Month: August 2017

Some questions about biblical womanhood, because I’m not clear

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 2 Comments

jaelSo.  The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood just came out with a statement, which I have questions about, but before I get to those, I have some questions about biblical womanhood, because I’m not clear which woman/women of the Bible I am supposed to be like.  I say that as someone who’s been a church goer and Christian for 45 years.  I’ve studied the Bible probably more than some, and I have some questions.

I could ask the five women on the council what they think, although none claims to be a Biblical scholar, so maybe I should ask the men.  At any rate, here is what I’m wondering about.

Should my biblical role model be Eve, the first woman to disobey God?

Should my biblical role model be Noah’s wife, who evidently did so little during the flood that she didn’t even merit a name?

Should my biblical role model be Sarah, who finished late in the game and had only one son, who pretended to be her husband’s sister, who laughed at God, who banished her slave and the mother of her husband’s other son to the desert?

Should my biblical role model be Dinah, horrifically raped, whose violation led to the circumcision and then murder of her assailants?

Should my biblical role model be Puah and Shiphrah, Hebrew midwives who risked Pharoah’s wrath and punishment by pulling a child from the river?

Should my biblical role model be Miriam, who, among other things, danced?

Should my biblical role model be Deborah, the Sandra Day O’Conner of her day?

Should my biblical role model be Jael, who killed the leader of her enemy by driving a tent pole through his head while he slept?

Should my biblical role model be the wife in Proverbs 31, the Enjoli woman of her time, who did everything except sleep?

Or should I look to the Christian scripture?  Should my biblical role Mary, who sang about toppling kings from their thrones and cradled the body of her dead son?

Should my role model be Mary Magdalene, who (as you know if you read the Bible) was not a prostitute, but the first female apostle, who (as far as we know) never married or had children?

Should my role model be Lydia, the real housewife of Thytira, who ran with the big dogs and made a lot of money and then opened her household to complete strangers who were in need?

Should my role model be Joanna, Phoebe, Prisca, and Aquila, deaconesses who took care of people?

Should my role model be the thousands of unnamed women in the Bible who made fabric and clothing, tended the fields, kept the fires burning, birthed baby after baby after baby, raised children, and endured second-class citizenship but kept the faith throughout?

I’m so not clear here.  But here’s what I think.  That if I’m to model the biblical womanhood of any of these women, I should be reaching out the vulnerable, pulling strangers out of the flood, breaking rules that make no sense and are not just, feeding people, and taking strangers into my home.  I should be singing and dancing and taking leadership roles.

But as far as I know, if I am to follow the example of biblical womanhood as set forth in this scripture that I love and wrestle with, then I don’t need to be writing statements about sexual morality and who is and isn’t a sinner.   None of them did that.

Thank God.

Thinking small

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 5 Comments

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baby Jesus in a locket

I’ve been distracted from writing these past few months because I’ve taken up paper mosaics, which involves cutting up previously used paper and using it to create something else.

I blame the coloring books I had dallied with earlier in the year, and the move from there to some very amateur illustrations for early reader books my friends are making for children in Ethiopia.

And then – oh, and then!  I decided to make a mosaic out of all my old to-do lists, and behold – the Flower of Accomplishment!

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this is not the finished product, but you get the idea

Then our children’s ministry director was recycling all the old Sunday School lithographs – the ones with the white, Van Dyke-bearded Jesus, teaching the well-behaved and well-dresssed children, so I took a bunch of those and cut them up and made an icon of a saint I wish existed: Martha (as in Luke 10), Patron Saint of Clergywomen.

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Yes, she is holding a baby and a plunger and if you have ever been a clergywoman (or a director of Christian Education) you will understand why.

Then I thought that Martha looked a little formal and prim, and I remembered my dear mentor friends Lucy and Carol, and am finishing up the icon of another saint I wish existed: Sarah (as in Genesis), Patron Saint of the Old Broads of the Church.

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Sarah likes breaking the rules, ditching the collar and the dyed hair, without the sedate dark blue background but with a scandalous red one

She has eschewed the clerical collar, but is holding the ubiquitous cup of coffee and making a peace sign.  She also keeps Jesus close to her heart.  I’m not happy with her face yet, and I did some old school cutting and pasting to straighten her out, but she’s almost there.  I think I have one more Patron Saint icon in me, but I’m not sure yet who she is.  Jael, Patron Saint of the Mansplained?  Eve, Patron Saint of the Rule Breakers?

Another favorite Old Broad of the Church, Margaret, would ask then ask me, “What have you learned from this?”

I have learned that when you take something very big and make it very small, you have a new appreciation for its beauty and character.  Those old Sunday School lithographs were beautiful, and there are some beautiful pieces of quarter-inch squares in these pieces.  And I have learned that when you take something very big and make it very small and then combine all that smallness to make something big again, you make a brand new thing that still has characteristics of the old thing.  I think family systems theory would support that.

I have also learned that I am developing my patience muscles, which is a good thing, and that somehow these mosaics have to do with call and story telling.  Martha and Sarah, like all the saints, are shaped by the stories that are in their DNA.  Maybe we are too, shaped by the stories that get cut up and reorganized and glued down in different ways.

I got to hold a day-old baby yesterday.  He is a tiny thing, made up of cells and molecules and atoms and genetic pieces of his mom and dad.  His story has just begun, but he is already shaped the stories that surround his family and their friends.  What a miraculous thing this is, this life, these tiny things that turn out, in the end, to be enormous.

Perhaps it goes without saying 

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 3 Comments

Perhaps it goes without saying that I am horrified by the events in Charlottesville. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that I know I have not done enough to confront the racism in my heart or my community. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that I believe white supremacy is an evil lie. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that I think all of us – and I mean all – are created in the image of God. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that I find Facebook a great place to say things that aren’t followed up by action. 

Perhaps all those things and more go without saying. 

But the thing is, I haven’t said them, so there is no way anyone can really know what I think or feel or believe. 

So let me say this:

Hate is wrong. 

Racism is evil and has deep roots and long tentacles. 

White supremacy won’t make America great; in fact, it will be the death of us. 

Perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway.