Luke's Women

Mary, Mother of Jesus, Wife of Joseph

April 15, 2015

The first two chapters of Luke's Gospel are dominated by women.  First, there is Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, a priest.  Elizabeth and Zechariah had no children, but the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah while he was on duty inside the temple to tell him that his wife would have a son.  The son to be born to them is none other than John whom we know later as John the Baptist.  The second woman to dominate the early chapters of Luke's Gospel is, of course, Mary who becomes the mother of Jesus.  The stories of these two women are intertwined by Mary's visit to Elizabeth-her "kinswoman" (1:36).  We are given only one glimpse of Elizabeth and Mary together when upon Mary's arrival at Zechariah's house Elizabeth's baby "leaped in her womb,"  a signal that Mary is "blessed among women" and that her baby would become Elizabeth's "Lord" (1:45).  Elizabeth's blessing of Mary brings forth a response from Mary in the form of a psalm praising God for doing "great things" for her.  Mary's psalm is known to biblical scholars as the Magnificat, so named because of the first word in the Latin version of the psalm.    Luke then returned to tell of the birth and naming of John and record Zechariah's psalm of praise to the Lord.  The birth of Jesus comes in chapter 2 of Luke.  Joseph is mentioned, but the central figures are Mary, Simeon and Anna and, of course, the Shepherds.  The inspired Simeon pronounced an enigmatic prophecy to Mary (2:34) about her child and her own future.  Joseph and Mary ""marveled at what was said about" their child, but it was Mary who "kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (2:19).
These first two chapters of Luke have become so much a part of our Christmas celebration that we may not think about Mary as a woman.  In Luke's account, Mary is a very young woman--perhaps no more than twelve or thirteen years of age.  In our time, women have become very sensitive to the issues of control of their bodies and freedom to determine their own lives.  It is only natural that they would ask how it was for Mary and notice how Luke described her in his narrative.  Presumably, Mary's family had arranged a marriage to Joseph,  but this is not spelled out.  Did Mary have any choice in her marriage partner?  We don't know; but women such as Mary doubtless had much less voice in the choice of a mate than modern women.  In the Gospel, Mary recites a psalm which sounds a lot like the psalm that Hannah--Samuel's mother--offered to God when she dedicated her son at the ancient temple in Shiloh.   What does Mary's psalm tell us about this young woman and her intelligence?  How does her response to the angel's appearance compare with that of Zechariah?  Does she have a choice in being used of God to bear a son who will be in the line of David the great king?  How does Luke picture her.  These are just some of the questions that an interpreter sensitive to women's issues might address as this passage is studied.

Is Luke Friendly to Women?

"Are Luke's writings friendly or hostile to women? Can Luke be said to represent 'a vigorous feminism'?  Is he the only New Testament writer who reflects... an equality that women are presupposed to have had in early Christian communities, so that the distance or even the contradiction between [practice and preaching] that characterizes [Paul's] epistles, is abolished in [Luke's] writings?  Or does Luke represent a [male centeredness] which consciously is silent about women and makes them invisible?' Does he plead... for the subordination of women in an indirect and more subtle manner than the open admonitions in this regard of the authors of the New Testament epistles?"   As we shall see, there is some of both these dimensions in Luke's Gospel and the book of Acts as Turid Seim has made clear in the title of her book, The Double Message.  Luke preserves "strong traditions about women" and their positive roles, but he also preserves many of the "masculine preferences" apparent in the early church.
The prominence of women in the opening two chapters in the Gospel of Luke and the quotation from Joel at the beginning of Acts  that "your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" suggest that Luke is indeed friendly to women.  After this "promising start," however,  one scholar  concludes that there is a "lamentable reluctance to give women adequate voice."   Thus, one's opinion of Luke's presentation of women in his two books depends a lot on a careful reading of what Luke has written as we shall see in dealing with Mary.  Let's look at the text.

Mary’s Opportunity (Luke 1: 26-38) 

