I began reading the late Rachel Held Evans’s writing as a student at Lee University in Cleveland, TN. I was a good church kid who had gone to college in hopes of finding a calling. What that meant, I could not be sure. I grew up in a faith background that did not ordain women, and could not quite feel at home in Pentecostalism. As a young adult on a faith journey, my spirit was asking a thousand giant questions about God, but it seemed that only a few roles and questions were permissible for me as a woman. In Rachel’s writings I found a sort of sympathetic older sister, and was thrilled at the faith questions she was willing to ask. Her searching was grounded in deep love of God and thoughtful study of the Bible, but she didn’t seem interested in conforming to the limits of faith imposed by traditional Christian gender roles. When I finally read her bestselling book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, I had made my way to the Episcopal Church, a denomination that affirms the full inclusion of women in leadership in every role. Although my faith community no longer limited the questions and calls available for women, this book was essential in my faith. It was a love-letter to my younger self, encouraging her questions, her love of scripture, and her refusal to only read the assigned script or accept the limitations of how God might speak to women.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood, now a decade old, was Held Evans’s studious and playful experiment in taking on all of the Bible’s instructions for women, as literally as possible, for one year. From instructions around menstruation to calling her husband “master,” she searched the Bible to explore what biblical womanhood really means. This led to meaningful encounters with God as well as some frustration and silliness around applying ancient texts to modern day Rhea County. But as she explored the theme of “obedience,” looking at stories of obedient women in the Bible, Held Evans found many troubling examples. Identified by biblical scholar Phyllis Trible as “texts of terror,” some of the stories of women’s obedience to men placed women in terrifying danger, objectification, physical harm, and death. These include Hagar’s desperate flight from abusive slave owners into the wilderness in Genesis 21; the daughter of Jephthah, foolishly and needlessly sacrificed in Judges 11; the woman who, attempting to flee a dreadful husband, was abandoned, abused, killed and desecrated in Judges 19; and the princess Tamar, raped, rejected, and shamed by her brother and family in 2 Samuel 13.
These stories are often passed by in Sunday school lessons and pulpits. They are hard to preach, and leave us with a lot of open questions about God’s will and God’s people. How can we find hope or a hero in stories like these? And yet, they are part of what we have inherited as scripture, part of the library of books where Christian believe we meet God. The biblical authors, rabbis, and early church fathers who determined the Biblical canon were led by the Holy Spirit to preserve these horrible tales, to remind us that we must reckon with the worst atrocities and bear witness to our sisters’ suffering. If we are willing to reckon with them, to read these texts with care and curiosity, these stories may break our hearts. They may invite us to be loving and courageous witnesses to the suffering of women, as they remind us that many women and girls today continue to suffer in trafficking, parental abuse, domestic violence, and incest. They may offer us an acknowledgement of the abuses we have suffered, or call us to repent of harm we have perpetrated. When we read and consider these scriptures, we turn our ears to the voices of women that have been silenced too often.
In honor of Women’s History Month and inspired by A Year of Biblical Womanhood, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and Keith Memorial UMC are listening to the stories and questions of these and other women in scripture. On March 27th at 7:00 p.m. at Keith, all are invited to “The Sisters Speak: A Service of Scripture and Prayer.” In this special worship service, we will remember these stories of women in the Bible, pray, and reflect together. We will refuse to only read the assigned script or accept the limitations of how God might speak to women, remember these heroes of our faith, and hear their voices speaking.