Liberating Gender

Ancient Wisdom and the Struggle
Against Patriarchy

Sunday, January 24, 2021 • Third Sunday after Epiphany
Reading: John 7:53-8:11 (New Revised Standard Version)
Pastor Alexis Lillie

My story 
I was filling out a form the other day, and the only choice of profession I was given in the "religion" category was ... clergyMAN. UGH. This is admittedly one small, and not-that-painful-on-its-face story.  But how many of us are confronted daily with these seemingly "small" reflections of the system in which we live. How many do we not even notice? And how many do we internalize, when they make our blood boil and yet we know we can't really do anything about them? That's how I felt about having to select clergy-MAN anyway. 

Of course, I speak from the only perspective I have access to: my perspective as a cis-hetero white woman. And I recognize that the layers of my story are much different -- and in some ways not as deeply rooted in the devastation caused by our patriarchal system -- than many of the stories  even within this community. Stories from women of color, from queer and trans women, ... and it's not only women that struggle with patriarchy. Patriarchy causes suffering for ALL. We must all struggle against it, on a daily basis. 

It's important here, I think, to define what I mean going forward as I use the word Patriarchy. There are lots of good definitions, and I think it's key to pick one that gets at how patriarchy is a bad deal for everyone.  It's an affront to our humanity, and our faith. 

Can be viewed as --

~~ A system of social structures and practices, broken down along male / female gender lines, where power is "traditionally" held by men. As such, men are conditioned that they should feel entitled to this power. This often comes at the expense of women, but can also be at the expense of others that are viewed as "less than" in this system (in terms of power, race, economic status, sexuality and expression, etc.). ~~

The passage today may seem an unlikely place to root our conversation on the structural sin of patriarchy, but it is a story rooted in struggle. 

The struggle OF the story 
Even that this story survives is evidence of the struggle - in some ways, a political struggle! Precisely because it reflected a more generous way of being, it is omitted in many places.

Even some conjecture by Augustine that it was removed early on from the gospels by people who thought Jesus didn't deal "harshly" enough with the woman... perhaps wasn't "manly" enough in his response...?? 

The fact that the story didn't succumb to those attempts to keep it down (!) points to how it lived on in the imagination of the early Christ communities, to survive attempts to silence it. 

How this passage was handled in antiquity is a microcosm of how Christianity, in large part, has dealt with patriarchy and so-called gender "norms."

"Traditional" historical Christianity, writ large, has often either created its own male-dominated political power, or aligned itself with existent patriarchal power. So, monolithic "Christianity" has attempted to hide the places where the system is being inverted. And there are many, many places (you might say that's the whole point!!) in the early Christ movements where the system of patriarchy is being inverted.

Places that indicate women led movements, women were priests, that cis-gendered men weren't calling the shots, and this fledgling religion was actually quite horizontal. 

So... there is the hiding of original subversive texts, art, and stories, and then the prioritizing of the passages we heard at the beginning of the service - the ones upholding the very systems Jesus railed against.

If the subversive  texts about equality, equity, and women's involvement in the Christ movement are being excised, misinterpreted, and glossed over; and the ones upholding the status quo are being raised... there's no need to reconcile the passages that seem to uphold the status quo. No need to wrestle with contradiction, or teach that there may be another way.

The status-quo pieces instead become the dominant narrative. 

But the fact is... this story, and others like it -- although papered over -- survived! And they speak to us today of injustice, and struggle, and wisdom. 

Sankofa (image above)
This is the practice of Sankofa - a concept from Ghana (depicted by the bird, our image for today) that translates to "go back and get it." We are going back to the buried stories, and history of equity, IN the church, to counteract the patriarchy OF the church -- which has seeped back and forth between church and culture. We are NOT discarding the past, but using the underside -- which is really the "only side"! Using a new (old) lens, to re-interpret these stories, to liberate them, and to bring forward with us what is needed to illuminate our own time. 

Looking at the "underside" and prioritizing experiences that are often downplayed (pushed down) -- women's voices for our purposes today -- is crucial to reading any text in a liberative way. It helps us learn from the struggle WITHIN the story, too. 

The struggle IN the story
There are a number of things this passage is saying - implicitly and explicitly - about patriarchy. 

For one thing, considering the folks in the story are teachers of the law, they don't seem to be that concerned with the law, which calls for witnesses to be brought, and does, in fact, require that the man be treated in the same fashion as the woman in this situation.

And yet, Jesus doesn't point any of this out. He asks the assembled crowd to do... something kind of worse than to engage with him in a theological debate! 

