Blog for International Women's Day: Liberation is always inconvenient

There’s a story in Luke 13: 10 – 17. A long time ago, a woman walked into a synagogue on the Sabbath. She hadn’t stood up straight in eighteen years, and when Jesus saw her, bent over and crippled, he touched her and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” She stood up straight, vertebrae cracking, for the first time since she could remember. Dizzy from the unfamiliar feel of liberation, she praised God for setting her free.

The ruler of the synagogue was not awed or grateful. He was incensed. “There are six days for work,” he told the crowd. “Come and be healed on one of those days, not on the Sabbath.”

Eighteen years is a long time. It’s long enough to raise a child and long enough to forget what it was like to ever look someone in the eye. It’s more than long enough to wait for healing, and yet, when this woman finally found healing in Jesus, the religious leader did not celebrate. Instead, he was pissed off that someone transgressed against the religious system and so focused on crowd control that he couldn’t rejoice with a women standing up straight and praising God.

Welcome to patriarchy. And just so we’re clear, “patriarchy” does not mean “men being mean to women”, although God knows that happens. It also doesn’t mean “All men suck.” Both women and men can buy into its values – or opt out. Patriarchy is a system - a principality if you want to get spiritual - that says that power is a zero sum game and there isn’t enough to go around so you better jostle for your spot on the hierarchy. Patriarchy says that only some people have experiences worth listening to. Sometimes it does it with a smile. Sometimes it’s with a whip, but the whole system keeps telling a whole lot of people to come back another day. It’s funny how liberation of the oppressed always seems to come at an inconvenient time for those in charge.

I know more about being crippled than I would like, and much of the time, it’s the institutions of Christianity that feel like they’ve been keeping my head down. I grew up in a conservative, Bible Belt church where women weren’t supposed to preach, be elders, deacons or pastors, or even have jobs if they had children. The man was the head of the home. They say that men and women have different roles, but are equally valuable, but nobody believes that – not really. Combine that with years of sexual abuse from men who would claim the name of Jesus, and what I had is self-hatred oozing through my veins like lead poisoning.

It’s only in the last couple of years that I have started raising my head. Not coincidentally, it’s only in the last couple of years that I stopped going to church. I could not have found the healing that I have found thus far in any Christian institution. It’s not just the hierarchy and the proscriptions on women. It’s the language, the imagery, and the value system. I didn’t realize how pervasive it was until I started discovering something different. It was like realizing that I’d been holding my breath all this time, and I didn’t know it until there was finally space to exhale.

I don’t relate to God as Father. I don’t have to. Instead, I’m discovering that God is Sophia wisdom shouting in the streets. God is the mother hen who wants to shelter all of us under Her wing. God is like the woman who turned her house upside down looking for the tenth lost coin. When she found it, she threw a celebration party that probably cost more than the coin was worth.

(As a point of information, there are three parallel stories about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. I’ve heard dozens of sermons about God as good shepherd and as forgiving father. If that is true, then why isn’t God like a woman cleaning her house? Are we afraid of God looking too much like our mothers or worse yet, the undocumented immigrant housekeepers getting off the bus in Brentwood?)

Liberation is a two-edged sword sometimes, though. As I begin to realize what could be, I begin to realize what could have been, and that can be painful. It is only in the past six months or so that I’ve realized that in another place, another time, I would probably have become a pastor. However, I never heard a woman preach until I was in college. I didn’t meet a woman who was a pastor until I was in my mid-20’s. It simply never occurred to me that could be a possibility for me. Even though my head would say that denying women the chance to exercise their God-given gifts is nothing more than destructive patriarchal bullshit that hurts everybody, those childhood messages work their way into your bones and if you try to stand up too straight, they start to make all kinds of noise. I was also rather firmly convinced that there was something terribly and horribly wrong with me and everyone would hate me if they knew me, which made getting up in a pulpit to have a bunch of people look at me an unappealing option.

Now it’s too late , but it’s not because heading to seminary is impossible. After all, many people – men and women – go to seminary when they are much older than I am. I just don’t think I could stomach the credentialing process or jump through the theological hoops. Plus, if I were clergy, then I would have to go to church, which would be a problem right now. And where would I go? I feel more Catholic than Protestant these days, but I find myself stranded. While I love the Catholic contemplative/mystical tradition, I absolutely cannot join a church that says that Christ is bodily present in the Eucharist, but only if the host has been blessed by and administered by a priest, and women need not apply to hold the presence of our Redeemer. I just can’t do it. Then there are the many horrific abuses of power in the Catholic church’s history. And the clergy sex abuse scandal is not exactly a confidence builder, is it? And I read in the paper that some bishop excommunicated a priest who believes pretty much what I do. And who invented excommunication anyway?

There are times that my stranded situation makes me angry. Like this morning. Or yesterday. All that is very true, but here’s the thing I’ve been learning (and you don’t know the amount of excruciating work I’ve had to do to figure this out) : The religious leader could disapprove of the formerly crippled woman all day and all night. He could maybe even bar her from the synagogue. But he couldn’t cripple her up again and he couldn’t take away her experience of God. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

The religious powers-that-be would have us believe that we need their sanction for our religious experience to be valid. I went with a group of students to a mosque last week. I was in the back room with the women and children, wearing a white headcovering with “property of” in black marker on the side, sitting quietly on a chair. There was a woman there dressed in black who looked unbearably sad. As other women came in the room, some of them walked over to her and kissed her cheek and gave her long hugs. I don’t know what had happened to her, but I could tell it was something tragic. At one point, she started to cry, and the woman next to her held her until she stopped.