One of the things that sets Luke's writings apart from others is his tendency to create pairs of scenes often using both a man and a woman as the central figures.  This is not hard to see once it is pointed out to us, but it is not something a casual reader is likely to notice.  When Luke described the coming of the angel Gabriel to Mary he organized the story almost exactly as he had done previously in the account of Gabriel coming to Zechariah.  The angel appears, reassures both not to be afraid, announces the birth of a son, and describes in a psalm what the child will do.  Zechariah and Mary both question the angel.  "How shall I know?" says Zechariah; "How can this be?" says Mary. The answer to Mary is that the Holy Spirit will make it possible and as evidence, the angel cites the fact that Elizabeth has conceived "in her old age."  Mary submits herself to the Lord's call and goes to Elizabeth's home, perhaps at least partly to confirm what the angel said.
In the Old Testament,  it is normally men who are called by God to service and they often demur just as Zechariah did.  Few women receive calls from God, but when they do they do not object as do the men.  Their freedom to govern their lives is much more restricted than that of the men.  The few biblical women God elects for a special son-bearing vocation happily accept this role as a blessing.  "Against this pattern of women’s limited agency in the Bible, one figure stands out in relief: Mary of Nazareth, dramatically called through the archangel Gabriel to bear Jesus, “Son of the Most High” and Israel’s Messiah."
 It is interesting that Luke seems to stress Mary's thoughtfulness and reasoned response to the angel; he suggests that Mary "considered in her mind" what the angelic visit might mean whereas Zechariah was just "troubled."  "[Mary] reacts with robust emotional and intellectual engagement. No angel, even the imposing Gabriel, is going to pull one over on Mary."


Mary’s Pregnancy (Luke 1: 39-55)

In these verses we learn some about how Mary dealt with her pregnancy, but we learn a lot about her piety and her understanding of what was happening to her.  Luke focuses entirely on Mary's reaction, whereas Matthew recorded Joseph's response to Mary's pregnancy.  Joseph "resolved to divorce her quietly" (Matt 1:19) upon learning that she was pregnant but an angelic intervention told him the significance of the son she would have.  Luke's parallel to Joseph's resolve is Mary's hasty (Luke 1:39) departure from Nazareth to spend three months with Elizabeth.   "Though Luke doesn’t say this, it’s hard not to imagine Mary’s desire to leave Nazareth so she can avoid the awkward questions that will surely arise about her pregnancy. The Jerusalem audience logically surmised that Zechariah had seen a vision in the temple (1: 21), but the Nazareth community is unlikely to grant a similar experience to young Mary, certainly not as an explanation for a preposterous virginal conception! Implicitly, then, Mary’s hasty “heading for the hills” of Judea marks the Lukan counterpart to the Matthean Joseph’s decision to “put Mary away secretly” (Matt 1: 19 NKJV)."
There is no word here about the role of Mary's family in her decision.  She took matters in her own hands though surely her journey of some forty miles would not have been made alone.  Mary came to Elizabeth for acceptance and assurance--and from Luke's perspective--for confirmation that "with God nothing will be impossible" (1:37).  And Elizabeth did not dissappoint.  "Elizabeth thrice blesses Mary: first, for who she is (“ Blessed are you among women”); next, for who she bears (“ Blessed is the fruit of your womb”); and finally, for what she has done (“ Blessed is she who believed what was spoken to her by the Lord”) — a dazzling affirmation of her gender (woman), generativity (mother), and spirituality (believer)."

Both Matthew (by saying that Joseph decided to divorce Mary because she was pregnant) and Luke (by saying that Mary left Nazareth hastily after (?) she became pregnant)  hint that Mary's pregnancy was viewed as scandalous by the family and the community. In Luke's account, Mary herself is incredulous when told she would bear a child:  "How can this be..." (Luke 1:34).  She was simply saying what most would say if told that a woman would have a child without having a human sexual experience.  Thus it is only to be expected that women scholars who interpret the birth narratives would bring their own experiences of birthing to the story of Jesus.   Scholars--women as well as men--have interpreted Mary's pregnancy in several different ways.  Some assume that a man other than Joseph was the father of Jesus.   Others have assumed that the virgin birth accounts are like the many accounts of Greek gods who cohabit with human women to produce sons.   And, of course, there are many who accept the virgin birth accounts as the mysterious act of God in history as orthodox Christianity has always held.  
Mary's famous response to Elizabeth's blessing is known as "The Magnificat" (Luke 1:47-55).  The Magnificat is a psalm that has many points of contact with a similar song sung by Hannah as she dedicated the son of her old age to God at Shiloh (I Samuel 2:1-10).  Luke may well have had sources that gave him the text of the psalm, but since there were no verbatim recordings of what Mary said, Luke surely played a role in shaping the psalm.  Moreover, the psalm plays a big role in setting the theme of Luke's Gospel as the reversal of power in the coming kingdom of God.  Mary praises God for looking upon her "low estate" and doing "great things" for her.  From her own experience and reflection, Mary reaches a stunning theological conclusion: through the “Son of the Most High” she will bear, the Savior God will “lift up,” not merely “look upon,” all who are lowly like her and, indeed, topple the whole high/ low hierarchy. The new era of God’s “uplifting” reign is dawning with Mary arising as its first exemplar, prophet, and theologian. In full voice, there is no keeping Mary down now; the lowly slave girl has busted through the ceiling and opened the way for other lowly ones, female and male, to rise with her to positions of robust health and honor in God’s just and merciful realm."