He asks them to look inward, to look at themselves. Dismantling THAT patriarchy?? That's personal! It can feel easier to look at the external systems weighing down on us, and fight against those. And that is an important piece. But what about the internalized stuff?

Shedding Patriarchy
Can we look at ourselves, and honestly evaluate our internalized responses to a patriarchal system? Can we begin to hear and listen to voices from the so-called underside? 

Let's start with the woman from this passage! She is, as Harriett Olson pointed out, made into a tool for this interaction between Jesus and the teachers. She has a functional but not an expressive role! 

As you think about that... what kinds of things do you wonder about this woman? What could you imagine her story being? (type in chat, and I'll offer some)

How does she feel about being kind of a prop in this story? About being more or less silenced, not able to share her own experience or defense? 
Why does she stick around to see if she'll be  condemned? 
What were her relationships like with those in the crowd, that made her feel like the best choice was to ride out the interaction? 

Of course, this process doesn't start and end with biblical characters! Liberating voices isn't only about textual criticism, but also about doing it in real time -- often liberating our own voice! Many of us can likely identify with this experience of feeling silenced by patriarchy.

Lillith
Although I have long been rabble-rousing, and have been fighting  forms of patriarchy that I overtly suffer under (like gender discrimination in the church)... I feel  I have only just begun the process of truly liberating my own voice.

I'm excited to share one way I'm symbolically naming this, and beginning to shed my own internalized patriarchy. For a long time, the whole "taking your husband's name" thing has not sat well with me. In fact, I fought it for many years, finally I caved because -- much like fighting a check-box labeled "clergyMAN" on a form -- it just didn't feel worth it. But that's always bothered me -- one more way I felt the patriarchal system was making it difficult for me to be true to ME. 

So as part of my own journey to identify and resist external AND internal forms of patriarchy, I finally just said, No! I'm not saying it's just a "Small" thing and "not that big a deal," I'm staking out what feels important to me.

I chose the last name Lillie, as an homage to Lillith, 

A character from Jewish mythology. In a version of the creation myth, she is the first wife of Adam. But - she says "no thanks" to playing second fiddle to Adam and decides to just walk herself out of the Garden of Eden. 

Thanks to their own patriarchy, subsequent story-tellers don't deal favorably with Lillith, and she ends up literally demonized, as the scapegoat for a whole host of terrible things. 

I've decided to lean in, both to the way Lillith rejects patriarchy by doing her own thing, and the way she is misunderstood. 

How we respond, personally, to the systemic injustice of patriarchy IS political, because how we confront and comport ourselves has implications for how we behave in community. We don't exist in a vacuum! 

So, yes, I am joyful about this name change, the way I feel it reflects my personal divine call, and the political call to equity . But I am also mourning the layers of external and internal patriarchy I had to go through to get here. And it still feels like a drop in the bucket. Our road is long and slow and many times painful, because these systems are all around us. And they don't go down without a fight. 

This is partly why i wanted to expand the definition of patriarchy to indicate that it is harmful to all - yes, even to men who on the surface benefit in ways that women and  marginalized communities do not. Because the fear of weakness, the fear of the "feminine," the suspicion of things that are softer or more intuitive... or "insert denigrated adjective of choice here ... this is what leads to so many other exploitative systems. 

Patriarchy is the trojan horse that allows in homophobia, racism, capitalism, poverty... and so much more.

Conclusion
But, like the Sankofa bird reminds us... the past isn't the end of the story. It is, in fact, a key to understanding our present, and creating a more just future. 

It's there no matter what. I used to want to subvert / elevate the opposite sides - there's nothing to see here, but look at all this gender equality stuff! That's not honest either. Because the tough stuff - in the scriptures, in our personal, national, communal history - is still there. 

What we are invited to do is, name it, call it into the light, go back and get it. This process diffuses one kind of power -- the power of fear, or denial, or even shame; and gives us another -- the power of awareness, of truth, of adding our own stories. 

The work we do to unravel our own patriarchy, to look at the underside of stories and experiences, to, yes, even fight those mis-labeled "clergyMAN" check boxes... they may feel like a drop in the bucket. BUT -- together, they become a ripple effect. 

Something with the power to cascade over and through the systems of oppression as we know them now. 

May it be so.

REFLECTION
What pieces of the past do you desire to bring into the light?
How can better understanding these pieces help in dismantling oppressive systems like patriarchy?

(c) Alexis James Waggoner 2021
All rights reserved.