women in the bible

I'm taking, surrogately through my husband, an undergrad course called "Women in the Bible." Actually I'm just trying to do all the reading, but I'm not going to class. The fact that he chose to take the course is one of the many reasons I love him! =)

Anyway, tonight I was reading a chapter froma book by a professor from my school (not the one this class is at) named Katharine Doob Sakenfeld entitled: "Just Wives? Stories of Power and Survival in the Old Testament and Today." The chapter is on Sarah and Hagar, Abraham's wife and servant, in Genesis 16-19. This is an important story for scholars looking at biblical texts from a female perspective, because, as Sakenfeld points out, it's the first place in the Bible where God (or God's angel) speaks directly to a woman, and even promises her something. God speaks first to Hagar, surprising as that may seem to those of us of Judeo-Christian heritage (although not to those who are Muslim). God promises Hagar the same thing God promised Abraham: descendants so numerous they can't be counted.

But Hagar's position isn't really one to be envied--she's a slave who's forced to bear a child for her master, and this causes jealousy and tension between herself and her mistress, Sarah, who cannot (yet) conceive a child for Abraham. Sarah "deals with her harshly," Hagar runs away and God sends her back, then she is sent away and God provides water for her and her baby in the wilderness.

What's interesting is the power dynamic between these two women. They are set up against each other because of the culture in which they live, and the status each is given based on her ability to bear male children. They aren't able to work together against injustice and imbalance of power because they are set against one another.

Sakenfeld suggests this is similar to our situation today. Many womanist scholars (African-American feminists who suggest that "feminist" scholars are just as bad as androcentric scholars because they only see "feminism" from the perspective of relatively well-off white women and project their view as coming from all women) have picked up on the character of Hagar, who shares their history of slavery and of being the second woman. They see white feminist scholars siding with Sarah, who may be oppressed by the fact that her status is based on her ability to bear male children, but who is treated well and loved by her husband and has wealth and power much greater than that of her slave, Hagar.

I've always (as long as I've known about it) been a proponent of liberation theology, but Sakenfeld points to womanist theologian Delores Williams, who suggests that it's important for Hagar to return to her mistress not because it's liberating, but because she has to focus first on survival for herself and her child. She'll be well taken care of in Abraham's entourage, and would have a very difficult time out in the wilderness by herself, or even in a commercial center. Sakenfeld says of Williams' work, "Rather than focus primarily or initially on liberation, however, as do many white feminists, black male theologians, and indeed other womanist theologians, Williams identifies survival and quality of life as her key themes" (p 21). Although we can see the theme of liberation running through the pages of the Bible, God doesn't always liberate those who are oppressed.

I think this is a really important point. One problem with liberation theology is that if we assume that God wants to liberate all those who are faithful to God, when liberation doesn't come we are faced with difficult questions. Am I not faithful enough? Does God desire my liberation but is powerless to do anything about it? Is God not really a God who desires liberation?

These are tough questions, since injustice and oppression are so entrenched in our world. Why are some liberated and others not? I don't have answers. But at least this womanist perspective is realistic enough to show that although God may desire our liberation from oppression, sometimes we don't even have the energy or the ability to focus on anything beyond basic survival. This is something most theologians need to take heed of, because most of us, having recourse to such advanced education, are not generally in need of basic necessities. Most of us are not faced with situations where we can't focus on the bigger picture because all we can see is our need for shelter and a meal.

Sakenfeld cautions those of us in this situation, however:

"For those of us in a position of relative power and privilege, the danger is that a theology of survival may lull us back into the Sarah role. We may be temtped to continue in personal and systemic behaviors that perpetuate oppression, looking only to our own existence and not seeking to identify and participate in God's liberating action on behalf of others. The angel of God directed Hagar toward survival, but our discomfort with that command requires us to work for liberation." (22)

beyond belief

I just finished reading this book by Elaine Pagels. She is a renowned scholar on the "gnostic" gospels, the ones that didn't make the cut into the New Testament, but she wrote this book for a general audience. You don't have to know a lot about scholarly work in this field in order to understand the book, which is nice. I appreciate it when scholars write that way--it helps to have introductory works that one can read to get into the field, and it also helps for those who don't want to get into the field deeply but just want to learn a little about it. I hope that if I ever write anything I'll keep that in mind...

