A sermon by Rev. Lillie Henley
August 24, 2008
A few thousand years ago, three prophets led their people from bondage to freedom. These prophets were Moses, his brother Aaron, and his sister Miriam. Who was this woman Miriam, the first woman to be called a prophet in the Scriptures?
We first see her in the second chapter of Exodus. The Pharaoh had declared that newborn sons of the Hebrew slaves are to be killed. Miriam’s mother has a newborn son Moses. (From the New Living Translation)
3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and water¬proofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.
5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.
7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked.
8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.
Miriam had a crucial role in the shaping story of the Hebrew faith.
The next time we see her is in Exodus 15 (New Revised Standard) “Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’”
In the beginning, probably in the oldest of the stories, Miriam was equal to her brothers. Yet, as time moved the reality is that she was denied her authority. When she and Aaron criticized Moses because he married a Cushite woman—from outside the tribe—which was really something frowned upon, God verbally chastised Miriam and Aaron. Yet, Miriam is the only one who was physically punished. When Yahweh finished speaking, only Miriam had leprosy, not Aaron. Moses, feeling sorry for her, asked Yahweh for her healing. Yahweh yielded, and said for seven days she was separated from the tribe. Miriam was so beloved by the people they would not move camp until her seven days was over.
Abraham, another central figure in the shaping of the Hebrew people, was ordered by Yahweh to sacrifice his son Isaac as proof of his faith in Yahweh. Abraham made the decision to obey God, and without telling his wife Sarah, he took Isaac to Moriah to sacrifice him. At the last minute, Yahweh stilled Abraham’s hand and told him it was not necessary to sacrifice him, it was a test of his faith.
Yet, the story was different with Jephthah’s daughter. Jephthah, a great general, promised Yahweh a sacrifice if Yahweh would ensure victory over the Ammonites. The sacrifice would be the first thing he saw when he returned home after his victorious battle. It happened that the first thing he saw wasn’t the animals in his yard, but his daughter running to greet him and celebrate his great victory.
Yahweh did not stay Jephthah’s. The reality of this story is that the daughter was sacrificed.
In the earliest stories of the Israelites, those grounded in the oral tradition when the people were still close to the goddess religions, Miriam was a prophet and beloved by her people. The further away the stories from their beginnings, the harsher the treatment of women.
For some years now, archeologists and feminist theologians have claimed that in those cultures where a male, warrior-god took the place of the goddess women lost their power and their voices. Merlin Stone, author of When God Was a Woman, and other writers say that when the northern, sun-god tribes swept south and conquered the people around the Mediterranean that matriarchal cultures became patriarchal cultures and women became chattel and property. They argue that when God became male and all-powerful, women lost their voices and their influence.
Still other archeologists say, despite the evidence of artifacts and art, that there never were matriarchal cultures!
Leonard Shlain, author of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess has a different theory and a compelling argument for another telling of the story. I highly recommend his book; it is quite informative and easy to read.
Shlain argues is that it wasn’t conquering hordes of male-God worshipers, but the advent of literacy that changed humankind. It okay if you find it funny that the “advent of literacy” makes it sound like, men got smart and took away women’s power! It could be funny. Especially if, for thousands of years, men and women had been working together to create a better world, but as we know, that hasn’t been the case.
The truth is that for some reason male dominance has come at the cost of female subjugation.
Shlain says, though it is because of the alphabet the ability to read that patriarchal dominance entered human relations. In his book he follows the development of humankind from the earliest hominids through the hunter-gatherers, through the agrarian tribes, through the earliest civilizations, through the development of ancient writing, and up to the creation of the alphabet and the civilizations who acquired the ability to write and read.
The difference between ancient hieroglyphics and pictographs and the alphabet is significant. An alphabet has fewer than thirty characters, and the symbols themselves have no meaning. There are over six thousand hieroglyphics in ancient Egyptian writing. Only educated and specially-trained scribes could write. The alphabet made it possible for anyone, regardless of wealth, power, or class to read and write.
That in itself is not enough to explain patriarchal dominance. Shlain says that what humankind has come to associate with the feminine aspect of human relations, i.e., intuition, images, “knowing,” and perceiving comes from the right brain. What we associate with masculine and is linear, concrete, analytical, judgmental, and “rational,” comes from the left brain.
Shlain, a vascular surgeon who knows firsthand how profoundly different our two brain hemispheres are, says that anatomically, the left brain developed to aid the hunters in their pursuit of killing, protecting, and providing for the female and her offspring. The right brain developed to facilitate a holistic and emotional response to the world which aided in the development of rearing more dependent ever-increasingly intelligent offspring.