Mary’s Maternity (Luke 2: 1-21)

"But as “the time comes” in Luke’s famous Christmas story “for her to deliver her child” (2: 6), Mary’s leading role appears to diminish precipitously as men dominate the narrative . The narrative begins with another journey; this one, however, Mary does not choose and she does not chart her own course.  Instead she is forced to travel at the worst possible time in her pregnancy by dominant male authorities: Emperor Augustus and Governor Quirinius ... "  but it is Mary not the men who generates all the action.  "The forces that impelled her to Bethlehem at this time have unwittingly “fulfilled” God’s plan for the true Lord’s birth in the city of David (2: 11). God orchestrates the proceedings, but at the critical “time” Mary executes them."   She gave birth;  she wrapped him in cloths;  and she laid him in a manger.   "Mary’s Magnificat still reverberates loud and clear with accents on lifting the lowly and leveling hierarchies. Nomadic herdsmen, not aristocratic nabobs, first attend this king. And while the shepherds may take the lead in broadcasting the good news of God’s visitation (2: 17-18, 20), Mary takes precedence in delivering, nurturing, and displaying the Christ child they extol."

Conclusion
Luke's magnificent portrayal of Elizabeth and Mary in the opening chapters of his Gospel stands in stark contrast to the absence of Mary from the rest of Luke and all but the very beginnings of the book of Acts.  But the tribute he pays to Mary by the way he portrays her, makes it difficult to argue that Luke's view of women was anemic.  " The Lukan Mary is not reduced simply to a womb-container that carried and delivered God’s Son; and her identity, though inextricably bound up with Jesus’, is not totally subsumed by him. Once he is born, she becomes no inert, passive mother figure merely basking in Jesus’ glory. Mary’s blessedness, from Luke’s perspective, includes how she blesses Jesus — and thereby the world which God will save through Jesus — as much as how he blesses her. And she blesses Jesus and the world throughout Luke 1– 2 as a fully embodied agent of and partner with God in her own right, freely exercising her own thoughts, feelings, and actions in probing and practicing God’s will."
 

Luke's Women

Hungry Widow, Spicy Queen, and Salty Wife

April 8,2015

There are some things that everybody knows as the Geico commercials constantly remind us.  One of those things that everybody knows is that the role of women in the modern world has occupied center stage since the 1960's.  The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men has been front and center now for a half century in America--much more if we go back to the women's suffrage movements of the early 1900's.  Part of this movement has played out in the pews.  Mainstream Protestant denominations including our own have seen women's rights to serve in the roles of pastor and bishop become a major issue.

Women As Biblical Scholars
But did you know that one result of the attention to the role of women in the larger society has been in biblical studies.  In the last half-century more and more women have felt and responded to a call to ministry that has led them to do advanced academic study in seminaries and universities.  We have seen some of the fruits of that response on the part of women even in our own Baptist circles.  In our city, Sarah Shelton, has become a widely respected pastor to the congregation of the Baptist Church of the Covenant.  David Hull's wife, Jane, has begun a ministry as pastor of  the Union Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Watkinsville, Ga.  And just  a few days ago a news release announced that David and Jane's daughter, Emily Hull McGee, has been called as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Winston Salem, NC.
But wait--there is more.  As women responded to a call to prepare for ministry over the past decades, some of them found their role not only in the pulpit but also in seminary and university classrooms as biblical scholars.   It is this development in New Testament scholarship which has encouraged this series of studies on Luke's  women.   Over this past fifty years,  there has been a general consensus among biblical scholars (who have been mostly men) that Luke's Gospel gives a larger place to women than any of the other Gospels.  Mark tells us that women travelled with Jesus in Galilee (Mark 15:41), but Luke tells us who the women besides Mary Magdalene were who travelled with Jesus and the disciples in Galilee:

Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Mag′dalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Jo-an′na, the wife of Chu′za, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them[  out of their means.  (Luke 8:1-3)

