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. 

Worthy to be Unworthy

A while ago I heard a young woman express concern over hearing her mother recite the words in the Roman Catholic Mass before receiving the Eucharist;

 “I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed.” 

She feared that it wasn’t good for anyone to be saying “I am not worthy” on a regular basis. 

I can understand where she was coming from, but it frustrated me that she seemed to be misunderstanding words that were being said in a specific context of a ritual. It frustrated me more that I didn’t have a ready baked response to flow out from my mouth in cohesive language. So, I stayed silent.

Months later, I’m only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to thinking this through, but here is my response-in-progress to this young woman’s fear. 

It is my impression that her comment arose from a misconception that Christianity requires one to lose all self-esteem and that this breeds a low or negative view of self which is in turn detrimental to the health of the self. I have recently come across a book by a Christian author that perpetuates this notion that self-esteem is a dirty word amongst Christians. I do balk at the cult of self-worship, leading to the delusion of self-perfection and self-salvation, in our world today. But I felt a fiery opposition within me towards this author’s conclusions that a Christian sense of self equated to an annihilation of self. Bear with me here.

I write in light of the presumption that God is who He is. The very presumption of God immediately means that God exists in and of Himself and that we exist in relationship to God. We did not think up God, God thought up us. 

I am not worthy does not mean I am worthless. God by His very nature is not worthless and so if we are made in His Image then we are not worthless. A few really important verses in the Bible come to my mind when understanding self-image and self-esteem in the radiant, truth-light of Jesus...

Genesis 1 verse 27 

“So God created mankind in his own image,
   in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

 and…

 Psalm 139 verse 14 

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

As well as,

Romans 3 verses 23+24 

“Everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence. But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.”

And…

Romans 8 verses 1+2

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

So...

Saying “I am not worthy” in this context is not, and should not be, condemnation of self. 

Let’s remember the context for which these words of liturgy were designed.

The eucharist. The remembrance of Jesus’ death on the cross. 

Romans 3 verses 24-26 set the scene for this:

“But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people's sins are forgiven through their faith in him.” 

What makes someone worthy of something? Dictionaries tell me worthiness is about deserving something, being suitable for something.

So who deserves to share the blood and body of Jesus? 

The only thing that makes me suitable, or worthy, to share in Jesus' blood is my sin, my totally depraved, self-seeking human nature! Ironic, in the context of this discussion.

Regardless of whether you believe in the eucharist being the actual stuff itself or the symbol reminding us of it, this is the stuff of rather intimate sharing. 

Permit me to get graphic for a moment: When are bodies and blood ordinarily shared? Sex, Pregnancy and Birth are three that come to mind. In sexual intercourse we share our body, and sometimes  our blood, with another person. In pregnancy a woman allows her body and blood to be shared with her growing child and in birth her body and blood mixes with the child’s body as it enters the world. 

These graphic images are the things in life with the power to initiate and build blood related families. 

Partaking in the body and blood of Jesus Christ is about acknowledging family ties.

It is about FAMILY! Are you part of the family? Then share with us, God says, welcome in, come and celebrate the means of your inclusion into this Family of God. 

But did YOU start this family? Was it your idea to make it open to all?

If I become pregnant and after nine months you come to me and say “I want to give birth to your baby”, I would have to say, “No, you are not worthy.” 

Like a car that is not roadworthy, you are not worthy to give birth to the baby growing inside me. You are just not made for it, there is no way I can move the baby from my womb into yours, without damaging you, me or the baby. 

I am not worthy means I am not God.

This is where the ‘but’ is vital… But only say the word and I shall be healed.

In saying this last part we are in essence saying “I am not worthy but I shall be made worthy.”

In his first letter to the church at Corinth Paul writes: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

“I shall be healed” … “I shall become the righteousness of God”

The ‘I shall’ is important because it shows confidence and belief, not in ourselves but in God to heal. These are the words of a person who is confident in who they are, not down-trodden or lacking self-awareness of self-esteem. “I shall be healed.”

Yes it implies that healing is needed and yes it implies that we are not the ones who control the healing but we do need to allow it and partake in it. It doesn’t negate our presence, power or importance but it shows us our right relationship towards God.

Eugene Peterson’s raw translation of Paul’s letter to the Romans puts if like this: 

“Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.” (chapter 3 verses 23+24)

And I suppose that is where the problem remains for the woman whom I know, and for the multitudes of others who see Christianity as a threat to self-esteem and control.

Why would we want someone else to make us worthy if we can put our faith in our ability to make ourselves worthy?

We did not plan, decide or choose for Jesus to be born onto the earth and to be crucified and to rise from the dead. So how are we deserving of taking part in the celebration of this event in History?

‘I am not worthy’ is not to do with value or self-esteem. It is about identity. 

To say ‘I am worthy’ in this context is to misunderstand who you are. Paradoxically, it is a denial of true self-worth, because your self-worth is in the fact that you were created in the image of God. To say “I am worthy” in this context is saying “I do not need God”, it is to hate the Image you bear in your very being. 

If we are to say in this context, ‘I am worthy’ we are ultimately saying, ‘Jesus, get down off the cross, I’ll get up there myself!’ 

This is where the problem lies. We really do want to be bigger or at least as big as God. That is why it feels easier, and more natural, to put our faith in the belief that there is nothing greater than ourselves in existence. Then Jesus really does become a stumbling block on our journey to being God. 

If we want to be God in this life we have to face up to the reality that sooner or later we are going to get crucified. 

