Jesus and Women in Leadership

Copyright, October 2004

JESUS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

By Philip E. Friesen

Presented at the University of Minnesota Atheist and Secular Humanist Society

Forum on Religion and Oppression of Women

October 18, 2004

Darwin’s law is based upon competition, adaptation, and survival of the fittest. Based upon Darwin’s law, early human civilizations developed three fundamental social structures for regulating society, patriarchy, slavery, and monarchy. Under this system man ruled over woman, masters ruled slaves, and kings ruled everybody. This was the unchallengeable law of nature, and when Jesus was born nobody would think of suggesting otherwise, except Jesus. Please let me show you how he began to challenge these supposedly fundamental and unchanging realities.

One day Jesus took his students on a field trip to Samaria. At lunch time they stopped in a small village to buy lunch, and when the disciples tried to place their order, they were shocked to hear the words, “Sorry we don’t serve Jews here. Go back to Jerusalem.” They disciples were ready to call in bulldozers and level the village. But Jesus calmed them down and took them to the next village. The disciples probably didn’t even realize that had the Samaritans visited Jerusalem, they would have gotten the same treatment. In this story we can see how Jesus began to prepare his disciples to examine their own racist attitudes, and when we read the story in Acts, how non-Jews began to freely join the movement, then you will understand how well the disciples learned the lesson. They created a multicultural church in spite of all kinds of opposition from people with very racist attitudes, which I could show you in detail if you ever enroll in one of my classes.

Well, in our story, Jesus and his disciples went on to the next village. We don’t know whether the next story actually occurred on the same day. Perhaps it was on another of Jesus field trips to the Samaritan ghetto, but I like to think it happened on that very same day.

It was an hour past lunchtime when Jesus and his students arrived at the next village.

Jesus was not only hungry and tired, he was also sick of his students complaining and moaning about how terrible the Samaritans were. They had suggested that Jesus offer a prayer for fire to fall out of heaven and burn up the Samaritans like in the story of the great prophet Elisha in the Old Testament. They arrived at the village well located just outside village. Jesus sat down and said, “You guys go buy some lunch now, show some respect for the Samaritans, and they’ll probably do business with you.” Soon after the disciples left, a village woman came by for some water. She put down her water jug, and Jesus said to her,

“Woman, give me a drink please, hey, I’m dying of thirst.” She looked startled.

“Jews don’t talk to Samaritans,” she said, “Just what do you want?” Well, when she and Jesus had finished talking, she had told him her whole life story, in fact with his keen people insights, he really had told her her story, always being a jump ahead of her, enticing all the dicey stuff out about her 5 divorces and her new boyfriend, and how everybody called her a whore, so that she preferred coming to the well at noon when none of the other women were there to harass her. As they talked, it seemed that Jesus always knew what was coming next, and she knew that here was someone who could understand her.

When the disciples got back they were astonished. Jesus had broken the rules again. In Jesus time, not only did Jews not talk to Samaritans if they could possibly avoid it, but rabbis didn’t talk to women in public. Men were holier than women, and rabbis holier than anybody, and if a rabbi talked a woman, she might make him think thoughts that would be less than holy; so rabbis didn’t usually want to take that risk. That’s why the disciples were astonished.

In this story we can see how Jesus taught his disciples, and they learned their lessons well. In the book of Acts after Jesus put the disciples in charge, women began gradually to move into positions of leadership. In fact, one feminist scholar has determined from a study of Romans 16 that fully 1/3 of the leadership to whom Paul wrote his letter to Rome were women. (And I submit to you that that is far more balanced than the United States congress or the Minnesota legislature.) The entry of women into leadership created a lot of confusion because it broke cultural norms, and you can read about that confusion in the seemingly contradictory statements Paul wrote later on this subject, but that’s what one should expect in a time of momentous change. It’s not easy to make necessary changes, and at the same time keep from offending your culture and inviting criticism.

We can see what an effective teacher and agent of social change that Jesus was. He said that his teaching would be like yeast in a loaf of bread, gradually multiplying and spreading until the whole world would be affected. Whether one is Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, or atheist, everyone in the world has been affected by Jesus. Wherever people have truly taken his teachings seriously, human rights and women’s dignity have improved for Christians and non-Christians alike. I am convinced that if it weren’t for Jesus, we would all still assume patriarchy, slavery, and monarchy to be the natural order of things, because they are the natural order of things apart from supernatural grace.