In addition to the consensus that Luke exhibits a special interest in women along with his interest in the poor, there has been agreement among scholars (mostly men) that Luke's treatment of women is generally positive.  In the Book of Acts Luke has made it very clear that women of wealth became Christians and played a significant role in the early Christian church.  Several such women hosted meetings of Christians in their homes (Prisicilla, Acts 18, I Cor 16:19; Marks' Mother, Acts 12:12).
Into this world of male consensus about Luke's treatment of women the last few years have seen the emergence of studies by Lukan scholars who are women, and as we might expect they tend to see things that men might miss or, at the least, they see things from a different perspective than male scholars.  One small example from the book of Acts may help us understand the kind of difference perspective can make.  When Judas had to be replaced to keep the group of apostles at twelve, Luke recorded the event this way:

So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,  beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”  And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsab′bas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthi′as.    (Acts 1:21-23)

That may sound perfectly normal and correct to us--particularly to us men--but let me share with you the insights of the Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo, Norway--a woman, Dr. Turid Seim.

" The Lukan criteria for an apostle are listed in Acts 1.21-2 when a twelfth apostle is to be elected to take the place of Judas (1.15-26}.  It is presupposed that more than the eleven fulfill these criteria, which require personal experience of the history of Jesus from the early time in Galilee onwards  until the separation at the ascension. In the course of the gospel, the presence of women is emphasised, and in the narratives about the cross and the tomb they represented the followers of Jesus from Galilee. In other words, they ought to be obvious candidates. But an initial demand of maleness already excludes them from this possibility: .. , the candidates must be men.  The women from Galilee are ineligible; interest is concentrated on the Galilean men... .  When women in Acts are excluded from becoming apostles or from being leaders in other ways, this is a consequence of Luke's restricted and special concept of apostleship and acceptance of the public sphere as a man's world. So the public act of witness has to be carried out by men. This is nowhere justified in theological terms, and women are never explicitly adjured to keep silent or to be subordinate. What is demonstrated is a structure imposing silence."

We don't know how the women among Jesus' disciples felt about the election of Matthias.  Did they feel the sting of being qualified as witnesses but not allowed to testify, or did they simply accept their rejection as the way it should be? Obviously in both Testaments, patriarchal worlds are assumed.  In our day of heightened awareness of discrimination and our sense of fairness it is only to be expected that women who study the New Testament as scholars call our attention to a passage like this.  There is, however, one sentence in Dr. Seim's interpretation that needs to be addressed.  It is her assertion that " this [circumstance] is a consequence of Luke's restricted and special concept of apostleship and acceptance of the public sphere as a man's world."

For most of us, the Bible has been viewed all our lives as "God's Word."  We have assumed that the Bible was God's doing and that Luke's (or the other biblical writers) beliefs, intelligence and view of women did not play a role in the writing of a biblical book.  When we give some thought to the matter, it should be fairly obvious that God produced four different Gospels at least partly because he used the special knowledge and skills of four different authors.  In all likelihood each of the Gospels was produced in a different country with vastly different audiences.  But when all this is said and factored in, it remains to be demonstrated that Luke's description of the election of Matthias was significantly colored by his "acceptance of the public sphere as a man's world."  Whether Dr. Seim is correct or not, her assumption that Luke and other authors wrote in the light of their own circumstances and to their own communities under the inspiration of God is common to nearly all biblical scholars today and plays a role in the interpretations offered by these scholars.

A Salty Wife

In this series I want to look at some of the women in Luke's gospel in the light of interpretations made by women scholars--specifically Mary the mother of Jesus; Joanna, one of the women who supported Jesus financially, and the sisters, Martha and Mary.  Tonight some time has been spent setting the stage so we will take only a quick look at one of three foreign women that Luke mentions very briefly.  The three women are the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4:25-26)--the Hungry Widow,  the Queen of Sheba (Luke 11:31)--the Spicy Queen, and Lot's Wife (Luke 17:32)--the Salty Wife.  Each of these three women appears very briefly.  Each is mentioned by Jesus in a context of judgment on his generation and one might wonder what can be learned about Luke's treatment of women when the comment comes from Jesus.  The answer is that two of these comments about women in the sayings of Jesus are only recorded by Luke; they do not appear in the other Gospels.   Apparently Luke thought them important.  Since time is short, let's concentrate just on Lot's Wife who appears in one sentence, "Remember Lot's wife."
The title for this section, Salty Wife, obviously refers to Lot's wife who looked back to Sodom and became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19) and comes from a fairly new book by F. Scott Spencer, Salty Wives, Spirited Mothers, and Savvy Widows: Capable Women Of Purpose And Persistence In Luke’s Gospel (2012).  Dr. Spencer is Professor of New Testament and Preaching at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.   He has helped me by surveying a wide range of interpretations by women scholars and, thus, introducing me to many scholars whose works I had not seen.  Admittedly, Dr. Spencer is a male and, thus, somewhat suspect as a judge of women's scholarship and as a matter of full disclosure, he says his purpose in the book is “pull the pendulum back a tad from the feminist-critical pole toward the center.”  The range of views is as wide among women scholars as it is among men.   On the one hand are those who see the Gospel of Luke as "an extremely dangerous text, perhaps the most dangerous in the Bible.”  On the other hand are women who think Luke "manages the extraordinary feat of preserving strong traditions about women and attributing a positive function to them" even though Luke reveals a strong "masculine preferences" in his treatment of the early church in Acts.   What do women see about Lot's wife that men may be blind to.

