RevGals Friday Five: Summer Reruns

For the last two months I’ve had my nose to the grindstone getting Women Who Didn’t Shut Up & Sit Down written and published. Now it’s time to have some fun. I’m part of a marvelous group of women called the RevGalBlogPals. It’s a blog ring for women in ministry and leadership positions in the church, women in seminary or college, and those who support them. Every Friday there’s always a fun meme to help us get to know each other and meet new people. Here is this week’s Friday Five.

Songbird muses: “It’s that time of year when the only new things on television are music/dance competitions (the 21st century answer to variety shows?). Yes, it’s the season of reruns.

This week the clock turned back to last fall and the Glee kids went back to school and still got “slushied,” and Michael hired his nephew on The Office, which was not something even he would be likely to repeat.

In honor of this annual Time Warp, please share five things worth a repeat. These could be books, movies, CDs, recipes, vacations, or even TV shows.”

Here are my reruns; things I can read, watch, or listen to over and over and over again.

  • Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. One of my favorite books. I reread it this spring for One Book One Chicago, and got to hear Neil Gaiman speak at the Harold Washington Public Library. I stood in line for three hours to make sure I’d get a good seat. I am such a fangirl.
  • Firefly and Serentiy. Wash and Zoe have what I consider to be the perfect biblical marriage. When River decided to fight, she decided when, where, and why. Female sovereignty at its best. Need I say more?
  • CSI:NY. I tuned in for Gary Sinise. I stayed for the rest of the sexy cast. The boyfriend/fiance of my main character in the novel I’m working on is based on Det. Don Flack. Yes, I know how fangirl pathetic this makes me sound. See 1st rerun.
  • Anything by The Cure. I’ve been bopping out and dancing to The Cure since the 80s, and I have no plans to stop. When I need a break I throw in one of my many CDs and become a Love Cat (YouTube video) bouncing all over the living room.
  • Little Women. This has been a favorite book since my early 20s. I don’t know why I didn’t read it earlier, but I’m glad I did read it. It’s one of those books I go back to again and again and again to visit old friends.

I’m also going to post this over at Home Sanctuary for the Company Girl Friday Coffee to start having fun with that group again too. Warning: when developing and launching a product, you will lose contact with everyone you ever met  online or in real life. Just so you know.

What is Home Sanctuary and who are the Company Girls? It’s a wonderful community Rachel Anne Ridge created to help us make our homes sanctuary. You won’t find any Martha Stewarts here; just women who want their houses/apartments/condos to be homes, and Rachel shows how to do that.

It’s Friday. Take a break. Relax. Have some coffee, and tell me:

What are some of your favorite reruns? Who are some of your old friends?

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Two women leaders in the early church: Dorcas and Lydia

Today is the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist. Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and Acts in the New Testament. In Acts, he tell of two women religious leaders that you probably never learned about in Sunday School: Dorcas and Lydia.

Dorcas

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord (Acts 9:37-42).

You almost miss Dorcas’ story. After all most of Acts 9 is taken up with Saul’s conversion (later to become the apostle Paul) to Christianity after leading the persecution against the early church. So after Godde literally threw Saul off his ass (sorry I just cannot resist that one), he went blind, was healed and started preaching, the focus of the story quietly changes to Dorcas. By the time we meet her, she has died. This is a great lost to her community because she took such good care of them. And she took very good care of those who were considered the least of these: widows. Woman without a husband had no social standing at this time. They were normally destitute women who were forced to beg or to become prostitutes to support themselves and their children. If a woman did not have family at this time, she was in a very precarious place. Dorcas made sure these women had clothes.

When the story tells us Dorcas made the clothes, it meant a little bit more than she cut some material and sewed it. First she would have to spin the fiber into thread then weave it on her loom for the tunics and clothing she made. This was truly a labor of love on her part to make sure those in her community were at least dressed. She may have also weaved pieces for local merchants to sell in order to support herself (there is no mention of a husband). As long as a woman had a loom and access to wool or flax, she could make a living. Apparently not all the widows Dorcas knew had their own looms to make their own clothes or clothing to sell. Dorcas made sure they had the clothing they needed to survive.

Her illness and death was a big loss to the community, so they sent messengers to a nearby town because they heard Peter was there. Peter came, and the widows showed him the clothing Dorcas made for them. Peter responded to their grief. After sending everyone outside, he prayed and then said to her, “Tabitha get up.” She rose from the dead and was restored to her community. News spread. More people believed in Godde.

Lydia

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.’ And she prevailed upon us (Acts 16:11-15).

Paul and his traveling companions arrived in Philippi. But there was no synagogue for them to worship at, so they decided to go to the river on the Sabbath where there was a place of prayer. Lydia was at the river. She was “a worshiper of God,” and listened to Paul’s teachings. In fact, we are told “the Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” In the next verse she and her household were baptized, and she urged Paul and his travelers to stay in her house. Lydia was the first convert to Christianity in Europe.

