{"id":2888,"date":"2013-11-04T10:58:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T15:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=2888"},"modified":"2013-11-04T10:58:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T15:58:23","slug":"the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Pentecost<\/a>There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the desert to die \u2013 but the barren woman\u2019s story has an icy wind in it, a deep chill that lives in the hearts of the group of decent men from which it springs. It is because they are decent men that the story is ice cold. \u00a0They bring her forward as their trump card against eternal life, and they give her to us as lasting evidence of how you can be civilized and cruel at the same time.<\/p>\n

They want \u00a0to debate Jesus on the preposterous notion of resurrection.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0They present the barren woman to him as a conundrum, arguing that eternal life would be an eternal mess, a social confusion of subjugation and subservience, things which in mortal life are sorted.<\/p>\n

In their imaginations, the barren woman has been widowed seven times, and had been married to seven brothers.\u00a0 According to the law of the time, a decent man would marry his brother\u2019s widow if there were no sons to support her.\u00a0 The barren woman had no children.\u00a0 \u00a0In their story, all the world had seen her barrenness exposed seven times over.<\/p>\n

The men want to know, in Jesus\u2019 resurrection, whose servant will this worthless woman\"Replace<\/a> be?\u00a0 For them it is academic:\u00a0 if she had borne sons, then in an eternal world she would belong to the father of her sons.\u00a0 For in their thought\u00a0women are born to serve men, as long as there is life.\u00a0 In this world and the next, they reason, fruitfulness and fecundity are part of faithfulness.\u00a0 And this barren woman is unimaginable in eternity.\u00a0 She is as shocking as (childless painter) Frida Kahlo\u2019s self-portrait, The Broken Column.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Worthless?\u00a0\u00a0 Is the word unfair here?\u00a0 After all, she is in heaven, they imagine.\u00a0 But \u2013 no she is not \u2013 for they imagine her as the refutation of the possibility of heavenly experience.\u00a0 And the proof of their attitude is among us still:\u00a0 women parishioners, in their 80s and 90s, have shared 60 year old stories, with fresh tears, of being forbidden to go to college when their brothers were being sent because, their fathers declared, No man will want to marry you if you get so much education.\u00a0 <\/i>One woman, whose mother had died when she was young, told this tale:\u00a0her father agreed to college and even paid a deposit, but the men in his office argued him out of it, and instead he sent his unhappy daughter on a European tour, to keep her marriageable.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Near the turn of the last century there had been articles by educated men, arguing that too much education would divert blood from a woman\u2019s womb to her brain, rendering her barren.<\/p>\n

Well, we no longer think this way . . . . and yet, the Christian church has so venerated\"REplace<\/a> women as childbearers \u00a0that it has been unable to imagine other roles for women,\u00a0 even though Jesus never praised childbearing or motherhood, and did imagine other roles for women:\u00a0\u00a0 Mary has chosen the good portion and it will not be taken away from her<\/i>, he said, when Mary chose to sit among the disciples and learn, rather than work in the kitchen.\u00a0 And perhaps most importantly, in this argument with the Sadducees over the barren woman, Jesus opened the gates of heaven to her, saying that in the resurrection, life is not\u00a0as we know it here on earth, there is no owning or belonging to one another, for in eternity all are children of God.\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks to\u00a0Jesus, the barren woman does what is unthinkable:\u00a0 she steps into heaven on her own.<\/p>\n

\"Replace<\/a>But entering church as a childless woman is harder, much harder.\u00a0 The culture is still so tilted toward fertility as fecundity, toward children as the fruit of the spiritual life, that other work, other interests, and other visions of church are treated as odd, if not as unwelcome.\u00a0 Catholic tradition has made an space for childless women as nuns, but insists on an absence of sexual identity, and an \u2018otherness\u2019 from childbearing women that is visual, cultural, and social.<\/p>\n