Typical treatments of Lot's wife by male pastors  make it easy to understand the need for a woman's insight.  The first sermon that came up on my computer in a Google search for sermons on Lot's wife gives us this judgment on the Lot's wife:

"Why did the Master relate Mrs. Lot to our day? Jesus used her as a fearful warning. That woman became cold, careless, and disobedient. Finally the judgments of God fell upon her, and she became a pillar of salt on the plains of Sodom. ... Why did God deal with her so severely? Was it not the smallest offense of all just to move the head slightly? The Word of God has a name for that type of action: sin. She disobeyed the commandment of the Lord, and her judgment underlines the urgency of obedience. God means what He says. There is no excuse for sin, and God cannot overlook it."

By way of contrast, hear the softer voice of a woman describing this woman of Sodom:

While Lot, the conscience of a nation,
struggles with the Lord,
she struggles with the housework.
The City of Sin is where she raises the children.
...
It is easy for eyes that have always turned to heaven
not to look back;
those that have been -by necessity- drawn to earth
cannot forget that life is lived from day to day.
Good, to a God, and good in human terms
are two different things.
On the breast of the hill, she chooses to be human,
and turns, in farewell -
and never regrets the sacrifice.

The poet sees a woman whose heart is broken by the devastation that has engulfed everyone she knows and cares about.  While Lot's family got the warning, Lot's wife's father, mother, brothers and sisters presumably did not.   How could she not look back at the tragedy engulfing Sodom.  "Such was the tragic fate of Lot’s wife: looking back on — and longing to reconnect with — her besieged family and friends, house and furnishings, food and clothing, she forfeits everything. Her womanly devotion to daily realities does her in."
   It is interesting that Jesus' sermon does not stress the sexual evil rampant in Sodom (as the Genesis story does) but rather centers on the obsession with the routines of life that prevented the people of Sodom from hearing the word of warning given them: "Likewise as it was in the days of Lot—they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built..." (Luke 17: 28).  In other words, they were so consumed with being human they could not detect the in-break of God in their world.  Lot's wife was no different.  Everything she and her husband had bought, sold, planted and built was gone in the explosion of Sodom.  How hard would it be not to look.
Women who deal with this sentence in Luke not only look upon Lot's wife with empathy, feeling the agony that would have overwhelmed her obedience, they also question the fitness of the husband to have escaped.  Lot is pictured in Genesis as more concerned about his duty to protect the visitor in his home than to shelter his own family.  While these priorities may have been supremely important in ancient Israel, they are clearly repugnant today. No one could defend such a father today.  So "feminist writers and activists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards size up the jarring juxtaposition of Lot and his wife in rather salty language, querying why "Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt when her husband was busy offering up their virgin daughters to the marauders. (And why ...she didn’t have a name.)” The juxtaposition involved a man who could hand over daughters to a mob of men and leave some of his family behind without ever looking back on the one hand and a wife who loved home and family so much she could not bear to leave without looking back.

Conclusion
"...what we must “remember” about Lot’s wife is her deep attachment to embodied life, to everyday pursuits of eating/ drinking, buying/ selling, planting/ building that she cannot bear to lose. But on an evaluative level, Jesus regards such attachments as lethal impediments to productive discipleship and keen alertness to God’s rule. He audaciously summons any would-be disciples to “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow [him]” — that is, leave their daily lives behind to attend fully to his urgent kingdom business. And he does not brook any excuses, even for seemingly worthy family duties, like burying dead fathers or bidding farewell to those at home (Luke 9: 57-61). One must shake the dust even from one’s hometown and get going. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit (euthetos) for the kingdom of God” (9: 62): such is the kingdom motto, and such is precisely what Lot’s backward-looking wife must be remembered as violating as a disqualified, unfit disciple. ...Such is the high cost of following God’s kingdom way (cf. 14: 25-33) — a price Lot’s wife was not willing to pay."