Anyway, the book was very interesting. She spends quite a bit of time comparing the themes of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John, as well as the Secret Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mary and a few other lesser known gospels. She suggests that the Gospel of Thomas and other ones that didn't make it into the New Testament mostly focus on Jesus' humanity--maybe he was the Christ, the Messiah, the one who was expected, but they don't assign divinity to him. The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John have many similar themes and phrases, but John emphasizes Jesus' Godhood while Thomas emphasizes Jesus' humanity. (Thomas also has much in common with the other three gospels, and in fact some scholars believe Thomas is the elusive "Q" document, which Matthew and Luke purportedly pulled from to get their material which is the same but outside Mark. This could be true, although there are also many similarities with Mark and Thomas.) In John, the disciple Thomas is shown (famously) as one who doubts, and who doesn't quite get who Jesus is and what he's doing most of the time. The author of John is probably saying something about the gospel connected to Thomas. In Thomas, of course, the disciple Thomas is given secret information none of the other disciples hear (which is similar to Mary's status in the Gospel of Mary, etc.). Thomas is a collection of sayings and does not have a story line. There are parts of Thomas that seem to show Jesus as something other than what any other person could be, while there are other parts that show him saying his disciples could be the same as him.


Pagels' point is that John's theology won out in the end. She suggests that if the other New Testament gospels are read without John, it is not obvious that Jesus is divine, although it is obvious he is the Messiah, the Son of Man, etc. We read them with the knowledge of John and with the Nicene Creed and all of church history in mind, so we see Jesus as divine, but she suggests that was not a given at first among the many branches of Christians in the first couple hundred years after Jesus. But John's theology prevailed eventually.

Was John right? Was Jesus the Son of God in a way that none of the rest of us can be? Or was Jesus just another person, a person who happened to be really close to God?

Although there is much reason for cynicism in the whole canonization process because of all the jockeying for power that happened among the bishops who lived in Constantine's time and beyond, I still believe that the things that were canonized became part of our "Holy Scriptures" for a reason. I think there's something important about Jesus, that although we're all able to be children of God, Jesus was the only child of God in the sense that he WAS (and is) God. We all may have "that of God" within us, something that connects with God, the image of God in us, but we are not all God.

So I agree with Pagels that it was not altogether clear to everyone who called themselves Christians in the first few hundred years CE that Jesus was "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God" (as the Nicene Creed puts it), but I think God worked even through crooked bishops and politicized theologizing. That gives me hope, actually, because that means that God can also work through me, even though I too have the tendency to mess up a lot!

surfside

Last week was one of our yearly meeting's high school camps. I got to attend as a worship facilitator, and my husband came and took care of our son. It was a great week of hanging out on the coast, getting to focus on helping high schoolers connect with God, and reconnecting with youth and adults I care about deeply.

Surfside is unique in that there is no evening speaker. (Maybe in unprogrammed Friends circles that's not so unique...?) The worship facilitators listen to God about what the whole worship time should look like, and then try to lead it that way, trying to get out of the way so God can work. This was my second year leading worship at Surfside. It's a lot of work--planning half an hour in the mornings and an hour and a half in the evenings every day--but it's good work, and it's fun and inspiring to see God working as we plan and as we lead. It's one of the places where I appreciate "programmed Friends" the most, because we do intentionally listen to God as we plan, allowing God to guide what we decide to do, and paying attention to God in the moment as we lead, being willing to change plans when necessary. It's harder to do that in programmed worship services each week, somehow, but for Surfside it seems to work.

This year the theme for Surfside was "Pursuing the Passion." The focus was on the fact that God's pursuing us, wanting to be in relationship with us, and we're pursuing God. God works in and through the passions we already have, and gives us new passions that help others. Here's what the week looked like:

Monday night: God pursuing people throughout history, looking at the historical community of the Hebrew Testament, connecting that community and that story to our lives today.
Tuesday night: God's pursuit led to God choosing to take on human form in the person of Jesus. We have the option of turning around and facing God's pursuit (repentance means to turn around).
Wednesday night: Jesus' passion--our word passion comes from the Greek word meaning "suffering," and when we follow God our passion will lead us into suffering. We read the story of Jesus' death and ended there for the night.
Thursday night: Not only do we experience Jesus' crucifixion but also his resurrection and new life. Our God-given passions will include frequent death and resurrection components. Our passions aren't just for ourselves, but to alleviate the suffering of others, to understand their suffering as Jesus understands ours.
Friday night: Sending out into the world, offering God what we have even though it's not enough, letting God do the rest.

