When I teach the Religion and Society course I tell my students that the title of the course would seem to imply that we can separate the two and determine what in society has been influenced by religion, and what about religion has been influenced by society. This is like trying to determine where one ocean wave begins and another ends. This is like understanding that jazz has its roots in Black spirituals, ragtime, and the Blues, and then listening to Louis Armstrong and trying to determine which of the three influenced a particular note or riff.
In the Biblical traditions, the domination of male over female is proposed as a fulfillment of the divine order of creation and further, that it exists “naturally.” Men dominate over women because God wants it to be so. The curse given to Eve includes the divine mandate, “Yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” What is often forgotten when this verse is cited as support for the subordination of women is that in the myth, this relationship of inequality comes about as a result of sin. The inequality of the sexes, the domination of one over the other exists as sin. In the myth, the original intent, apparent in Chapter 1, is mutuality and equality. (I must add here however, not according to Augustine. He maintained that woman was subject to man even before sin entered the world). The creation stories in Genesis are a perfect example of social and political custom affecting religious mythology. At the time of the construction of the creation stories the Israelites were already living in a patriarchal society and already confining the sexual and public lives of women. They had already attached taboos and restrictions with regard to women’s bodies, and so these were inscribed into the myth. In the myth, there is no mistaking the culturally gendered world view: when women are allowed freedom, when women are not controlled, all hell breaks loose, literally and figuratively. The myth confirms the cultural “common sense.” The hierarchical order that already existed relationally on earth was projected into the cosmos as reflective of divine intent and so, all could rest easy. Life was as it should be. God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.
In addition, the tradition of exclusive male language for God affects the political, because male language for God is attached to male authority. Not only is God “Father,” but God is also King, Lord, Master. For women these images are relational, not identifications. Because God is male, maleness itself is associated with mastery and authority and as such, proscribes behavior in women in relation to men as in relation to God. In the words of Mary Daly, “God is man writ large, man is God writ small.” The intimate association of maleness with God and maleness with authority superimposes onto women a posturing towards men that imitates their status in relation to God.
Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza pushes the analysis further in her reading of the Gospel texts in which Jesus of Nazareth encounters women and the analysis engenders a shattering, crackling, popping, mind explosion. The first time I heard Elisabeth speak of this in class, I almost fell off my chair. And then I wanted to jump up and down and twirl all around and shout, “Yes! Yes! Oh my freaking Goddess. Yes!”
It is an adroit and profoundly insightful proposal. The analysis first acknowledges that the New Testament is an androcentric text. It was written and constructed within the cultural world view that men constitute ideal human being and occupy the center of human life and reality. When women are presented in the Gospels, they are not described as they are but are inscribed with “feminine” traits and characteristics assumed by first century attitudes, biases and customs. Consequently, the Gospels themselves serve to perpetuate a Western sex-gender dualistic system of being and relationality. Further, Fiorenza maintains that throughout the Christian centuries, the Gospel stories of women have operated as teaching models for women’s behavior towards men. Yes, it is true, that Jesus of Nazareth (in the tradition) is uniquely Son of God, Redeemer and hero. But he was also male. The maleness of Jesus instills within the text subtle but powerful messages of how women must posture themselves not only before Jesus but before all men.
When I read many of the Gospel stories in which Jesus encountered women, this dynamic screams out at me. Women serve. Women cook. Case in point: In the story in which Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14-15) the text reads, “…he touched her hand, and the fever left her and she got up and began to serve him.” In the story of the raising of Lazarus (John 11), Lazarus performs no such function after he is resuscitated. Indeed some days later Jesus returns to the home of Lazarus where the two men sit at table while Martha “served.” And of course, this is what the women would do. It’s first century Palestine for cripes sake. And that is the point. The Gospels are not "value-neutral," gender-neutral, culturally-neutral, politically-neutral or in any other way neutral. ALL of the sexist, patriarchal assumptions and biases of the first century shaped sacred scripture and were transmitted within the texts, so for two thousand years they have acted to reinforce, defend and justify ancient restrictions and expectations for women’s lives.
Women sit at the feet of the master. Women fawn. Women anoint feet with oil. I know what some of you are thinking. “Ah! But in the scriptures Jesus too washed feet.” As recorded in the Gospel of John, he certainly did. I want to point out that John 13:5 reads, “Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.” (NRSV) Just to prove my freaking point about our androcentric ways of thinking, how many of you while reading that sentence imagined Jesus washing the feet of a woman? My guess would be too few. And yet, Jesus’ disciples were both men and women. As such, every time we read a Gospel account in which the word “disciples” appears it must be read as inclusive of men and women. If I were to say the following sentence, “The teachers went to the conference,” it must be understood that the word “teachers” does not automatically exclude the presence of women. In fact, the opposite must be insisted upon. The word “teachers” must be read as inclusive of women unless it is made specifically clear that there were none present. In the first century Gospel texts the word “disciples” must operate in the same way. The word “disciples” must not be read as an indication of males only. And yet that is the collective, interpretive image that the tradition has transmitted for centuries; that Jesus only washed the feet of men. How does the dynamic of that moment change when one imagines Jesus washing the feet of Mary Magdalene?
Yes. Precisely.
to be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment