Burning Heart opens Can of Worms

Last week a man who loves Jesus said ‘God gave Christianity a masculine feel’. A woman who loves Jesus read the man’s words and felt fire burn in the middle of her chest, right between her breasts. And as this fire had been sparking up quite a bit lately, she thought it was time to let it out. 

And this is what she said...

I am a woman. I have a vagina and breasts, a womb and long hair. When I was little I wanted to be a nurse, then a gymnast, then a make-up artist or an actress, then a spy or a secret agent. I played with barbies and sylvanians. I made a bow and arrow out of stick and string. I got a gun that made shooting noises until the batteries ran out. I smoked matches like cigarettes and pretended to be on the run from the law with plastic bags of flour as my illicit substances. 

I played in fields and climbed trees and built camps with old car tires as toilet seats. I wore tracksuits in dark colours and was jealous of my friends who had pink and white socks and were allowed to grow long hair. I minded dolls like they were real babies and put clothing up my top pretending to be pregnant. 

I planned to get married at twenty three and have babies at twenty five. I wanted to be a mother and be appreciated and accepted for being a mother and not asked ‘will you be going back to work?’ I wanted to be appreciated for already being at work. 

My dad cooks curries, makes jam and goes on paper-making courses. He collects interesting polyester materials to make cards out of distressed fabrics. My husband (whom I married at twenty three) writes poetry and paints driftwood and cooks better lasagne than me. My dad bought me hiking boots that I still wear today and took me camping and orienteering and leads mountain hikes to this day. My husband preaches sermons, writes stories and debates most intelligently and lovingly about all things theological. My husband cries, brews beer, loves chopping wood with a big axe and being out in the wild. My dad hugs me and asks me how I’m feeling and listens to my answer. 

My mother sang hymns to me and my big sisters told me stories at bedtime. My mother is educated and opinionated. My mother made biscuits and hosted birthday parties. My mother is a teacher and a La Leche League leader. My mother hosts and helps lead bible studies in her home and church. My father was chairman of the Irish Farmer’s Association and mid-wife to thousands of cows. My father taught me to drive tractors, deliver calves and change the tire on my car. My father taught english, history and geography before going into farming and forestry. He teaches english to non-nationals, helps adults learn to read and write, runs discussion groups with wheelchair users and volunteers to move big stones around in the rain to make paths on irish mountains.

My father stayed at home with my eldest sister for the first year of her life while my mother went back teaching (until she couldn’t stand leaving her baby every day). My father carried his baby daughters around in an african sling and put a car seat in the back of his tractor so we could be at work with him. My mother breastfed me until I was four, prayed with me, spent hours helping me with homework and disciplined me with careful instruction and love. 

I have learned how I want to mother my own children from both my father and my mother. Though the children at twenty five plan has since been rearranged.

This is not an exhaustive collection of experiences and attributes of influential men and women in my life. And yours will surely be different to mine. Feminine and masculine are not exhaustive in their traits and trends.

I am a woman. I am feminine. I teach, I direct, I lead, I serve, I counsel and I create. I learn from men, women and children. I love baking and cooking and doing laundry. I change wheels on cars and help my husband learn to drive. I have worked with men years older than I in the area of personal development through drama. I’ve been told that I should not lead a bible study or a church service. I’ve been thanked for teaching male and female children in Sunday school. I’ve publicly proclaimed and taught God’s truth to children, teenagers, women and men in church buildings and market places, at kitchen tables and in cars, in youth clubs and living rooms, on beaches and in night clubs. I’ve been asked by churches and universities to direct, lead and teach male and female adults in performing a drama of Mark’s Gospel. I’ve been told that I should step back to encourage men to take leadership roles in church. 

I have performed a monologue in a church but would not be allowed to stand up and deliver a sermon in the same setting. Because I am a woman. Because I have a vagina and breasts, a womb and long hair. 

For some time now I have been facing up to painful inconsistencies in attitudes towards and understandings of what it is to be male and female followers of Jesus Christ and what the definition of teaching and preaching actually is.

I have a lot of questions. And I am so sad to notice that when I ask them of people there is often not a real desire to answer, let alone discuss deeply the feelings and experiences at the heart of these questions. 

But I have decided to continue to ask and to continue to seek a clearer understanding. 

“What exactly is feminine and masculine?”

I am a woman but my life has both a feminine and a masculine feel. The world has a feminine and a masculine feel.

I think that it is very obvious from the Bible, from Jesus, from the Church and from the Created Universe, in which God has formed men and women to live in his image, that God has given Christianity both a feminine and a masculine feel. 

Churches need to seriously consider the effects of placing their own, often self-invented rather than biblically deduced, limitations on what women and men can or cannot do. 

In Luke Chapter 10 verse 37-42, Jesus tells Martha that Mary is doing just the right thing sitting at his feet and learning, even though at that time and in that culture her being in that position with Jesus would have meant she was stepping outside the sphere of the home in which women were expected to stay. No wonder Martha was so confused and infuriated by Jesus’ approving response towards and lack of retribution of Mary.  

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

“Why let women learn if we do not expect them to teach?”

God did not limit the spheres to which women are expected to live, work and minister. Men and women chose those limits and those spheres. 

To say that women can lead in one sphere but not another is to fall into the dreaded chasm of separating the sacred from the secular. God is as much Lord over a church pulpit as he is a kitchen sink. The words spoken at a kitchen table are as powerful and effective as those delivered by a preacher in a church building. There is something seriously inconsistent and confusing when one says that you need a penis to pastor and preach in a church but it is ok to do those same actions as a woman if you call yourself a missionary and go to a foreign country or if it is in the realm of women’s only conferences and ministries. 

What I would like to know is WHO is making these distinctions? I fear that we are getting further and further away from the truth of God’s word and more and more comfortable in our own doctrines of gender which are culturally and experientially defined. I will readily admit that my views of men and women are influenced by my experiences in life and culture. So let us at least be honest about this. When this man talks about Christianity having a masculine feel, he means masculine in terms of what he understands masculine to be. And the term masculine looks very different in India than it does in North America, in Ireland than it does in Brazil. 

I heard recently of a young man who was at a Christian conference and went into the kitchen to help wash up after dinner. A male pastor came in and told him to get out of the kitchen because this was the women’s job to do. 

This anecdote hits the nail on the head for me. This is what is happening in churches all across Ireland under the guise of ‘reclaiming true biblical manhood and womanhood’. It is seen in small ways, not just in who does or does not lead our services and teach our children. Announcements call for women to provide ‘tray bakes’ and a cookery demonstration is offered out to women only. My feelings around this are made even more complex by the fact that these restrictions and comments are mostly well meaning and often entirely unconscious.

I love being a woman. I love being married to a man whom I respect and enjoy in all his array of wonderful differences. I love making traybakes and going to cookery demonstrations but so do many men and I don't think that makes them less masculine in God's eyes. Just check out the sunsets, tropical fish and jungle flowers in this world and try tell me God is not into arts and crafts. I know that God made men and women to be different. But I believe that men and women can occupy the same roles and positions in work, in church, in home and in society and can occupy these in very different ways. 

I am not convinced that the Bible teaches me as a Christian woman that my gender defines what I should or should not do in church or in any other setting. I believe that God created me to be a woman, and I don’t want to try to be a man. I have purpose and passion in being a woman. But as a follower of Christ I want my life to be defined by Jesus and not gender. And frankly, I want some discussion generated and explanations provided for the inequality and inconsistency I am currently witnessing and experiencing. 

Let the worms squirm and not be silent.