That is not enough, though, to explain patriarchal dominance, Shlain writes. The eyes and hands contribute significantly. Physiologically, the way we see, lends itself to the right eye being dominant. And the right hand is dominant, and both facilitate the need of men to protect and provide. He writes:
“Although the male paid a price for his relative isolation from his right-brain emotions, he gained the ability to shut out feelings that might otherwise have distracted him while he was engaged in the dangerous activity of hunting. The ability to focus on a single task and remain emotionless is … desirable … for the hunter… The dispassion [of the hunter] … is the opposite of a mother’s binding love for her child.”
The alphabet lends itself to left-brain activity. This is what facilitated patriarchal, male-dominant behavior. Shlain’s argument is compelling. And, quite frankly, I am relieved to know that there is more to male dominance than the mentality of “Me, Tarzan, you Jane!”
Shlain has said that there have been moments in humankind’s story where great watershed movements have occurred that have not been male dominated. Taoism and Buddhism are two movements that in practice allow for the equality of the sexes. Both were founded by leaders who did not feel the need to have their words preserved “on paper,” so-to-speak. Neither system is “rational.” Both are practiced or followed from a right-brain approach.
I am not familiar enough with the on-going practice of Taoism to know if today’s movement is orchestrated by men. I am familiar enough with Buddhism to know that it is, today, dominated by men. While my favorite Buddhist is Pema Chődrőn, a Buddhist nun, I have yet to read of a woman who is a reincarnated guru.
Another great movement, Shlain wrote, was the one led by Jesus of Nazareth. His words were not “preserved” either. His message was universal and inclusive. It was antithetical to the religion in which Jesus grew up—a very legal, rational, and written religion system.
Many contemporary theologians, most of them outside the Vatican, believe that Christianity today is not the religion of the Galilean peasant we call Jesus.
His ministry was grounded in right-brain images and stories. His message spoke to people’s hearts, not their minds. When asked why he healed on the Sabbath, he said, and this is a significant, the sick individual is more important the rules of law.
In Matthew Chapter 23 he criticizes the religious leaders: He calls them blind. (NLT) 23 What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. … do not neglect the more important things…
Women followed and supported Jesus. There is enough evidence in the Gospels, theologians tell us, to know that women were a vital part of Jesus’ ministry. It is because Jesus saw value in everyone, especially those on the fringes of the culture, the marginalized and the downtrodden.
A good example is his stand on divorce. In Matthew Chapter 19 the Pharisees were trying to discredit him and asked him in verse three “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?” At that time, a man could divorce his wife for any reason, if she could not bear children or if she did not please him. Jesus’ answer in verse eight, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. 9 And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries some else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.”
This was a stand FOR women at that time.
Jesus was a product of his time and place, and when he talked of Jehovah, it was a male image of which he spoke. The equality of his ministry was mitigated by the reality of his culture.
Today, women around the world are dominated and subjugated by male dominated, patriarchal cultures and governments. It is only in Western, post-modern countries where women are seen, somewhat, as equals. And that has happened in the last two centuries, because women have spoken up and acted out.
Look at the suffrage movement in our own country. We find evidence that some women voted in early town meetings in the 1700s, but we can trace the national suffrage movement to Seneca Falls 1848. The Nineteenth Amendment granting women the write to vote was not ratified until 1920. That was seventy-two years of hard-won effort.
Recently someone sent me an email about an HBO documentary Iron Jawed Angels on the suffrage movement. In the film, they depict “Night of Terror” in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia on November 15, 1917. It seems, the warden ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there. For weeks their water was limited and their food was slop infested with worms. When one of the leaders Alice Paul went on a hunger strike, she was forced fed until she vomited. And the torture went on for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. There is a scene where President Wilson and his cronies are trying to get a doctor to say Alice Paul is crazy. The doctor said, she’s not insane, she’s brave.
Here, in the United States, women have the vote, and we have equality, but the reality is that it was hard-won, and equality in many of our corporate, governmental, and political systems is still a struggle.
It is not, thank God, one-sided. There are many men who have been a part of the movement to ensure equality for their daughters, their wives, and their mothers. It is interesting and informative to know “why” or at least have another explanation among the many theories of “why” women are subjugated and dominated.
But the reality IS THE REALITY of patriarchy that is still alive and well throughout our present story. The opening words from Marie Mitchell of the nineteenth century will never be dated. Because living and loving and creating a better world for all of us, takes all of us. We are part of a sphere of interconnectedness.
As a people of faith who try to live our lives grounded in the words of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to live in equality with each other. The reality takes work and commitment and love. My prayer for us today is a renewed commitment to that universal inclusion for which Jesus of Nazareth lived and died.