Video Transcript: Women in the Gospels

In this segment, we're going to talk about women in the Gospels. So we're switching a little  here, from a kind of a general overview, and how people lived into looking at certain texts.  And these are texts from the New Testament, of course. So the study of women in the  gospels, is something that has been, as you can imagine, worked on a lot. And what we're  going to do is not look at every woman who appears in the gospels, but we'll focus on a few  characters in Luke, and in John, and then look just briefly at Mark, and Matthew, and then  some concluding reflections. So in Luke, of course, the the three women who stand out in  Luke's gospel are Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna. And they all happen within the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel, what we call the Infancy stories. And as you probably know, there is another  set of stories in Matthew in infancy stories that really tell the story from the point of view of  Joseph, whereas this one at the beginning, tells the story from the point of view of Mary, and  it is in Luke, that you have these lovely references to Mary who treasures everything, keeping  it in her heart. And it's Mary's song of exultation when she meets Elizabeth, and the two  children, Jesus and John. In their wombs. John leaps for joy, Elizabeth says, so you have these  wonderful stories. And of course, it's in in the Luke's infancy stories, that we have the  shepherds coming to the stable and are our standard Christmas stories. But I want to focus  not on the stories themselves, but on the women. And each of them, in a way functions as a  prophet. Now to back up just a bit, to think about the role of prophecy. We know about the the Old Testament biblical prophets, and so many other people who were called prophets, Miriam.  You know, the sister of Moses, I don't think is called the no I'm sorry she is she is called a  prophet, I take it back. She's called a prophet, and she leads the Israelites, women in a song  of exultation in traditional Middle Eastern societies. It is the role of women to sing a song of  triumph, in times of victory, a song of mourning, in times of defeat, and terrible situations, to  give voice to the experience and the feelings of the people. And that's what Mary does in her  song that we call the Magnificat. That is the it's an echo of another. Hannah, in I Samuel, who  is wanting a child and can't have a child and then Samuel is born. And she bursts forth into a  song, very, very similar to Mary's. When when Luke is composing his account of Mary, in this  situation, he is probably modeling her song on that of Hannah. So there are motifs that are  the same, in particularly the motif of God raises up the lowly and puts down the proud. This  this reversal, it's a social revolution. And we sometimes think of Mary's song as a nice prayer,  but in fact, is proclaiming social revolution. That, that God sees the lowly and those who are  haughty or proud, even those who haven't off well off in life, look out because God is on the  side of the of the oppressed, and the poor, and that's what her song is proclaiming. So Mary in Luke's gospel is she's not called a prophet, but she certainly functions that way and is  recognized that way. Later on Jesus will be recognized as a prophet as well. A prophet is  someone who speaks with the authority of God. Someone who can proclaim to people. What  are God's interests? How does God really want all this done? Elizabeth is the one who receives Mary's message. It is the encounter and the relationship of the two women to each other with  each other and their unborn children that proclaims that, that God's promises are going to be  kept. That's another important motif in Mary's song is that, that God is about to keep God's  promises. And that the this coming, wonderful thing that's going to happen, will indeed fulfill  all of God's promises to Israel to to God's people. The other woman is Anna, who, if you  remember is in the temple. She's a widow. She was widowed very early in life. And she's been devoting the rest of her life to coming to the temple every day, and praying, and she is called  a prophet Simeon just before her is the one who has the canticle this time the song, now you  can dismiss your your servants in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation. Again, it's the  same theme of fulfilling the promises fulfilling God's promises. And Anna this time doesn't,  doesn't have words, but she she certainly does. It says she tells everybody around what she  sees here. And so the the appearance of this child in the temple is the thing that that  provokes that, that reaction, you know that response on the part of a number of people and  and Anna is very much a part of that. And she's a, she's the prophet in the woman prophet in  the temple. The other piece to look two other pieces to point out in Luke's gospel. First of all,  in chapter 8 at the beginning of chapter 8, in Luke, you have a description of a number of  women who are following Jesus, along with the male disciples. The first one is Mary  Magdalene, and we'll talk about her in the next segment. But there are two others there, and 

