Gender mess

July 23, 2012 By 5 Comments

“It is not so much compromise that is called for but a greater wisdom and vision.”

Years ago, I heard this wisdom from the famous evangelical preacher, Chuck Swindoll: ”Creativity is messy.”

He was right: almost all creativity, from a first draft of a novel to finger-paint to sex, is messy.

It involves differences and distinctions as well as sameness and connections.  In Genesis 1, God separated this and that and gathered the other to make our earth.

So, it is no surprise that such messy creative tension is woven into the community of the people of God; the most basic element of that creative tension being male/female difference and equality.

Some of you have likely been tuned into all the conversation about gender last week on the web. This Christianity Today blog-post offers a bit of a summary.

If you want to read from the conversing sources more directly, read this from Rachel Held Evans and Jared Wilson whose blog sparked the exchange.

What a mess!  The pain of it all makes me want to disengage, to throw my hands up and say, “Forget it. It is too hard, too hurtful, too messy to stay in the conversation.” It makes my head hurt to try to sort through it all and maintain some sense of personal openness to all the sincere voices involved. Bravo to Rachel and to Jared for hanging in there… and in public no less!

When I look at Scripture, I’m not sure it gets any easier. It seems that God’s ideal is to maximize gender difference and to maximize gender equality. Not an easy task. No simple, quick solutions here.  Not either-or, but both-and. It’s a really messy proposition and very hard to describe.

Oddly, the passage of Scripture I often reference internally is one that is seldom talked about: Genesis 17.  This is the conversation between God and Abraham when God specifies that Sarah will be the mother to the promised child; a free woman, an equal partner and joint heir in the covenant. This is how I wrote about it in The Feminine Soul.

“God’s dual invitation

God was not blind to the events of chapter 16 (Sarai casting out Hagar) when God made this promise to Sarai.  Sarai was not perfect, she was chosen, invited to be a part of God’s plan to grow a nation.  Even as she spoke for the first time in the previous chapter, so, now God addressed her specifically for the first time.  God made it clear that this long awaited child of promise would be her son, too.  She, too, was renamed.  She, too, was blessed.

God preserved Sarai’s place in the promise in the midst of her lost hope and vision.  God has done the same for us also as women in the church who struggle even now to find and own our place in God’s story.  Listen well, oh Sarai’s of the church, God is calling your name.

God saw the need for the nation to have a mother as well as a father.  Though clearly Sarai’s and Abram’s roles were different, there was equality in the essential language in this passage: the naming, the blessing, the envisioning of a future.  This moment echoes back to creation when God created both male and female in God’s image.  It is very significant that as God inaugurates this new covenant, this new approach to relationship with humankind, both genders are again specifically and equally included.  God appears intent on maximizing both difference and equality.

How sad that such vision for the greater glory of both mother and father of the nation has often been missed by the church.  Beyond physical childbirth, we seldom hear much of all Sarai did to mother this seedling of a nation.  As Abram demonstrates next, for some reason, the equality of this moment has been especially difficult to grasp from the very beginning.

A lesser vision

17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

Though Abraham did not laugh right in God’s face, he sure came close.  Interestingly, most of us know about Sarah’s response of laughter when she first heard this news (addressed later) but little is generally said of Abraham’s laughter.  It is not hard to see where Abraham was coming from.  Relationally, adding another son to the already fragile mix of these two women in his household would be disastrous.  He had 13 years invested in one son, in one understanding of what the fulfillment of God’s promise would look like.  Fundamentally, if Sarah’s inclusion meant this much disruption, he had just as soon leave her out.

And so it began.  I readily acknowledge that God’s choice of a dual promise, including free men and women equally in God’s work, is a very messy proposition.  It adds tension, complications, and inefficiencies.  Both men and women often resist the idea.  It seems foolish and laughable.  Yet, surprisingly, in God’s eyes, it also seems to be a non-negotiable.

God’s “Yes,but…”

19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” 22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

God’s affirmation of his dual invitation to relationship and ministry was anything but vague.  He began and ended this section with undeniably clear language.  Sandwiched between, however, God’s heart of compassion came through.  Abraham was in a rough spot.  He had genuine concern for the only son that he had known for 13 years, the son he thought was the promised child.  God lovingly and specifically reassured Abraham that Ishmael, too, would be blessed.

As women, we can hear this affirmation of Sarah’s unquestionable part in God’s plan as God’s invitation to us.  Many of us, as was true for myself, are so caught up in the nurturing and urgent duties of the day, that we fail to ask the questions necessary to even discern God’s calling for us in the larger scope of kingdom work.  From the tone of this passage, it seems like that might not be a very acceptable excuse to God. “

Fully equal and fully different is messy. Gone are the one-voice systems of an authority that does not listen and the one-voice of uni-sex that denies difference.

