This time last year I was on retreat and as occasionally happens when making an individually guided retreat, a shift occurred and I found myself unable to live as I did before when I came home. I am still trying to make sense of it. I have sat at my computer several times in the last year to write a blog post but found myself unable to, being seemingly lost in a wild flower meadow and unable to focus with any clarity to be able to write anything. My spiritual director suggests that what I am experiencing is effectively a dark night of the soul: not in the sense of experiencing the absence of God, but in the sense of being shrouded in mystery, the cloud of unknowing. Within this space and time, I find my thoughts constantly wandering to an essay I wrote some twenty five years ago on the Gospel according to Luke when I was studying for the certificate in religious education. I include the essay here, with the comments from my tutor at the time, because of the seeds it contains that have matured over the years and are flowering now, as I am exploring the wild flower meadow I got lost in during my retreat last year. Fortunately, with the Holy Trinity there, I am in good company.
New Testament II: Unite 3. The Gospel according to Luke.
There is much to learn from Luke’s gospel about Jesus’s attitude to women. His attitude is illustrated in his relationships with women, how he dealt with them as individuals and when they were in conflict with men or traditional male/female roles. To really understand how extraordinary Jesus’ attitude was and still is, both by the standards of his time and by today’s standards, it is necessary to contrast his relationship with women to the normal, or expected, relationship between men and women, both then and today.
The society of Christ’s time was patriarchal and hierarchical. People had a well defined status according to gender, marital status, occupation and ethnic origins. Their sense of self was effectively defined by their position in society, which was determined by these factors. As far as women were concerned, they were basically the possessions of their men. They had no say in their own destinations. They were housekeepers, mothers, wives, cooks. Although they probably had some power within the home, they were dependent on their menfolk and had no influence outside the home. They were not educated as boys were and were not allowed to read from the scriptures in the synagogue: men were not allowed to be alone with women unless they were married to them – in case they were tempted into sin by the woman: men were not allowed to look at married women and Jewish religious leaders in particular, were considered defiled if they looked at a woman even while walking down the street. In short, the attitude towards women in that society is summed up in the ancient synagogue prayer:
– Blessed art thou, O Lord God, king of the universe, who hast not made me a woman. –
This derogatory attitude of men towards women was justified by the book of Genesis and the fall (Gen. 3. 16):
– ..you will give birth to your children in pain. Your yearning will be for your husband, and he will dominate you. –
Although nowadays, our society has moved on a great deal in terms of accepting the idea that women should have the same rights as men, the practicalities of living in an equal society have not been completely ironed out, and indeed, even the definition of what equality really is varies from group to group.
To my mind, what makes Jesus so different, is that in Luke, he is as a woman is, an assertion which I will elaborate on. There are three things about Luke’s gospel that lead me to this conclusion. The first of these is that Jesus himself uses a feminine metaphor to refer to himself (Luke. 7.:35):
– Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.-
In earlier studies of the Old Testament we saw that Wisdom and the Word were interlinked, that Wisdom originates and participates in God, that she is inseparable from God and working in the world. In the New Testament, the personification of the Word and of Wisdom, of course, is Jesus Christ. But there is more than this use of the feminine pronoun to fuel my idea, and it leads on from here. It has to do with how we, men and women, describe ourselves and how Jesus describes himself.
