Scandalous: Lessons in Redemption from Unlikely Women #-1

In 2012 I wrote an ebook, Scandalous: Lessons in Redemption From Unlikely Women. It centered the stories of the women in the genealogy of Jesus. It was may take on and expansion of an article written years earlier called Christmas At Matthew’s House, by one of my homiletics professors, André Resner. I released it as a sign up bonus for my blog, The Palmer Perspective.

Each Christmas I hear from old and new readers who are rediscovering or discovering the gospel though the eyes and lives of these women. It’s my only book, in fact, that I got back and read. Although I would nuance some of what I said and believed in 2012, I think the overall message and thrust of these stories still should impact us. That impact may be even more necessary considering the challenges facing the world and, particularly, American Christians.

This Advent, I am posting Scandalous here. It was always free for my subscribers, so, it harms no one to do that again. Over the next few weeks, this is some of what you will see here, starting now with the introduction to Scandalous: Lessons in Redemption From Unlikely Women.

Introduction

Women are treated horribly in 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 aboxed 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.

Husband GPS

Years ago I was a ministry intern for a small congregation in San Antonio, Texas. As tends to happen, there was a brouhaha about something that I now can’t recall. What I do recall is that a number of mothers and other women in the congregation were upset.

In response, the women gathered together and wrote a letter to the leadership stating their displeasure, asking for clarification, and seeking resolution. The elders of the church - all male - discussed the issue for nearly five minutes before one of them questioned, “Where are these women’s husbands?”

Do you see what happened there?

The concern apparently lacked sufficient testosterone to merit further discussion. What puzzled me most was the fact that I knew none of these men functioned this way at home. In the face of their wives’ sincerely and clearly articulated concerns they would never be this dismissive. Something in the well water of the church made it okay for them to behave this way when I know they would not have done so elsewhere.

These are the kinds of things that occur when people’s stories are lost.

Recovering Women’s Stories

What you are reading is one man’s attempt to recover a part of a few stories which have been lost. The women found in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus are fabulously courageous people who, in some cases, have been slurred, overlooked, and ill-defined. I want to change that.

So put on a pot of coffee and curl up as we examine together the women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s wife, and Mary, the Lord’s mother. I find each of them uniquely delightful and challenging.

These essays began as sermons. These sermons were designed to open one church’s eyes to the place of women in scripture - so their stories are not lost to our congregational narrative.

My prayer is that you will be blessed, not simply by increased knowledge, but by personal engagement. Thank you for reading. I am in your debt.