“I am not worthy” is a reality check. It releases us to be who we really are, children of God who are loved madly and deeply and who have been adopted, through the blood of Jesus, into an eternal Family.

Jesus was Breastfed.

I was feeling quite content with the originality of the title of my first blog post, that is until I began some cursory research (aka googling action) and discovered that the originality of my title was being challenged by the presence of at least one facebook site of the same name… not to mention other blog posts on parenting sites all over the web.

Ahh the recurring lesson of humility in the painful truth of ecclesiastes that there be nothing new under the sun.

And yet here it is: the unfortunately common title to herald the loss of my blogging virginity.

Although perhaps there is something original, even unusual, in the personhood of the blogger posting said title. I am no yummy mummy and my breast’s have never lactated. So why on earth would I, a mere heifer, to use farming terminology, speak the language normally reserved for cows? What right have I to partake in this maternal militancy?

Because, yes, I know the title will invite the ‘oh no here comes another militant hippy breast-feeding mother rant’.

Except I am not a mother, but I can’t promise there won’t be militancy in my words. After all I am an evangelical.

I write here as a child of God and a child who was breastfed. And on those rights alone I write these words.

It is not unknown to those who know me well that I love breastfeeding. I have been known to collect the appropriate helpful information from my breastfeeding guru mama and send it out in large brown envelopes to willing pregnant couple recipients. So far all of them have gone on to breastfeed with delight and gratitude for the information.

There are many organisations in Ireland whose diligent volunteers are committed to a labour of love in supporting mothers and families on their breastfeeding and child rearing journeys. La Leche League and Cuidiu are two with which I am familiar.

As I have journeyed in life as a breastfed baby growing into a child and now an adult who remains appreciative and in awe at the wonders of breastfeeding, I have wondered at the seeming lack of appreciation and celebration of this most obviously God designed feeding and bonding apparatus amongst followers of the Designer Himself. It baffles me that breastfeeding is associated most often with those who don’t give glory to the One who created their bodies to do this amazing thing. ‘Mother Nature’ (whoever she is when she’s at home) sweeps up all the credit in my experience. Which brings us onto the afeared cliche of the New Age hippies who all sleep together in one big bed and home school their kids. I can testify to the popularity of breastfeeding amongst those who are also interested in New Age forms of spirituality, and as for co-sleeping and home schooling well I’m not opposed to either actually but that is another conversation for another blog.

The fundamental question is, why do Christian’s seem so shy of breastfeeding? Surely of all people on earth Christians should be breastfeeding with freedom and joy. We celebrate and preach passionately about other gifts from God but when it comes to breastfeeding, well we squirm uncomfortably and if we do feed our babies with our own bodies we make sure we drape a big cloak over them in church. God forbid someone saw a baby suckling from a breast in church. Who are we listening to? God or popular culture? Culture tells us that breasts are purely objects of sexual desire but God made them to be that and so much more! Are we ashamed of how God made us? Are we afraid of letting others see God’s gift in action in public? Are we afraid that we may actually be leaders in challenging cultural norms? Are we worried that our children might begin to see breastfeeding as normal and play breastfeeding their dolls rather than sticking a plastic bottle in their mouths? Christians are so concerned with not embracing certain cultural norms and yet when it comes to bottle feeding we don’t really see it as ignoring an opportunity to celebrate God’s creation. Sometimes I think Christians are more prudish about the way God made our bodies to work so wonderfully than those pagans who seem more liberated to enjoy the fruits of the Almighty's Creation, without acknowledging it as the works of His hands. Wouldn’t it be amazing if women in Ireland knew that to nurse their child amongst Christians was to nurse amongst accepting and supportive people who believe that breasts were designed for feeding children?

Yes I know I could quote bible verses, but you can look them up for yourselves, the bible is FULL of breastfeeding, I don’t need to convince anyone of that, it is there for all to see. Plastic and silicone obviously were not available in biblical times, but now it is the norm in Ireland, and it concerns me when Christians think it normal to choose these methods over what God has designed and provided.

So as Ireland celebrates National Breastfeeding Week I want to call out to anyone who will listen that supporting and encouraging the most natural and God ordained way to nurture new lives is not something to be left to breastfeeding mothers alone. This is a call to those in Ireland who call themselves followers of the living God who made ALL things, including milk producing breasts, and called them GOOD. It is a call to my fellow brothers and sisters who seek to follow a most definitely breastfed Christ to use your minds, bodies and voices to glorify God in every way possible.

A caveat. I am not here to bulldoze anyone into anything, or to arouse guilt, but I do write this as a loving challenge to Christians to question their motivations and attitudes towards breastfeeding, especially attitudes towards doing so in public and with babies over six months old. I realise that the topic is part of a larger web of Christian attitudes towards the body, many of which I believe are in sincere need of examination in light of the Bible’s view of all things physical. I too am a learner in this field of bringing my attitudes in line with those of Christ Jesus.

Finally, for any conservatives out there who are still fearing the breast, turns out John Calvin was a bit of a Christian Lactivist, so to make my words seem gentle, I will leave the last hardcore words with him:

John Calvin, in commenting on Genesis 21 verse 7 states: 

". . .the Lord does not in vain prepare nutriment for children in their mothers' bosoms, before they are born. But those on whom he confers the honor of mothers, he, in this way, constitutes nurses; and they who deem it a hardship to nourish their own offspring, break, as far as they are able, the sacred bond of nature. If disease, or anything of that kind, is the hindrance, they have a just excuse; but for mothers voluntarily, and for their own pleasure, to avoid the trouble of nursing, and thus to make themselves only half-mothers, is a shameful corruption."