When all voices are heard, it is not so much compromise that is called for but instead a greater wisdom and vision that honors the fullness and wisdom of both male and female, that hears and welcomes all.

And the one thing I feel confident about is that it will be messy.

Creativity almost always is.

 

 

Filed Under: church, complementarian, egualitarian, gender, unisex, women Tagged With: , , , 5 Comments

Positive change, negative response

July 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

“If we can muster the courage for the initial choice, we expect affirmation and blessing.”

It is a moment of being invited to grow up.  It is usually an unwelcome invitation.

When we make a difficult but wise choice, something in us expects that the world will rise up and bless us.

And sometimes that does happen: Mary’s sign from the angel was Elizabeth’s encouraging proclamation.

But sometimes… not so much.

We are looking for affirmation and we get complaint.

It happened to Mary of Bethany, when she made the bold and wise choice for devotion, learning, and self-care and sat at Jesus’ feet.  Martha complained.  Jesus defended her.

It happened to the woman who anointed Jesus.  Again, a bold and courageous choice for devotion, voice, vulnerability, and service. Judas complained. Jesus defended her.

It happened to the Syro-Phoenician woman.  Yet another bold and faith filled choice to seek healing for her daughter from this Jewish Rabbi. This time it was Jesus who challenged her at first: 27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” But when she persisted, Jesus called it faith and did as she requested, healing her daughter.

It happened to the woman with the hemorrhage.  She took a great risk, illegally being in the crowd, reaching out to touch the Messiah.  What a bold and courageous move! And it worked; she was healed. But the story did not end there.  It wasn’t enough for Jesus.  He insisted that she come forward out of the shadows and be known. What terror she faced. What deep healing she found.

Each story began with a courageous choice for positive change. Each choice was met with what looked on the surface to be, or likely felt like, a negative response.

If we can muster the courage for the initial choice, we expect affirmation and blessing.  In fact, we crave it.  But affirmation may well not be the greatest good for our souls, the path to our deepest joy, or the way new life happens.  And, importantly, as we see in the stories above, lack of affirmation is certainly not evidence that God is not blessing us. Hard things can be beautiful, too.

Sometimes we need to learn to hold our space in the midst of upsetting the family system.

Sometimes we need to allow others to face their own brokenness as they rail again our bravery.

Sometimes we need to learn to persist in the face of being challenged.

Sometimes we need to be stretched even further beyond our comfort zone than we bargained for, all for the sake of a healing we never imagined possible.

When I see the pattern of “less” becoming “more” in God’s economy, I find new hope and vision to face the resistance I find within and without.

When have you dared positive change and been met with a negative response?

 

 

 

Filed Under: Bible stories, change, voice, women Tagged With: , , , , 1 Comment

How to love a fool

July 2, 2012 By 3 Comments

“When we live in close relationship with fools, so often we take on their shame as if it were our own.”

I’ve spoken with a lot of folks lately who are suffering greatly as they try to figure out what it means to love someone caught in foolishness.  Some are dealing with addictions (of all sorts). Some with long-standing and destructive generational patterns. Some are even trying to find better ways of relating to the foolish parts within themselves. It is a tricky reality because so often foolishness turns compassion on its head, manipulating well-intended actions that might be a healing force in a different context into something that enables destructive choices.  What’s a friend to do?

A few years ago, I read a good book on this subject, Fool-proofing Your Life , by Jan Silvious, but seldom hear the dilemma of loving a fool addressed in helpful ways in Christian circles. As usual, I am most drawn to the story of a woman in scripture, Abigail, who actually lived well with a fool, her husband Nabal.  Listening to her life and responses helps me find a path through the difficult landscape of loving a fool.

Though Abigail suffered with a fool, she was not a powerless victim

When we live in close relationship with fools, so often we take on their shame as if it were our own. We blend our identity with theirs and thus become a victim of their foolishness.  We allow the shared shame to disconnect us from others.  Abigail did not.  The text names her as “intelligent and beautiful” and her husband Nabal as “surly and mean.”  Her identity and reputation in the community were separate from his.

We also know Abigail did not live a life of powerlessness.  The servant approached her with this dangerous situation likely because he knew she would act. She was not a paralyzed victim. Instead she was shrewd, decisive and creative. Though suffering with a fool, she stood tall and separate, acting with wisdom.  She was a “well-differentiated” leader as described by my friend Trisha Taylor in a book she co-authored on family systems theory and leadership, The Leader’s Journey .

Abigail was both free to withhold information and free to challenge

It is intriguing to me how specifically we are told about when Abigail informed Nabal and when she did not. When she set out to save Nabal from David’s wrath, time was short and she likely did not want to deal with her husband’s objections.  Yet, Abigail was not seeking to rescue Nabal from knowledge of his own foolishness. When she got home, it was clear that she intended to tell him all about it.  However, when she found him drunk, she changed her mind.