Lydia was a businesswoman, “a dealer of purple cloth” from Thyatira. Purple dye was a symbol of power and honor in the ancient world, and it was the most expensive and sought after dye in the Roman world. Thyatira was the capitol of the industry and renowned for its purple dyes. One had to have plenty of capital to deal in purple dye and the making of purple garments for sale. Lydia was a career woman, rich, the head of her household, and Acts 16:40 implies that by the end of Paul’s stay in Philippi, a new church was meeting in Lydia’s home. All of this could mean that Lydia was the overseer or pastor of the first church plant in Europe.

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The Video Will Be Up Tomorrow

I have the video recorded, but it hadn’t uploaded to YouTube when I needed to leave for the play tonight. I thought I would post it when I got home, but YouTube informed me it didn’t upload due to some unknown error after I left. I will get it live tomorrow.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who commented yesterday and today. Thank you for your encouragement and support. I will reply tomorrow. I just didn’t have time today.

If you’re in the Chicago area, my friend Susan Fey is in a tremendous play, The Lady’s Not for Burning at the Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre at No Exit Cafe. I highly recommend the trip. The cast is phenomenal, and the food is good. What more could you ask for?

And now my dear readers, I am calling it a day. Good night.

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The surgery went well and I'm doing fine

I wanted to let everyone know that the tubal ligation went well, and I’m OK. I’ve spent the last two days being a bum, taking naps and watching movies, including Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Coraline, and Under the Tuscan Sun. Today I felt like I had enough brain power to read, so I finally started The Secret Life of Bees. Tomorrow I plan more of the same. I might actually get out of the condo tomorrow and go up on the roof for a little sun. I haven’t bee out since Thursday. Probably be good for me. I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Thanks for all of your prayers and good wishes!

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Why Godde?

After I posted my new About Me page, two different people wanted to know why I use Godde instead of God and thought a link should be added to explain the term. One of the challenges The SITS Girls Building a Better Blog Challenge is to answer readers’ questions, so I thought this would be a perfect time to post on why I use the word Godde.

Why Godde and not God? Godde is combination of God and Goddess to show that the Divine transcends gender: Godde is neither male nor female and both male and female since Godde created both men and women in the image of Godde. I believe that  Godde is Mother as well as Father. Instead of using the standard Lord that’s used to translate Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures, I use Sophia-Yahweh or Sophia. I will lean more towards feminine references to Godde on my blog as masculine references are just about all you hear in church and society to refer to Godde. I use exclusively feminine pronouns for Godde for this reason as well. You’ll be seeing Sophia and Mother a lot on this blog, and I hope it doesn’t offend you. I hope it will help you to see Godde in new ways and start to walk on new paths with this Godde who cries out like a woman in labor to bring forth her people and nurses them at her own breast (Deut. 32:18, Psalm 22:10; 131:2; Isaiah 42:14; 49:15; 66:13).

Thank you Selena and Margaret for the question!

Do you have any questions that I can answer in future blog posts? If I answer your question I will link to your blog (unless you want to be anonymous).

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Reading Deprivation Is Over

I survived four days of no reading and no computer. I learned that I am The Queen of Procrastination. If I don’t read, I watch TV. If I turn off the TV, I listen to NPR. If I turn off the radio, I take naps. It wasn’t pretty. This makes me very glad that I signed up for Cairene MacDonald’s Project Front Burner class that is designed to get procrastinators like me off my ass and doing something. I think the accountability will be good for me. Have you been putting of something? Have you been working on a project for a long time (like three years), like me? You might want to sign up for Cairene’s class.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to look into that whole accountability thing, if for no other reasons to make me set goals and deadlines for those goals. I’m really, really bad about thinking, “Hey, it’ll happen. Inspiration will strike some time today.” Yes, you’re right. I do know better.

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Who supported Jesus out of their own means?

Soon afterwards [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources (Luke 8:1-3, NRSV).

One of the arguments that complementarians make for women staying at home is that it is God’s plan for men to work and financially support the family. As long as I’ve been on the other side of the argument, pointing out that women have always worked and supported their families monetarily, it was only last week when it hit me what these verses were saying. I’ve used these verses to show that women were disciples and followed Jesus in his travels just as the 12 did. But last week it hit me between the eyes: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna plus other women “provided for them out of their resources.” The Greek word translated as resources can mean property, possessions, resources, or means. These women financially supported Jesus and his ministry from their own finances.

I’m sure some would say that what they gave Jesus was really the money their husbands made. This could be true for Joanna, but she is the only one with a husband in this passage. Mary Magdalene had no husband, and Susanna is not paired with a husband in these verses. This means their money was theirs. We don’t know how they had these resources. Maybe they were business women like Lydia and Priscilla. Maybe they were widows. But neither woman, nor her resources, is tied to a husband.