Carol Gilligan, in her book ” In a Different Voice ” provides an insight into the psychological differences between men and women. She found in her research that men and women defined themselves from completely different standpoints and that these relative positions led them to make different moral judgements of a given situation. Men, she argues, when asked to describe themselves, say where they are in relation to the rest of the world. They talk about status, occupation, position. When women are asked to do a similar exercise, they describe themselves in terms of relationship, where they fit in with other people, and how what they do will affect others in the world: the orientation of men is positional while women’s is personal. Men start from an isolated position of themselves and move towards their interactions with the world and others, whereas women start off from their relationships and define who they are within this context. Jesus, we see, fits in with the way women describe themselves when he alludes to himself as Wisdom, given all the connotations that such a name carries with it from the Old Testament. Wisdom is in relationship with God and with the world. This idea is further reinforced in Luke (8:21) for instance, when Jesus rejects his mother and brothers – for those who…
– ..hear the word of God and put it into practice. –
He trades a defined position within the context of his society for a relationship with his followers. His family is no longer defined by physical facts but by responses, actions and reactions between himself and others, that is, by relationship not social position. The same way, according to Gilligan, that women describe themselves. Even when the followers of John the Baptist come to ask Jesus if he is the one to come or are they to expect someone else, he answers them by performing miracles, by healing people, by how his actions affect others. He does not affirm his position at the top of the hierarchy, but demonstrates who he is in terms of relationship with others. Indeed, even when Peter gives him his true title, he charges him and the others to silence (Luke 9.21). Jesus refers to himself throughout Luke as ‘the son of man’, a generic term meaning ‘man’, that is, representing humanity. This term again, implies relationship, rather than an isolated position.
This idea of self influences how we make decisions and moral judgements. When confronted with conflict, men, and the patriarchal society in which Jesus lived and worked, make their judgements based on the Law, on logic and reason. Gilligan presents a moral dilemma, devised by Kohlberg, of a man named Heinz, whose wife is dying. The chemist has a drug that will save her life but Heinz can’t afford to buy it. Should Heinz steal the drug? The question is put to a boy and a girl of similar age, intelligence and background and their arguments are analysed. The boy focusses on should or shouldn’t he, and argues about the law and uses logic to make his decision. The morality of the situation is directed at Heinz. The girl on the other hand focusses on the act of stealing, and searches for another solution to the problem which centres around the chemist. He is the one who has the moral obligation here, not Heinz. She searches for a solution which involves building a relationship.
In Luke’s gospel, we see that when Jesus encounters women, he deals with them, not with law, logic and reason, but within the context of an honest and loving relationship; he sees who they are, he understands them and does not judge them harshly, but affirms them in a way that other men of their time would not do. For example, the woman with the haemorrhage (Luke 8:40-56). Here we have a woman who is unclean by Jewish standards, who touches the cloak of a Jewish leader and in so doing, defiles him. She is absolutely petrified about the repercussions when she is caught – my prediction from what I know about the society would be to expect a stoning, but I’m no expert. Clearly by falling at his feet, she was no less than begging for mercy. Jesus, for his part, does not use the law, or logic, or reason. He does not chastise her or remind her of her place. He says:
– My daughter, your faith has saved you, go in peace.
How beautiful those words must have been to her – and how unexpected. It is difficult to imagine just how powerful an effect that it would have on her life. How worthwhile it must have made her feel after years of being shunned.
Another encounter Jesus has is with the poor widow putting a couple of coins into the treasury (Luke 21: 1-3). He compares her with the rich people there who are putting in so much more. He recognises her, who she is, and the greatness of her gift and he commends her for it. He does not just accept the facts of the situation, but puts it in context with the people involved.
My favourite encounter however, and indeed it is my favourite incident in the whole of the New Testament, is how he deals with the woman who was the sinner and the Pharisee at whose house he was having dinner (Luke 7:36 -50). To realise just how amazing Jesus’s love is, I always set this one in contemporary society in my mind. I picture some fairly uptight, misogynistic religious types – all male of course ( I have met a few of these) – all around the table of their local priest’s house (actually, I picture a particular anglican minister and his Christian Union committee, but that probably reveals more about my experiences and prejudices than I would care to admit). Anyway, there they are, eating vegetable lasagne and garlic bread and discussing the theology behind transubstantiation and whether intercommunion should be allowed, while asserting all the while that Catholics are not really Christians anyway. I find it difficult to put Jesus into this picture until the local whore just walks in, no knock at the door, nothing. She’s wearing not very much and what there is barely covers her cleavage and her crotch. Her legs go all the way up and are covered in fishnet tights. She walks up to Jesus, wipes off her red lipstick on the sleeve of her denim jacket, removes it, and then removes his shoes and socks. She then starts to massage into his feet an aromatherapy oil that she has brought for the purpose. All the time, she looks only at him, smiles, kisses him, trails her hair along his skin, and he, in his turn, seems to be lost in her. I imagine, with more than a little amusement, the dumbfounded expressions on the faces of the men there, the shock and the horror, and the speechlessness. Until at last the minister finds his voice and has a go at him. Jesus, to them, is one of the boys. A bit unorthodox sometimes, sure, even way out sometimes, but his reaction here is completely outrageous to them. There is no law, logic or reason that can justify it. This story, apart from the passion itself, is what demonstrates Jesus’s love most succinctly for me. This is pure love that he shows this prostitute; he affirms her love against those that would attack it, even when the ‘logic’ of the situation dictates that the ones he criticises are not in the wrong, even if we judged it by today’s standards. Can you imagine what the tabloids would make of it? I would defy even the most loving couple to be this intimate in front of a group of any sort, never mind a hostile group, or a local prostitute and a religious leader.