Abigail’s decision-making was a fluid process. Sometimes she did not tell her husband what was happening and sometimes she did.  Though intent on saving the community from the devastating consequences of his foolish leadership, she was not trying to protect Nabal from recognizing his own stupidity.  Her willingness to confront him also tells me that, on some level, Abigail had not lost hope in the possibility of his repentance.  Sadly, Nabal’s foolishness was recalcitrant.

Abigail courageously and effectively confronted an angry king

What a fascinating contrast we are offered.  David, like Nabal, was behaving foolishly.  In seeking disproportionate vengeance, he was intent on self-initiated, mindless violence. David however, was a wise man and listened with gratitude as Abigail confronted him for his own good, not to mention the salvation of her family.  Like the wise woman of Abel, Abigail simply described her perspective on the situation, with confidence and without apology.  David’s heart was struck and he quickly changed his mind, humbled by and deeply grateful for her courage and wisdom.

Imagine the courage it took to go before an angry king, armed for battle and intent upon revenge. Yet, Abigail’s wise voice created an opportunity for the story to play out along a new and peaceable path.  It opened a gate of different vision and new possibility that was life-giving to all who would listen.

Do you deal well with fools? What inspires you in Abigail’s story?

Filed Under: Bible stories, fool, shame, women Tagged With: , , , , , 3 Comments

A different conversation

June 8, 2012 By 6 Comments

“Let’s talk stories. My guess is that we all have a story of a woman whose leadership or teaching has changed our lives.”

There seems to be a lot out there in the blogosphere on women and leadership these days. Thankfully the tenor seems to be transitioning from the polarizing extremes to some very thoughtful discourse.

Rachel Held Evans

Harriet Congdon

Julie Clawson

For some reason though, I am realizing that the conversation being offered isn’t the one I’m most drawn to.

Complementarian, egalitarian.   They both seem to narrow wisdom to a single voice: one through hierarchy; the other through sameness.  Even beyond that, both seem to be struggling over structural organizational posturing words like “leader” and “teacher.” And though such conversations are, of course, necessary within the structure of the church, I wonder if we are approaching this sometimes difficult dialogue with all the wisdom and resources available to us. Most of these discussions speak about concept and precept rather than story. Most seek to engage truth and goodness, but I don’t see much beauty. (Check out this interesting video blog by Tripp Huggins that references the “three sisters” of theology: truth, goodness, and beauty)

Yet,when I look at the stories of women in the Bible, I have an altogether different response. I don’t find myself captivated by the truth and goodness issues of the social injustice suffered by the women. (Maybe justice issues are just too painful for me.) Instead I am drawn to the beauty I see in their stories. I am fascinated by how much they did with the “crumbs” they were offered.  I see these women as the powerful water whose path was shaped by the rock, with the water in time proven to be just as powerfully shaping for the rock. This is the conversation that intrigues me most. It is the en-storied wisdom of the oft-underestimated power of nurturing that is more organic than hierarchical, more experiential and demonstrative than word-centered.   This is the mystery of the observation that the “hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.” It feels to me like the larger story beneath the smaller story of who gets the most power-full title.   This is the moment when being able to do the work before us without needing the name attached is our brilliance.

We know that women were present throughout Jesus’ ministry and they also provided for the band of disciples out of their own resources (Luke 8:2-4). Provider?  Leader? We know women were often publicly affirmed as good, their lives taught others important wisdom… like the widow with two mites (Luke 21: 1-4) or the woman who anointed him whose story would be told in memory of her (Matthew 26: 6-13) or Mary of Bethany (Luke 10: 38-42) when she boldly sat to learn as the student of this Rabbi.

Jesus regarded women as leaders and teachers but he did not name them as such. Instead, He introduced them to their own power over and over, one face-to-face encounter at a time:

The woman with the hemorrhage whose own faith made her whole when she came forward, in fear and trembling, and told her story. (Luke 8)

The Syro-Phoenician woman whose faith-full reply was the reason for the daughter’s healing. (Mark 7:24-30)

The woman at the well who met the long-awaited Messiah face to face and changed her city with her own story. (John 4)

Mary Magdalene whose tears became joy and voice became the first to announce the resurrection. (John 20:11-18)

We can see Jesus’ absence of naming as an omission, maybe as a cultural calculation, or as a deeper wisdom. Could it be that he was highlighting a deeper ground of identity than position or title, allowing them, in the absence of a title, to experience a powerful stance from which they could love in transforming ways no matter how they were regarded by society? Could it be that he was communicating more through the story of women than single, identifying words would have been able to communicate?

