Have you ever noticed how many strong women there were in Jesus’ life?
I thought about this because of the strange confluence of today’s gospel and the celebration of his mother Mary’s feast day on August 15. While the guys who Jesus associated with acted like guys and sometimes had to be told over and over again what was going on and even then they didn’t seem to fully comprehend the women all seemed to, if not fully understand him, at least challenge him.
You could probably think of a list longer than I can.
The first one who immediately comes to mind is Martha – all bluster who never took any guff from anybody. You remember her. She was the one who, at a dinner party she and her sister Mary threw for Jesus, was doing all the work in the dining room and kitchen while Mary just sat there listening to Jesus. Martha’s patience runs out but she doesn’t suffer in silence she blasts into where Jesus and Mary are chatting and bellows in effect, “Hey! A little help here, please!” No push-over there and even though Jesus commends Mary for listening I don’t think he ever forgot that without Martha’s hard work they would have been having “take-out” that night.
Neither do I think that Jesus ever forgot the time he took so much time responding to Mary and Martha’s request to come and help with their brother Lazarus that Martha greeted him on the outskirts of their town not with a “So good of you to take time out of your day” but rather with a wagging finger, a scolding voice and the words “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” It was very confrontational and very public! But, it leads to Martha also speaking works that led Jesus to the central proclamation of the faith. When she says: “I know [my brother] shall rise again at th last day.” I Jesus proclaimed: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" And Martha’s reply is historic. “She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’” Jesus. Son of God. Messiah. The core principals of Christianity.
Jesus not only had strong woman friends but he seemed to run across them at every corner of his daily rounds. He finds a woman in mid day at a well in Samaria, a place neither one of them were supposed to be – she because water was drawn in the early morning hours or after sun set when the heat of the day was less intense. And he, because, to put it quite distinctly for hundreds of year Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with each other. So both he knew and she knew that their conversation would be frowned on not only by his people but by her people. Still she engages and is on the defense all day long. Challenging his every word, his every assertion, protecting herself from his probing question. Finally, Jesus breaks through her tough exterior and their final exchange hears her say: “I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Then Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” And she doesn’t ponder but goes and becomes the first evangelist by returning to her village and saying, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
He was and she was right to proclaim him so. But she never would have made that discovery had she not been willing to debate in broad daylight at the town watering hole.
But perhaps the best confrontation of all comes in today’s Gospel when Jesus meets a woman who is not only tenacious but who will not be denied. She will not take “no” for an answer.
This is a difficult story because of the way Jesus treats her. First he ignores her and then he insults while all the while his disciples are telling her to “beat it.” All of them are not at their best.
And to make matters worse when the woman comes and even kneels before him – a posture of pure submission, he says to her, “it is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This is one dog who is not going away with her tail between her legs. As a matter of fact she is not going away without calling him into account. She verbally swings back and connects with, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
I have to tell you I have no idea why Jesus treated this woman the way he did but I do know that in her he had met his match. He may have been great in his debates with the scribes and Pharisees but this woman is not only winning the debate but making him look bad. She is telling him directly that if his ministry does not include her and her daughter, it does not include everybody, and what he has been telling people about God’s whose love is open to all people is a lie. He is either going to have to heal her daughter or suffer a loss in credibility second to none.
All he can do is stand back, perhaps rocked a little, and admire this woman for her strength, spirit and faith.
I think Jesus had such an affinity for strong women because a strong women raised him.
His mother Mary was no pushover either. She had to be strong to do what she did. First, even at his conception she didn’t just take the word of the angel she made poor Gabriel explain himself. And then she had to face the real danger that her beloved Joseph wouldn’t shunt her aside and, even when he didn’t she still had to face the questions on the faces of her neighbors.
Sometimes she didn’t understand what her son was doing and so had to let him go and do what he believed he was called to do. Yet, she loved him enough to stay with him even to the cross. And beyond to experience his resurrection.
Their encounters with Jesus brought out the best in these women just as they should bring out the best in you. Loved and accepted by him you can be like them and other great women through the centuries – Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, to name but a couple – and stand up for what is right in the face of injustice.
Loved and accepted by him you can be brave, you can be strong, you can be what you were meant to be. Loved and accepted by him you can serve not out of submission but out a desire to help those who need you. Loved and accepted by him you can accept others because you have felt his acceptance.
This is a lesson for all this. That because of Jesus you can be like all the faithful men and woman through the ages and be all that you can be if you follow the example of the women in Jesus’ life. Amen.
©The Rev’d Dr. David C. Nelson
7 August 2011
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