We tried to do something experiential each night, something where everyone got to either do something physical as a symbol of what they'd learned, or use their imagination to interact with God.

In the mornings we had a counselor share about something they're passionate about and connected it with the story in Luke 10 about someone asking Jesus what the greatest commandment is. The man answered correctly: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Then Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, asking who it was that was the true neighbor to the injured man. So we had counselors share about something they're passionate about, how it connects with their entire self (heart, soul, mind, strength), and how it shows love to their neighbors.

We also had a staff person share an answer to a question generated by some of the youth. We talked about how part of pursuing God passionately is asking good questions and thinking well about our faith. Even though we can't adequately answer all questions in life, it's good to think about them and to seek a better understanding of God, intellectually, emotionally and intuitively.

It was a privilege and a joy to be able to be part of this camp.

At the same time, one of the things I noticed about myself is that I spend so much time doing stuff like this that I hardly ever have time to go do anything outside my own community. I wonder if that's OK--is that my role? Am I a discipler rather than one who goes out? Or am I just hiding within the community, doing things that are safe and fun, although they take a lot of work and "suffering" in the form of lack of sleep and such? Is it enough to create a worship experience where youth can connect with God in ways they can understand, or is there more I should be doing that would reach out to those who, for example, can't afford to go to camp? I know what I'm doing is good, but are there even better ways I could be spending my time?

That's what came to mind for me personally while at camp.

nwym sessions

We just finished our Northwest Yearly Meeting sessions this evening. It's been a great week! We had events from Sunday through Thursday. The picture is of the auditorium during evening worship. My husband was the director of high school yearly meeting, where the youth have their own business meetings, do a service project, go to the beach, and learn about Quaker business process.

I did the adult stuff. I helped facilitate worship during the business meetings, which was fun and seemed to go well. I also organized our annual Young Adult Friends dinners on two nights, where we get together for free food (very important for YAFs!) and talk about what's going on in YAFdom. So it was a busy week, but fun to see people and good to be together and do the work of meetings for worship with a concern for business. I'll mention a couple highlights.

One of my favorite things was that we had three visiting young adult Friends form other yearly meetings: one each from Britain YM, Philadelphia YM, and Canadian YM (here's her post on NWYM). It was great to hear about their yearly meetings, their passion for Friends, and their impression of NWYM. It was also just fun to make some new friends and reconnect with an old one.

Another highlight was helping facilitate worship during the business meetings. We met for business four times, each weekday morning from 8:15-12:00. During that time we interspersed worship elements with our business items, trying to remind ourselves that we are also worshiping through working on our business stuff. I think it worked pretty well! We had a great sense of worshipfulness throughout a lot of the business sessions, it seemed to me. In addition to music, we did a prayer exercise together each day, and we reflected at the beginning on what we were bringing with us to the meeting, and at the end on how we'd seen God at work in our meeting for worship for business. The prayer practices were: use of a prayer song to lead us into silence; doing lectio divina together on a passage from Acts, quoted from Joel; looking at images around our week's theme of "Go Light Your World" and allowing God to speak to us through them as we entered into silence, and reading a responsive reading together and meditating on its words.

The business this year wasn't as divisive as some years, so it was nice to have a kind of a Sabbath year--time to just spend together and look toward the future. Last year we overhauled our whole structure: committees, boards, etc., and revamped our budget process. The goal is to not just do what we've always done, and not just work with the people we agree with, but to try to integrate the work we're doing of teaching the gospel and doing social justice stuff. So this year the new boards came up with ministry plans and dream budgets, new staff positions and new goals. We approved a budget less than their dream budget, but of course that's life!

Overall this year our sessions seemed hope-filled as we looked toward the future. The verse that we did lectio divina on for the last business session was this one:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy. "

It's found in Acts 2:17-18 and Joel 2:26-28. To me it was my prayer for our yearly meeting, for all Friends, and for the whole world. I desire for God to pour out God's Spirit so powerfully that we all get carried away in its wholeness and life--so swept away that we forget our petty differences, so swept away that we overflow with God's love toward those we consider "oppressed" and "outsiders," so swept away that we stop waiting for someone else to take the lead and just start living out our beliefs with joyful abandon.

Let it be so, for me and for you.

thirsty

My husband and I went back-
packing this week with our 5-month-
old son and a friend. We were out for two nights, and it was beautiful weather, lovely scenery, and a good time was had by all. I enjoy backpacking because it's so nice to be away from civilization and realize how much you can live without, and then it's so nice to be home and realize how grateful I am to have things like running water and a place to get away from most bugs!

