States of BLISS & Yearning// Five Missing Women

John Bell talks about five women who, without them, we may not understand the exact kind of courage we need. But not we, as in all of us, but we, as in all of us women. In the story of Moses, Shiprah and Puah (who were midwives) defied the government because they felt it was wrong to kill all of the newborn male babies, per Pharaoh's request. They flat out lied to him in order to save hundreds of lives. The other three women, for the most part, are not mentioned in the Bible but are in the Talmud (ancient Jewish commentary). The other three women are as follows: Jochabed (Moses' mom), Miriam (Moses' sister) and Bithiah (Pharaoh's daughter who picked up Moses from the river). All five of these women worked to defy the norm just to save a single baby's life.

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For some of us, our denominations still do not allow women to be in the pulpit, or even some of our friends do not thing we belong in the pulpit. For some, they are allowed, but the church's bigger task is "empowering women in the Church by allowing their aspirations, their insights, their defiance, their passions, to be put fully at the service of the Gospel "(90). We aren't there yet. "How long O Lord" the psalmist cries on in Psalm 13:

(MSG version)

^1-2 Long enough, God— you've ignored me long enough.
I've looked at the back of your head
long enough. Long enough
I've carried this ton of trouble,
lived with a stomach full of pain.
Long enough my arrogant enemies
have looked down their noses at me.

^3-4 Take a good look at me, God, my God;
I want to look life in the eye,
So no enemy can get the best of me
or laugh when I fall on my face.

^5-6 I've thrown myself headlong into your arms—
I'm celebrating your rescue.
I'm singing at the top of my lungs,
I'm so full of answered prayers

I don't think this is God's doing, as this Psalm kind of suggests. "I want to look life in the eye, so no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face." We're all bound to fall on our face sometime. And it is in those moments that our enemies (safe to say, at this point, men) will take that moment of vulnerability and make it the purpose for denying our ability to be ministers. They just can't handle the fact that they fall on their faces sometimes too. They have looked down their noses long enough. it is our turn. Our turn to fight back. Our turn to be courageous. Our turn to take what is important to us and do something about it. Our turn to be heroines.

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Everyone must remember these women. Women need to remember them so as to take on their courage. Men need to remember them because they are the ones who still, in 2010, have the ability to change the systems.

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Yesterday, in Rev. Hewitt's sermon (at Ivanhoe UCC in Mundelein) he mentioned that Tabitha, in the story of Acts, was claimed a disciple because of her life-giving acts. This is the only time disciple was used in a feminine form in the Bible... that means that Tabitha truly was a disciple. And when people use the argument that women can't be in ministry because all of Jesus' followers were male, we now have something to counteract that. We are just as capable. God calls us all to ministry in all kinds of ways and no person can take that from us.

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I am proud to belong to a denomination that ordained the first woman in the 19th Century and continued to ordain women... because, there is neither "jew nor gentile, slave or free, male or female" for we are ALL one in Christ Jesus. Claim your passions and aspirations and pursue them.

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"Remember them, especially Shiphrah and Puah, because they share the profession of midwife with God who, when the waters break, delivers her people" (92).