When I gave the lesson, my focus was on how these individual women had specific hardships that were answered in the promises of the Savior. I still believe that all sorrows and trials have their eventual answer there.
Daniel Hill's writing pointed out that showing foreigners and sinners in the lineage was a deliberate way to emphasize the inclusiveness of Christ's mission. That is also a good point, and it shows that you can see the same facts and notice different things from them.
There is another new aspect for me now, that I am open to for different reasons, and that's what I want to get at today.
One thing that helped was my friendship with Marla. I haven't seen her for a while, but in one conversation she had mentioned a professor telling her that her name meant "little rebel" as a diminutive of Mary.
That was interesting. If you look at baby names now, Mary is often shown as meaning "mother of God", but it didn't mean that before. Possible roots for the Hebrew name are "desired child", "bitterness", and "rebelliousness".
That seemed surprising, because we don't think of Mary as a rebel. Prophecies about her showed her as fair and pure, she is commonly referred to as blessed, and even today some people will hold on to that image so strongly that they believe her own conception was free from original sin, that she always stayed a virgin (even though the scriptures mention siblings to Jesus), and that she was bodily taken up into Heaven. Those are mainly Catholic beliefs, and I don't know how popular they are, but they seem to demonstrate an inability to let Mary be human and have a life of her own.
That may be due to a general distrust of humanity, and there is evidence to support that, but to imagine yourself capable of playing a role in God's work, which we are asked to participate in, then we need to be able to believe that as mere and fallible humans we can still accomplish good things. We will grow from serving God, and we can't wait for that growth before we get started. You may be doing bigger things later, but you should be doing something now. It may also turn you into a rebel.
We'll talk more about Bathsheba next week, but with Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, it had always been clear how they could be marginalized and on the fringes. It was also clear that they took actions that were dangerous and unladylike. Judah did declare Tamar more righteous after finding out the whole story, but before that he wanted her burned, and that was thinking she had only played the harlot, which Rahab made a career of. Ruth's gleaning and seeking out Boaz would have been the most acceptable actions, but they were still pretty bold.
The eternal virgin free from original sin doesn't fit into that company unless you think about her position. She was righteous, but once she turned up pregnant before being married she would not have looked righteous. Joseph could have had her killed. Before the angel's visit he was going to put her away quietly, which would not have been a great position. There would have been shunning and insults, and she probably still got a fair amount of those, even with Joseph marrying her. Mary could be righteous or appear righteous, but she couldn't do both.
That struck me hard this time through the stories, mainly because of the protests against police brutality that have been going on since the death of Mike Brown.
These protests are against the social order, which is built upon some lives being more valuable than others. They make people uncomfortable, and yet, people should be uncomfortable. There have been so many deaths, even if you don't count the other signs of inequality, that no follower of Christ should be comfortable with the current system.
As people who proclaim themselves Christians become more avaricious and hardhearted, there will be more condemnation for actions to try and work for equality and declare the value of every soul. There may be loss of prestige and respect, there may be jail time and injury, and there may even be loss of life. There may even be ridicule from people at your own church.
Sometimes God works through unexpected sources, and there may be ways in which they are more open, having less to lose. That is good, and it is a reason to not look down on anyone, but the message for today is that as believers it should not be hard to get us to hear and act.
The women Matthew named were not well-behaved women by some standards. Sometimes it was just that they did what they needed to do rather than what they were expected to do. They made history.
We need to be prepared to do the same.
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