There was a man talking in the front room with all the other men. There was a video screen in the room for the women and a good sound system, but I have no idea what he said. All the men were facing forward, so none of them saw the woman in tears or the comfort from her friends. They didn’t see the children squirming on the floor. They didn’t see the women pray.

Here’s something else I have been learning: Just because the religious leaders say that the real action happened in the front room that I can never enter, that doesn’t make it true. I think that woman’s grief and her friends’ love and comfort was the real story that day – even if it wasn’t the official one. If the religious leaders didn’t hear what you had to say, it doesn’t mean you didn’t make a noise.

After the religious leader’s attempt at crowd control, Jesus answered, “You hypocrites! Don’t each of you, on the Sabbath, untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

What does it do to you to tell the God’s grace and healing to come back another day? The powerful are humiliated by the consequences of their own actions – although they don’t always recognize their own humiliation. How much energy does it take to defend that system? What is the cost to your soul?

So I guess there are worse things than operating outside the bounds of official sanction. It has been freeing to realize that I don’t have to beg for validation like some eternal supplicant. I don’t have to try to fit my story into the official sinner-meets-Jesus-hallelujah version. I don’t know where Jesus was when I prayed for rescue, and I never will. I still feel the effects of my abuse every single day, and I can meet God in the daily lived reality of my experience, whether or not it fits into anybody’s particular theological framework. I may be ecclesiastically stranded forever, and that will be hard – but I will be okay.

What threatened the powers that be the most wasn’t a superior theological argument or credentials, it was a woman standing up straight and telling her experience of God, whether or not it was religiously convenient.

Addendum: Oops - I forgot to put the link to Rachelle's blog,where she has a list of everyone else who participated in the grid blog. Go check it out.

Comments

[Phyllis]

SISTER!!
Powerful, powerful post. Excellent and well said. Damn.

[Serena]

Beautiful. Blessings.

[rebecca]

and from these dry bones come new life. the straighter you stand, the more we are blessed. i love you.

[Ryan Kellermeyer]

This is great. Even as a man, this connects quite deeply with my experience of church. I hope you find a place where you can be yourself.

[Hugo]

A terrific post. Whether churched or unchurched, sanctioned or not, Christy -- you pastor. It's part of who you are,and it comes across instantly in your prose and in person. Lots for me to chew on.

[anj]

Wow. "What threatened the powers that be the most wasn’t a superior theological argument or credentials, it was a woman standing up straight and telling her experience of God, whether or not it was religiously convenient." Yes.

[B-W]

Such a powerful and tragic story. Although I hope that you may someday find a Christian community that will affirm you and your gifts, I trust that you will continue to find healing whereever God takes you.

[Adam]

in another life you might have been a pastor with a pulpit... but I reckon you're doing great in this one with a blog. an inspiring and challenging post. thanks.

[erica]

Oh, wow. You have said so much so well. Your definition of partiarchy is coming with me.
Thanks

[Christy]

Thanks everybody. It was scary for me to post this one, and I had a small freak out after I did and almost deleted it. I'm glad I didn't.

[Kathy]

Wow. You done good, sister. Yes, you do pastor. Here. I hope you don't mind me saying that I'm proud of you for standing up.

[Rachelle]

Christy,

This is an amazing piece of work -- both the work of writing and the work of be-ing. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

I'll be using it at Monkfish Abbey tonight.

Much Shalom,

Rachelle

[jen]

this is so helpful and valuable to me. thank you so much for writing it. this reads like theology that actually can change my life and i need as much of that as i can get.

[jenell]

Amazing. I'm engrossed in your journey.

[Patchouli]

My pastor was in a church for 14 years. She was manuevered out by a male "head pastor." She is mentoring a small group that is growing weekly, using a little church and her home for meetings.
Credentials and denominations don't make a pastor, as you have proved, Pastor Christy.

[Bob F]

wow. preach it, sister! pastor is a spiritual gift, not a job title -- and you've got it (along with a dose of prophet!).

[trissa]

Your post was very beautiful. Thank you for sharing your experience to speak out against injustice.

[jaw1]

Approval and the shadow it casts...

Kierkegaard talks about the kind of inwardness and spiritual strength that it takes to escape the social matrix of opinions. To surrender to the good that God intends and nothing else... to will this kind of love...

A call on your life will not go away ... the brokeness of the world will not erase it...

i believe... You certianly have a call to write... You may have the call to be a pastor...

Unless those who know how to weild & yeild power well step up and use the power that they do have for the good they can do... Fools who want power for lesser reasons will reach for it and take it... leaving us all to live with the consequences...

You are not the only one who has to walk your path towards wholeness... and you will want others on the road with you in the end...

Where two or three are gathered...

Fire in them bones... I feel the heat even as I turn my ears to the source.

As an African American... I find myself often asking permission to act on my freedom... I ask myself why I fear legitimate power from women... even though I embrace it... It is because we get put at the bottom of the heap in so many ways...

Yet I trust you would never walk over me... pain can create sensitivity...

Again, if you can use power wisely and for the good... please do... or we will have too many fools to contend with...

[CHristy]

Hey John -
You are on to something with this part:
"As an African American... I find myself often asking permission to act on my freedom... I ask myself why I fear legitimate power from women... even though I embrace it... It is because we get put at the bottom of the heap in so many ways..."

That's what the system does to us - convinces us that we have to fight over our piece of the power pie, instead of just baking another. Sort of a "if you get yours, I won't get mine" feeling.

And I don't know if I want to be a pastor - at least not a regular one. I think I'm afraid of what the system would do to me.

[Kaya]

Wow you really got me thinking and my heart moving. What a powerful piece. Continue to speak for injustice and what the system can't take from us, our Spirit. Thank you for inviting me into your life.