The other classic event is with Martha and Mary (Luke 10: 36-42). For me, this one has specific feminist undertones. Mary takes on what would be considered the man’s role, and sits and talks with Jesus, while her sister Martha, runs around, doing all the women’s business by making sure the practicalities of hospitality are sorted out. For me the most fantastic and liberating thing is when Jesus says:
– It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her. –
He makes it clear that a woman does have a choice in her own life and that others have an obligation to accept those choices and not to try to exercise control over those decisions. It is an interesting paradox here that although Mary has taken the male role here, it is effectively a psychologically female thing to do. She has come down on the side of relationship, while Martha has gone along the rational, legal route. It is Martha, who judged the situation as a man would, that Jesus criticises.
Approaching Luke from this angle makes Jesus’s tenderness towards the women he encounters all the more powerful. It renders the Magnificat at the beginning of Luke as lightning. If we place Jesus, with women, in the context of their time and within their relationship with men, we see that God really has looked upon the humiliation of his servants; he really has routed the arrogant of heart, pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly, he has filled the starving with good things and sent the rich away empty. In other words, he has turned the hierarchy upside down. Not as a straight forward role reversal, where men become the new oppressed and women the new oppressor, because nothing would have really changed. No, rather he has affirmed a moral framework for making decisions about people from the context of loving relationships, rather than from logic, law and reason. We are defined by how we love, not by our social standing, our occupations, how much we earn or by how often we go to mass.
We can learn a lot from Luke about Jesus’s attitude to women, but also we can learn a lot about ourselves. There is redemption from the fall here, a means to restore the once harmonious relationship between men and women. After all, we now have epidurals to ease the pain of childbirth!
Tutor Comments:
Thank you for the stimulating insights. As I pointed out in my comment on your essay on Paul’s attitude to women, in both Jewish and gentile circles, the social condition of women in Jesus’ day was, by modern standards, very low indeed you illustrate this fact of history very well.
By contrast the New Testament usually takes a more progressive attitude, and one can only agree with you that this “new” esteem of women originated in the Sayings and Deeds of Jesus himself.
Examples abound through the synoptics and a special feature in Luke. Women had little part in contemporary Judaism, yet 8:3 actually names those who accompanied Jesus in his ministry. He feels sorry for the Widow of Nain (7: 12), cures the women with a hemorrhage (8: 43- 48), introduces the honorific title ”daughter of Abraham” (13:16), appreciates the Widow’s mite (21: 1-4), addresses his women followers on his way to his death (23: 26-32), and so on. Note that your example from 7: 36-50 appears only in Luke- along with other episodes which bring out this feature of Jesus’ style.
Your essay has brought out for me more clearly the humanness of the historical Jesus with regards to women in general and to his women friends in particular. Often in past centuries women mystics and spiritual writers have concentrated upon the divinity in Jesus and assumed that he would have had little or nothing to do with them. Nowadays we are emphasising Jesus’ humanity more and, with the help of essays such as yours, are gaining a whole series of fresh insights. In these reflections, the Gospel According to Luke plays an important part.
NB: Links to biblical references are from a different version quoted in the original essay.