many others. So you have a mentioned there of women disciples, moving around with Jesus,  very early in the Gospel in chapter 8. No other gospel gives you that piece of information. The others, the other would call the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Mark, Matthew, Mark and  Luke are the Synoptic Gospels. Say, at the time of Jesus' death, the crucifixion. Now there  were this group of women who had come with him from Galilee, but he doesn't he they, Mark  and Matthew, don't mention it until the time of the passion. Luke puts them right in here, and  and says that there is this group of women disciples who are following Jesus along with the  others. And, and, and so there, there's, there's recognition earlier on in the gospel, that, that  they are there. The other unusual thing, it's only in Luke, the group of women that Jesus  encounters on the way to the cross, and they're weeping over him. And he says, Oh, don't  weep over me weep over yourselves, because the time is coming when and it's a prediction of the of the catastrophe to come with the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the  temple. So Luke has a way of highlighting some women characters. And often it is said that  women that Luke is the most favorable gospel toward women. I dispute that because I think  the women in the Gospel of John are so much more interesting. And in the first segment, I talk about this issue of agency. And you could look in both cases in in Luke and John and how  women are exercising agency here. But let's take on the Samaritan woman in chapter 4. I say  take her on because there's so much there and we can't possibly talk about it all. But here  you have this anomaly of the Jesus and his disciples right there in the middle of scenario  whereas we we from other sources, we get the idea that Jews avoided Samaria they didn't  want to go directly through it. And but there he is right the middle. And the unusual time of  the day, it's the middle of the day when women don't go out to the well to get water, they do  it at the cool times of the day, early morning and in the late afternoon. So you have an  unnamed Samaritan woman, she never has a name. And she encounters Jesus who's sitting  there because of the heat of the day and is too hot to travel and they're all sort of lying in the  shade, waiting for the heat to go away. So you'll have the the encounter of Jesus with this  woman. And if you read it carefully, in each case, each step I should say, in each step of the  way, Jesus says something she responds, he takes a little further and assists step by step by  step when he leads her into the point where she recognizes that he's the Messiah, and then  turns around and says, leaves her water jar forgets what she was there for, and runs into town and tells other people. So in John's gospel, you don't have a scene in which Jesus assembles  his male disciples and says, go out to the towns and do this, and this and only take one  person, don't take an extra pair of sandals, and da da da you don't have any of that you don't  have any of these instructions for discipleship in John. What you have is this encounter with a  Samaritan woman, and his showing how to lead someone to say, he models that. And then  she turns around and spreads the word and so she models, discipleship, and she models  apostleship, she, she she models, how in John's community, they want the word to get out.  Martha is also a very interesting character in John's Gospel. And this is in chapter 11, in the  story of the raising of Lazarus. So you have Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus siblings,  three siblings, there Lazarus has died. Jesus hesitates waits to come. And I have always felt  when I read that story, that the actual raising of Lazarus, Lazarus coming out of the tomb is  not the point of the story. It's maybe the climax, it's the thing everybody's waiting for and  happens. But what really is important is the conversation between Jesus and Martha. And the  way in which he leads Martha to face with the Samaritan woman it's the recognition that he's  the Messiah. Here with Martha, it's the recognition that life is knowing Jesus, that, that, that  leading into this, this is deeper understanding of what the resurrection is, and who Jesus is.  That this is really the point. And, and she she finally comes to the acknowledgement that he is the one they've been waiting for the one who is always coming into the world and that that  phrase, I think, should should always be in the in the present tense, because it because it is in the Greek, the one who is coming into the room, not the one who has come the one who is  coming, who is always coming, always arriving. So the Samaritan woman and Martha are  models of faith models of discipleship and models of evangelism, evangelization, and of  preaching the gospel really by their witness. The mother of Jesus is, of course present at Cana she is the one who precipitates the first Jesus' first sign his first manifestation of His glory.  She's unnamed, she's never named. And she's at the cross. And Texas across she has a sister 

named Mary. So that's very puzzling is her name Mary too? She she simply has does not have  a name like the Samaritan woman. They are types. They are they're symbols, they're their  images, they're they're the the, the disciple who needs no name because because Jesus is the one with the name. Jesus is the one to whom they go and so they they are. You know, in  medieval drama, European medieval drama, there was a character called every man who  didn't have a name who spoke the things that needed to be said the interpretation of things  going on. And in a way, the Samaritan woman and Mary function that way, Mary's there at the beginning to inaugurate this manifestation of glory. And she's there at the end, when it is all  accomplished. And the final character is, is Mary Magdalene, who is in all four Gospels, and  we're going to talk about her more in the next segment. But particularly in John, I would single out the episode in chapter 20. She's the first one to the tomb, she sees the tomb is empty.  She doesn't understand. She runs back to tell the disciples, the beloved disciple, who is, of  course, this mysterious character in the Gospel of John goes, and it says, He looked in, he  saw, and he believed. So the beloved disciple is always the one who does the right thing. And  that's another whole thing. But Mary was there first, but she didn't get it the beloved disciple  did. Then you have her back at the tomb. And you have the episode where she, where Jesus  calls her name. And she doesn't recognize him until he says her name. She thinks he's the  gardener, because this is a garden. And that raises the whole question of, did the risen Jesus  look like himself? Did everybody recognize him, which seems like sometimes not until there  was some characteristic thing, remember the story of the disciples in the end of Luke's gospel at Emmaus, where they're walking with him the whole time, and they don't get it, that that's  who he is, until he breaks the bread, and then they recognize it. So that's another whole  thing. But this encounter of Mary Magdalene, with Jesus in the garden, knowing him once he  says her name, she again is a she's a principal character here. But we're going to talk about  her next chapter. Next segment. To just highlight also, this question of, there are women in  Mark and Matthew, there's, there's the Canaanite, or Syrophoenician woman didn't talk about  her in in Mark and Matthew who's safe, to have her child cured, is the thing that that provokes Jesus, really, to give her what she wants very perceptive and persistent. Woman, you have a  persistent widow, of course, also, in Luke, there are other characters. But I just wanted to also say something about the scene in Mark 3 and Matthew 12, in which the family of Jesus does  not come out well, including his mother, where the Jesus's has gone off, and he's preaching in somebody's house, and the word comes to him that his mother and his brothers, his family,  and that could be cousins, I mean, it doesn't have to be literally brothers, but his family are  out there looking for him. And instead of getting up and going out to greet them, or saying,  oh, invite them in. He says, Who are my mother and my brothers, those who hear the word of  God and word of God and keep it? These are my mother and brothers and sisters. And that  scene, of course, is about the emphasis on discipleship. What does it really mean to be Jesus  disciple who is closest to Jesus. At the same time, the family of Jesus, including his mother  don't come off very well. And we have to balance that against the, the role of, of the mother  of Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which she seems to be involved in his ministry at the  beginning in the end. So in other words, we have two different perspectives here on how the  mother of Jesus and his family accepted him that in Mark 3, it says that they came to get him  because they thought he was out of his mind. So in these early stages, you don't have a  family or a mother who understand what is going on. Maybe you could say that later on, she  understood but we have these differences of perspective. And finally the question How did  Jesus treat women? Well, with respect and and again here we have to be careful about anti  Jewish bias Jesus did not deliver them from the law from the oppression of the Jewish law that  that's not it. But you certainly can say the Jewish this sorry that Jesus always treated women  with respect and understanding and compassion. And so I think that is also a very important  point.