My father used to say that if you want to know what someone really thinks or what they really believe, don’t say a word. Just watch.
This is probably the most useful advice that I’ve ever received, and from Iraq to El Salvador, Pakistan to Germany, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to “just watch” and to wonder how we as Christians can believe the same things about women as fundamentalist Muslims or orthodox Jews.
I’ve wondered how we pick and choose which parts of Scripture can be considered irrelevant and which we must keep. Paul says, “I would” that you were all single, like me. Or he states that women should wear head coverings in church. Or Peter says, and I paraphrase, that godly women do not adorn themselves. Yet each of these are dismissed as anachronisms, culturally appropriate for their time, but no longer a requirement. Yet let Paul say, “I would that a woman not teach a man,” and we cling to that with the fierce fervor of the true believer.
I’ve wondered how we construct the lives we want Christian women to lead, particularly Christians from my own conservative background. Lives that are often in direct opposition to what Scripture actually states and usually in churches that claim to be the most Biblically adherent. We have developed a special type of schizophrenia about women that is interesting to “just watch.”
Jesus, the one whom we believe to be the Son of God, said, “Follow me…hate your family.” We tell women that family should be your first and often your only priority.
Solomon, the man the scripture calls the wisest who ever lived, praised the woman who by her work was able to feed more than just her own family, and had something in her hand to give to the poor. We insist that women be economic dependents, and feel pity for those who “have to work.”
Jesus gave the woman at the well a mission and a message. She went into the city, called people to Jesus and many were saved. We tell women to sit and be silent.
Interesting.
We have constructed entire communities based on withdrawing women from the world around us when the woman in Proverbs 31 was praised for the exact opposite.
We encourage women to think about living balanced lives as a short cut to insisting that they never really sell out to anything greater than themselves. Offering them a brand of Christianity that insists that their biological function is the equivalent of the call of God.
We establish enclaves of church-attending homeschoolers, focused on their own children as the world goes to hell in a handbasket, both literally and figuratively.
We praise women for their attention to the detail of the menial, to keep them from reaching for the all-consuming fire of purpose.
We teach women to doubt, to call into question the call of God on their lives.
We offer women devotionals to keep them sweet and simple, when what we need are fierce women of God who will hear the voice of the Spirit, repent, call others to repentance, and then do the work of the kingdom.
How interesting that our church leaders, although they do not know the number of hairs on our heads or the swirls of our fingerprints, can foretell our purpose with such clarity.
We are daughters of the most High God. Called by the Spirit of God to a purpose that is stunning in its uniqueness and its power.
We are called by the spirit of God just as are men. There is no biological predeterminant on our lives. The entire point of humanity is to be able to live above and beyond our natural desires and predilections. If we could not do that, then we would be animals.
Yet I wonder how many women have opted for the communally-correct choice, like Cain, bringing to God what they have in their hands, instead of what was actually demanded of them. I wonder how many of them will be surprised when they say, “Lord Lord, but I baked cookies, I ran the potluck, I changed diapers, I followed my husband.” And He will say, “Yes, but I called you to preach. I called you to teach. I called you to minister to the sick, to the poor, to the homeless, and to the hopeless.”
And so I also wonder, how many women have quenched the voice of the Holy Spirit in their own lives? How many women have been called and respond by doubling-down on their efforts to please their husbands, their communities and their families.
I am not your master. I am a servant just as you are. You will not answer to me on your day of judgment. But like Cain, ultimately there will be no pleasure in having brought to God what we think He should want.
It is beyond time to think seriously about our purpose as women, letting truth be our authority, not authority our truth.
