leader suffers from her or his truthfulness.
For me, that is what happened to Miriam. She was a significant, powerful leader. They sang her song and included her in a patriarchal dominated story. How could she have not been a powerful leader? They wrote of her when she died, and remembered her hundreds of years later when they used the alphabet to record their stories.
Deborah
She is the only woman recognized as a leader of Israel. There were other female prophets, but it is Deborah who was a judge and a leader. How did this happen? It is not surprising that a woman held this position in Israel’s story; it is surprising that it was remembered and recorded in this male dominated text.
What do we make of it?
In her story, she even tells the General that a woman will deliver Israel’s enemies, not him. And the woman Jael does just that. Killing the enemy leader in a horrible way, a tent spike through his temple.
We know that in violence done to human beings in antiquity was quite cruel —torture was a matter of course—not something hated by decent human beings.
Deborah’s story tells us that women are no different than men, in leadership, in behavior, in love of country, in love of God. Some people may want you to believe men and women are from different planets, Mars and Venus for example. We—women and men—have the same human potential, one is not stronger than another, it is our culture that creates differences. As individuals we may have different strengths and weakness, and biology may serve to be a determining factor of our needs and gifts, but in God’s eyes, we are the same and equally deserving of God’s Grace and Love.
Sarah and Hagar—both produced male heirs. Hagar was then a threat to Sarah.
What does the story tell us? That Life happens while we are busy planning and arranging and manipulating our lives. Does the story tell us that God has a plan?
We do not have to see Sarah and Hagar as the classic “jealous woman” story; we can look at the story as one of survival. Sarah did what she had to do to ensure the survival of her tribe.
Hagar, despairing, wanted to die, yet in her darkest hour; G-d came to her and ensured her that her she and her son would survive. G-d came to her. Hagar is the only woman in the Bible G-d spoke directly to.
How empowering is this story once we have a different perspective, and how beautiful and good is the figure of Hagar when we realize that she was so blessed by God?
What about Elizabeth and Mary in Jesus’ birth story in Luke?
Elizabeth’s husband was mute, could not speak, it is Elizabeth, a woman who is the first to pronounce Mary’s child as the Messiah.
In the culture in which they live, in the religious tradition in which they are an integral part, there is nothing more powerful than to announce the birth and to give birth to the Messiah.
Why do you suppose it was the women?
Why were there only women at the Cross?
Why was it a woman who told the story of Christ risen?
Why is the Christ story so connected to Sophia, the Wisdom of Yahweh?
Because no matter how much the dominant power wants to suppress those who are weaker,
or those who are on the margin,
or those who have not,
or those who think differently,
or those who feel differently,
or those who live differently,
or those who are differently-abled,
we are still here.
All of us are still here.
We have to work together for survival.
We have to work together to create the Kingdom of God here on earth.
God’s Grace is among us, God’s Holy Spirit is here, not just some abstraction or concept in which we believe, but it is here, today, among us, to give us joy in our existence and in our lives.
The women of the Bible knew this Spirit; they knew God’s Grace.
They opened themselves up to the joy of living God’s plan for their lives.
To what do we open ourselves up?
To whose plan, ours or God’s?
Would you pray with me?
God, we ask you to open us up to your joy, your Holy Spirit, and your plan for us. Our mission, you have told us is to create a loving community in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Help us do that. Help us create that community right here, this moment, and in everything we do. And then, may we live out the creation of this loving community now and always in our lives.
Blessed be and Amen.
Readings
“Deborah the Judge of the Ancient Israelites” by Mary Lou Sleevi
The only woman ever to be Jude of Israel
--in the days before Monarchy
When the land was ruled by judges—
Steps away from the Court
Where she sat
At the Palm Tree on the Mountain.
The Verdict is in.
Arise, arise, Mother of Israel!
Deborah,
At once retrospective
And introspective,
Considers perspectives and prospects.
Standing,
The prophet who inspired the Song of Deborah
Contends with the Command of God
That she delivered. It will be Enacted.
Her own word is given at the risk of her life.
In a lonely, lovely Interlude,
Her fingers ping a string of q lyre.
The wind picks up, its fragrance balmy.
The sun, symbol of Justice in the ancient East,
Rises with her,
And colors the skies—a little.
Deborah, prophet and wife,
“was judging Israel at the time.
She used to sit under Deborah’s Palm . . .
In the highlands of Ephraim,
And the Israelites would come to her for justice.”
Up the hillside to her tree,
Trodding with troubles large and small,
Feet beat a path each day.
God and people trusted her
As one of their own.
She had summoned Barak to the mount
To give him God’s Instructions:
Go. March.
The warrior was to lead a great army
To win a decisive victory
For the freedom of the Israelites.
But Barak had answered the judge:
“’If you come with me, I will go;
If you do not come with me,
I will not go.’”
For he would not know how to choose the day when God would grant him success.
“’I will certainly go with you,’” she replied,’
Immediately reinforcing the word.
(She also told him that Sisera, the enemy general, would fall at the hands of a woman.)
Deborah marched with Barak;
An army of ten thousand men were behind them.
“Up!” she discerned on the Day of Deliverance
That happened as she had said.
The Prophet and Judge
Has a good inner ear.
She hears from both sides,
Weighs and balances head and heart.
With uncommon sense and its sister, wisdom,
She draws on her own Intelligence report.
She will judge rightly.
She may have been elevated to leadership more by the ability to make hard decision
With knowledge and foresight
Than to counsel pastorally in the shade of the palm tree.
Perhaps her Stature—
Her Genius, her Legacy—
Combines both.
“Elizabeth and Mary” the Annunciation from New Testament, first chapter of Luke
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest name Zechariah who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandants and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
… there appeared to Zechariah an angel … and when Zachariah saw the angel, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angle said unto him, Fear not, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard; and … Elisabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call him John… he shall be great in the sight of God, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord…
And Zechariah said, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.
And, the angel made Zachariah speechless because he did not believe.
The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to Joseph of the house of David… the angel said unto her, fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favor with God… the angel said, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, …and you shall bear a son and he will be called Son of God.
And, your cousin, Elisabeth, has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was … barren. And Mary said, be it unto me according to they word. And the angel departed from her. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country … to Judah; and entered into the house of Zachariah and greeted Elisabeth. And it came to pass that when Elisabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
And she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.