It also makes me think of how Jesus dealt with the politics of his day.  He refused to take named positions or make alliances with structures but instead en-storied postures: with coin in hand, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”  Was he saying that politics did not matter or was he pointing to the deeper conversation that simply mattered so much more?

Interestingly, most of Scripture is given to us in story form.  It could be said that God en-storied God’s self in Jesus. As my favorite Southern Baptist preacher, Henry Blackaby teaches, Truth is a person not a concept or precept. People are always perceived in the context of story.

Though I do believe we need to have this conversation about our social and church constructs and naming and positions of power, that is not the conversation I am most interested in at this moment. First, I want to talk about the deeper reality of the significant, loving work of women in the early community and today (no matter how they are described in language, position, and title.)  Let’s talk stories. My guess is that we all have a story of a woman whose leadership or teaching has changed our lives.  We have all also known moments when God introduced us to our own power to heal and to love in such a way that the world is different.  And when that truth, reality, and wisdom becomes the context in which we live, I am guessing the other conversation will be a lot easier to sort out.

How have the women you have known lead you?  What have they taught you? Where has Jesus introduced you to your own power to change the world?

Filed Under: complementarian, egualitarian, stories Tagged With: , , , , , 6 Comments

Renaming myself

June 1, 2012 By 20 Comments

“Giving words and voice to ourselves allows us to step into our own lives more fully, to live more abundantly from our center.”

I find myself taking a new name today: blogger.

Now that doesn’t mean I haven’t been blogging for a while now.  In fact, I want to offer a special welcome to all my Sister-friends who have been on this journey with me for sometime.  It is simply that I’ve never owned the name.  I have never paid enough attention to what I am doing to discover a new aspect of who I am becoming.

We women do that a lot, you know: we do the work without owning the name.

Sometimes that is our brilliance and our gift.

Sometimes it’s our self-sabotage and downfall.

A part of my struggled to own that moniker is the simple fact that I never imagined that I would be a blogger. For that matter, I realized recently that many of the most valuable adventures of my life are things I never imagined doing:

  • marrying at 21 … I fully expected to be a single career woman
  • giving birth to our son at 23… we found ourselves pregnant the same month I started my first fulltime job and my husband started graduate school
  • discovering that I love being a woman… sadly, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten that for a while (more about this one in days to come)
  • working in hospital chaplaincy… I was actually interviewing for a completely different job when the head of the spiritual care office offered me one in her department
  • becoming an author… I confess to feeling guilty about not having dreamt about this one… so many people would die to have a book published
  • working in spiritual direction… the only book I read in seminary that was not a classroom assignment was Holy Listening, the book that introduced me to both myself and my calling
  • blogging for Patheos… okay, blogging at all

Now, I guess there are a couple of ways to see this list of life’s surprises.  Maybe I am way out of touch with myself, my gifts, and even my calling…. Okay, that’s clear.  But thankfully, it’s not the only operational dynamic here.  A more hopeful slant might be that I have found, now and then, the grace to consent to God’s generosity and wild imagination and to discover myself to be someone more than I had originally dared to believe or see.

There’s a lot of power in naming and re-naming and it’s a power we as women can use to do really good things if we first learn to use it on ourselves.  Giving words and voice to ourselves allows us to step into our own lives more fully, to live more abundantly from our center.

Take Naomi , for instance.  When she walked into her hometown after several years away and the devastating loss of her husband and sons, the women of her city greeted her: “Is this Naomi?” Feeling rejected by God and utterly empty, it was an especially bad day to have a name that meant “pleasant” so Naomi re-named herself something that fit better: “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, bitter.” I can only imagine how much courage it took to openly and unapologetically own her pain.  And how much strength that owning gave her.  (It seems that as a gender, we women can find strength in the strangest places.)

Then there was Hannah. Even before she named her son (a radically feminist thing to do in her day) as Samuel, the one she had prayed for, she first renamed herself.  When Eli the priest falsely accused her of being drunk, she didn’t literally take a new name as Naomi did, but she did redefine the false identity given to her by this errant voice of authority. In a series of “I am…” and “I am not…” statements, she discovered her own personhood and the freedom to live her life forward by renaming herself.  As the story so poetically notes: “she went her way.”  Renaming is a powerful thing.

So, today I rename myself and discover more of who I am. As one of my favorite poets, Alla Renee Bozarth says, “You will get where you are going by remembering who you are.”

Though I am not quite sure where I am going with this new identity, I do know that I want to start by boldly taking a new name… and I know that I don’t want to go alone.  I hope you will join me in this conversation as we explore together how we can find ourselves in the stories of women in Scripture, maybe beginning by taking a new name yourself.  Let’s get to know one another in the strength of who we really are: no hiding, no pretense, no apology or diminishment needed here.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Bible stories, empowerment, women Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 20 Comments