It’s a little thing. A little thing that can be easily overlooked. But I think that we should pay attention to this little thing. Women who weren’t tied to a husband, and a married woman who isn’t tied to her home, are following Jesus all over the countryside and supporting him. These little things start adding up to show that roles women played in the Bible are much broader than mother and wife. It also shows the freedom Jesus allowed women to have in his own ministry. He didn’t tell these women to go back home and take care of their husbands and children (and he didn’t tell them to go home, get married, and start having kids). He welcomed them and accepted their support.

These three verses in Luke give us a glimpse of the broader role of women in Jesus’ ministry beyond the home.

Originally posted at The Scroll, April 22, 2010.

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Does It Really Mean "Helpmate"?

I had just started working on my thesis in seminary. Tired of being asked if I was going to seminary to be a pastor’s wife, I decided to write a biblical theology of single women in ministry, showing that Godde’s calling for a woman was not dependent on her marital state. My thesis advisor, Dr. Joseph Coleson (professor of Old Testament Studies at Nazarene Theological Seminary), looked at my outline and thesis proposal and told me that I needed to add a chapter addressing the Creation Story in Genesis 1:1–2:25. He thought that I needed to deal with the second creation account found in Gen. 2:5-25, where woman is created to be an ezer cenegdo to the man. If the Hebrew phrase simply meant, “helper” then could a woman hold a leadership position in the church, let alone a single woman? But if that isn’t what ezer cenegdo meant, then that would open up the vistas I needed to write and successfully defend my thesis. Defend, not in front of the professors at seminary, but to defend against those who say woman was created to be a wife and mother, and only a helpmate for her husband. Dr. Coleson said the translators who translated our Bibles into English know that “helpmate” is a gross mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase, and he did not see how they could look themselves in the mirror day-to-day keeping that misintepretation in the Bible. It is the only time I saw him angry. So what does this little Hebrew phrase mean?

(more…)

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Book Review: After You Believe by N. T. Wright

Have you ever thought: “I’m saved, now what?” Or “I know I’m a Christian, but there has to be more to Christian living than waiting around for heaven.” If so, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters* is the book for you. Bishop N. T. Wright (Anglican Bishop of Durham, England) has taken up the topic that most Protestants have been shying away from or vilifying for the last 500 years: good works. First Wright picks up with the topic of his last book, Surprised by Hope*, which corrected one of the biggest fables of Christianity: that heaven is the ultimate destination of the Christian. Our ultimate hope is not as disembodied spirits somewhere out there. The true Christian hope is bodily resurrection and inhabiting the new earth and new heavens. After You Believe tells us what difference our ultimate hope makes in living this life in this body (both individual and corporate) on this earth. Because we are called to be priests and one day will rule creation with Christ in the new earth, we need to learn the ways and language of that new world and that new way of life.

The way we learn to live this new life and prepare for our roles in God’s new creation, is through learning and living the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. This goes beyond a “keeping the rules” mentality or the “if you go with your heart you can’t go wrong” philosophy. Like learning a new language or learning how to play an instrument, this is not easy or natural at first. But the more we keep committing ourselves to choosing the ways of faith, hope, and love, the easier it becomes until it is second nature. Wright ties the Christian virtues to the fruit of the Spirit: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, greatheartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control” (p. 194). He notes that “‘the fruit of the Spirit’ does not grow automatically. The nine varieties of fruit do not suddenly appear just because someone has believed in Jesus, has prayed for God’s Spirit, and has then sat back and waited for ‘fruit’ to arrive” (p. 195, emphasis author’s). Just like gardening which takes pruning, watering, mulching, and looking out for blight and mildew to grow plants, we each have to cultivate a life in which the fruit of the Spirit can grow. For those who think that the Spirit’s fruit does come automatically Wright points them to the last characteristic on the list: self-control. No one comes by self-control automatically: it’s something everyone has to work on and develop throughout his or her life.

The final chapter of the book describes how virtue can be practiced, and how we learn to start living as the priests and co-rulers that we will be in the new creation. Wright calls it the virtuous circle, and the circle includes Scripture, stories, examples, community, and practices. It is by engaging with this circle as both individuals and communities, that our character will be transformed and loving God and loving others will become our second nature. These practices will prepare us for the new language and the new way of life that we will have in the new creation. There is an excellent “For Further Reading” appendix for those who want to delve more into virtue, Christian virtue, ethics, and character.

My few criticisms about the book have more to do with style than content. Wright does get repetitive, and you go over a lot of the same ground again. I was also annoyed when he would bring up a subject then say we would get to that later on in the book. It happens numerous times, and I thought: wait till we get to that part before bringing it up. There are also several occasions where he makes a comment, then says something to the effect of, but we can’t go into that here; it’s another book. If those asides are any indication, there are several more books on the way.

Overall I thought this was a good, informative book, and it starts to fill a gaping void in Protestant practice: where do good works and character fit into the Christian life without becoming something we have to do to earn salvation. I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about how to live as a Christian in this body, in this world, at this time.

*Affliate Link

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free by The Ooze Viral Bloggers in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This article has been reposted at The Ooze Viral Bloggers.

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