The Hidden Sexism of Untold Stories (Sean Palmer)

The Hidden Sexism of Untold Stories

Women are treated horribly in many American churches.

I don’t believe this is because they are excluded from membership or made to sit on back rows or in the balconies of church sanctuaries as African-Americans were once made to do. They are horribly treated because their presence is largely dismissed.

This, of course, is not the case in all churches, but it has been the case in the churches I grew up in. I was raised in the south, in Church of Christ congregations. We are a part of what is historically referred to as the American Restoration Movement. Our stated goals have always been simplicity and unity, though we haven’t been spectacular at either. Nevertheless, I am proud of my heritage, the love of God and the scriptures it gave me, and the Spirit-gifted women and men who have mentored me in the faith.

Where, I believe, it failed me was the church’s approach to women.

Lady Problems

The churches of my youth excluded women from official church leadership. Women were not allowed to teach adult Bible classes, but were allowed to teach children – until the class roster listed a baptized boy, regardless of age. Apparently, a baptized 11-year-old boy was better versed in the scriptures and more spiritually mature than any woman. I never heard a woman pray in the church of my youth. Women were free to serve and coordinate potlucks, but that was about it. I know it sounds crazy to some, but I recall being a boy and having a female “coordinate” our congregation’s Vacation Bible School, but she wasn’t permitted to use the microphone in the auditorium to give anyone directions to find the restroom.

For my church, these were theological convictions. I accept them as genuine and know there are many other religious groups with similar practices. I don’t want to litigate the righteousness of those practices here. What I do want to do is highlight the way I believe silencing women has curtailed the spiritual growth of the church – for women and men alike.

Some folks’ theological convictions about the role of women in the church have, I believe, affected what we think about the women we find it the scriptures. As our sisters in the pew are silent, the female heroes of the faith become muted.

Male voices dominate.

What’s more, the women in the text of the Bible are then simply cogs in the telling of the Bible’s grand story. The Bible then becomes a male story; a boys club. Seldom do we put on a pot of coffee, sit down, curl up, and read exclusively about the women of the Bible. When we do, we restrain such study to Ladies’ Day or Women’s Retreats.

Every now and again, when someone in our churches gets a burr in their saddle about the women in scripture, a church leader will run down to the local Christian bookstore and pay too much for a boxed study about women delivered by an over-painted speaker drowning us with an excessive southern drawl. We have become trapped in a mindset that suggests women belong only to women and they should get together to handle their lady problems.

Too many churches don’t take women seriously. We don’t take their stories seriously.

The Resistance

But the story of Jesus resist male domination. Matthew, knows how important it is for people to be connected to their story. It’s so important that Matthew doesn’t launch his gospel with angels singing or grand proclamations like other gospels do. He begins with the backstory – a long, long time ago, in a world far, far away.

To the naked eye, Matthew launches the story of Jesus in the most boring way possible. A list of names. One name after another. Names that are largely meaningless to us. Names that are hard to pronounce. And while there are some names that jump off the page to us — Jacob, David, Solomon, and Josiah — most of them zoom past us like the obituaries in the newspaper. We recognize their humanity, but they are simply people we don’t know well.

Matthew launches the Jesus story slipping into the narrative’s the story of five women who share something in common: They were all stories based in scandal – sex scandals, in fact. Just read those stories.

Tamar tricked and seduced her father-in-law, Rahab was a harlot, and there was Ruth, “dear, sweet Ruth” down on the threshing room floor at Boaz’s feet (just do some research on that Ancient Near-Eastern euphemism). And then there’s Bathsheba; “Uriah’s wife,” is what Matthew calls her. She slept with King David and bore him children.

My first preaching professor, Dr. Andre Resner, wrote this about these remarkable women:

“So why does Matthew remind us of these people and their embarrassingly scandalous stories? How can ‘good news’ start like this? And how could the early church think that this was the most appropriate way to start the ‘New Testament’? It could be because the most embarrassing scandal (Mary) was about to be told and Matthew wanted to show that such an outlandishly embarrassing story was not out of line with the way God had always seen things done in the world.” (“Christmas at Matthew’s House,” Wineskins, 12/19/02 http://www.wineskins.org/filter.asp?SID=2&co_key=449)

All these women were participants in a scandal. And now, the last female name in Matthew’s genealogy, Mary the mother of Jesus. is going to tell us the story of a teenaged girl who was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

An Unbelievable Tale?

From the outside looking in, Mary’s story seems like she’s just another floozie. People thought the same things about Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, and Bathsheba. In the end, however, each was vindicated. They were called faithful and righteous and so will this young girl – barely old enough to get a driver’s license, but favored by God.

I’m reminded in this virgin-become-pregnant story of just how unbelievable the tale is. Mary is a teenager in trouble. She is betrothed to be married. She is supposed to be pure and untouched, but looks anything but. Yet the scripture tells us she trusts God.

If it seems hard for us to believe, just imagine how Mary felt. She doesn’t respond in disbelief, as we might. Mary, rather, responds with deep belief and the unwavering faith that the angel she hears is God’s messenger. In her response we see what eludes so much of the world — actual faith. She trusts God!

The first human to trust that Jesus was who God says He is was a woman.

Listen to how Luke talks about Mary:

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26- 38)

Every Advent I’m reminded that God refuses to force women into silence. We must deploy enormous, willful, and deliberate ignorance to dismiss the role of women in the proclamation of the gospel. It would seem wise for churches and Christians to not do what Matthew goes out of his way to do.

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Sean Palmer is Lead Minister at The Vine Church in Temple, TX. Read more from Sean at The Palmer Perpsective (www.thepalmerperspective.com) and follow him on Twitter: @seanpalmer.