A recent NPR report detailed the data that show American women are increasingly choosing childlessness.\u00a0 Nearly 25 % of women are childless now, and the data skews higher \u00a0among educated women, white women, younger women, who are saying, this is not the most important thing about me<\/i>, and, there are other things I want to do with my life<\/i>.\u00a0 An anomaly?\u00a0 Likely not, as for over twenty years now the census data has shown that, on the east coast, 73% of the population is no longer living in a nuclear family lifestyle.\u00a0 There is a stubborn resistance to this in large numbers of Christian churches, who claim Jesus as their standard of value.\u00a0 But Jesus made it clear, over and over again, that he embraces barren women, promiscuous women, fallen women, prostitutes \u2013 women who suffer social stigma still, and women who are not defined by belonging to a husband.\u00a0 And unlike earlier prophets, there is no story of Jesus\u00a0inducing fertility in a barren woman.<\/p>\n

\"Pentecost<\/a>The new Nigerian \u2013American film, Mother of George<\/i><\/b>, tells a story of infertility set in Brooklyn, among immigrant Nigerians.\u00a0 As the infertile woman suffers more and more rejection by her husband and mother-in-law (who has already named the son she has not borne George<\/em>), she is moved to a desperate decision.\u00a0 And she reminds us that the meaning of fertility, the meaning of family, and the meaning of fecundity, alter with time, culture, possibility, and suffering.<\/p>\n

We need a new imagination:\u00a0 for human intimacy, its purpose and our need for it;\u00a0 for fecundity, which brings forth from us, in Christian wisdom, kindness, acceptance, community;\u00a0 for work, which raises us up not only in generations but in ideas, art, works of peace; and for life itself, which by God\u2019s design is endlessly evolving.\u00a0 We have, as a permanent legacy, John the Baptist\u2019s warning:\u00a0 \u00a0God does not need us to raise up children for God.<\/i>\u00a0 Essential for understanding eternal life is understanding this, according to Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 And we have Jesus\u2019 own words, when he got the message that his mother and brothers were at the door and wanted to take him home:\u00a0 All who hear my words and do them are my family.<\/i><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Illustrations:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Silent Sorority, Book Cover.\u00a0 Google Images.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 The Broken Column<\/strong>, <\/i>by Frida Kahlo. Image from Wikipedia page for The Broken Column<\/em><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Roots<\/strong><\/em>, by Frida Kahlo.\u00a0 1943. \u00a0Image: \u00a0Famous Mexican Artists website and blog.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Christina\u2019s World<\/strong><\/em>, by Andrew Wyeth. \u00a01948. \u00a0Image from Wikipedia page for Christina\u2019s World.<\/em><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Mother of George Poster<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Google Images<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the desert to die \u2013 but the barren woman\u2019s story has an icy wind in it, a deep chill that lives in the hearts of the group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bite in the Apple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/files\/2013\/11\/Pentecost-25-Silent-Sorority.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Rockwell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Rockwell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/\",\"name\":\"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/2155b9333c10f2c9427da1f8ca7b4bd7\"},\"description\":\"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/\",\"name\":\"The Bite in the Apple\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/2155b9333c10f2c9427da1f8ca7b4bd7\",\"name\":\"Nancy Rockwell\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e380c224f4a2068ab523185d81008ef7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e380c224f4a2068ab523185d81008ef7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nancy Rockwell\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/author\/nrockwell\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity","description":"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity","og_description":"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/","og_site_name":"The Bite in the Apple","article_published_time":"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/files\/2013\/11\/Pentecost-25-Silent-Sorority.jpg"}],"author":"Nancy Rockwell","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nancy Rockwell","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/","name":"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00","dateModified":"2013-11-04T15:58:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/2155b9333c10f2c9427da1f8ca7b4bd7"},"description":"There are more violent stories about women in the Bible \u2013 the rapes of Tamar and Dinah, for instance, and Hagar and her child being cast out into the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/the-barren-woman-at-the-edge-of-eternity\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Barren Woman at the Edge of Eternity"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/","name":"The Bite in the Apple","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/2155b9333c10f2c9427da1f8ca7b4bd7","name":"Nancy Rockwell","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e380c224f4a2068ab523185d81008ef7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e380c224f4a2068ab523185d81008ef7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nancy Rockwell"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/author\/nrockwell\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2483"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}