One thing that stood out to me from this trip was what it's like to be thirsty. The first night we camped near a lake, but the next night we hiked up to the top of a little peak looking toward a snow-capped mountain, and we only had the water we'd purified and carried from the lake. Now, we could have hiked back down to the lake if we'd been desperate for water--it was only 4 miles, but it was pretty steep. But we chose for the four of us to live off of about 7-8 liters as we hiked up, and all through that hot afternoon (around 90 degrees Fahrenheit) and evening, and the next morning when we hiked out. That included the water needed to make our meals.

My husband and I were talking about it when we got home and thought about the fact that we have probably never been that thirsty before in our lives. For one thing, when you know you can't drink much water, you start to want more of it. And then add onto that the fact that we were in very hot weather and I'm still breastfeeding our baby, and we hiked 8 miles during that time, and we used about 2 liters on our dinner, and you see that it wasn't really all that much water!

Of course, this experience was nothing compared to people who survive in deserts or other places where they can't get much water, but for us this was a major waterless event.

We got back to civilization and I drank a liter and a half almost immediately!

So it got me thinking about spiritual parallels...

Why do I often let myself get so spiritually thirsty when there's a lake (and I don't even have to purify the water!) just 4 miles away? And it's even all downhill!

new worship group

Well, actually it's more like a resurrected worship group...

This is a group that used to meet weekly but as people had life changes (moving, kids...) they laid it down for a while. So now we started meeting again, and tonight was the first meeting. The purpose of the group is to have a smaller group setting for worship (rather than a couple hundred people as are in our programmed meetings for worship), and for them to be more experiential and focused on listening and sharing together.

I'm excited about this group, because as much as I love the community I'm worshiping with (and working for), I just need to have a smaller group to worship with in a more hands-on way. Unprogrammed worship isn't even enough, because as much as we like to say Friends don't have a liturgy, we do in unprogrammed worship. To share in unprogrammed worship takes a leading of a quite different sort than to share in a worship sharing group, which is what this group is kind of like.

This will hopefully be a group where we will try different kinds of worship, from creative and active to quiet and contemplative. I hope it will be a place where we can be vulnerable with each other about our struggles, challenge each other to live out our faith in our everyday lives, and be a community where all are welcome and can be comfortable together.

If you're nearby, come visit us, Sundays at 6pm.

here's a quote for you...

"The church has no quarrel with the sacrifice of children--except when such sacrifice is made to a false god."

--Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Abingdon Press, 1989, p. 149


My friend and I have been reading this book because we have heard good things about Hauerwas (she actually studied with him), and so we read this book and get together each week to talk about it. It's an OK book, but not the best one out there.


The point the authors are trying to make with this quote is that being a Christian means being willing to sacrifice something--it's not just all fun and games. When Jesus said Christians will be persecuted he meant it, and we should expect it. When we're following Christ even those around us may be persecuted, and we can't and even shouldn't shelter them from that.

I understand their point and agree, to an extent. At the same time, the above quote brings up major red flags! I've heard of (and know) too many people whose parents were missionaries or something, and their parents chose to sacrifice their childrens' childhoods and intimate connection with them for doing "God's work." I think this kind of sacrifice is completely un-called-for and not what God asks us to do. I suppose the authors would say that is sacrifice to a false god, and the person is not actually then doing the work of God, but it's incredibly easy to get confused if that's the case! People praise the missionaries for the great work they've done when their children grow up with attachment disorders and in need of emotional healing.

Yes, our faith requires sacrifice, and sometimes that will affect those around us, but it should not affect them in such a way that they do not feel loved by their parents or like they're able to grow in healthy ways. Maybe a parent is called to die for what they believe is right, but this death, although painful, shows the parent's conviction of the truth and their willingness to stand up for it. Maybe a parent is called to do mission work, but this should not cause them to ignore their children, but to love their children in a way that shows the love of Christ to that child and those around them. Maybe a parent is called to work in the American work force, but that parent should not have to work tons of hours and overtime just to show "love" by buying the kid a lot of stuff or experiences. Sacrificing one's children is a huge moral issue, and not one that should be taken lightly. I think usually God asks for sacrifices from us that in some ways might look difficult for a child, but if done right end up helping the child to grow because they know more about God's love, mercy and justice, rather than feeling abandoned or like love is only shown through material possessions.