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| Image by Robert J. Heath |
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International Women's Day (March 8th)
A GREETING
In the morning bring me word of your constant love,
for I lift up my heart to you.
Show me the path I should tread.
(Psalm 143:8)
A READING
God gave birth to me at the beginning, before the first acts of creation. I have been from everlasting, in the beginning, before the world began. Before the deep seas, I was brought forth, before there were fountains or springs of water; before the mountains erupted up into place, before the hills, I was born— before God created the earth or its fields, or even the first clods of dirt. was there when the Almighty created the heavens, and set the horizon just above the ocean, set the clouds in the sky, and established the springs of the deep, gave the seas their boundaries and set their limits at the shoreline. When the foundation of the earth was laid out, I was the skilled artisan standing next to the Almighty. I was God’s delight day after day, rejoicing at being in God’s presence continually, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in humankind.
(Proverbs 8:22-31)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
Draw close to Her with all your heart.
(Sirach 6:27)
A POEM
There is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
- from "Morning Poem," by Mary Oliver,
found in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
VERSE OF THE DAY
God will enlighten your mind,
and the wisdom you yearn for will be yours.
(Sirach 6:18b)
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| "Travellers," by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (2021) In this last painting for this artist, Hwami's familiar yellow background holds the flat portraits of other people in two-dimensional snapshot design, while the foregrounded figure sits fully embodied and three-dimensional, looking back at us with complete comfort and confidence, as if we just arrived. The artist has created a work that shows both embodied presence and collective memory. |
The bodies of women in the New Testament are often presented as broken or in need of restoration. The women who are healed by Jesus are bent over, excessively issuing blood, afflicted by demons or, like Jairus' daughter, they are dead and waiting to be revived. They are also cast in moral dilemmas: in some cases, their past lives of sexuality are under review. In another light, the bodies of women are involved in showing adoration to Jesus: they anoint his feet; they enwrap him with spices. They are lesser figures in the narratives of discipleship than their more famous siblings in the faith, the apostles, despite that the New Testament describes Jesus as being surrounded by women throughout most of his earthly ministry. Women are his benefactors, sponsors, the only people present at his death and the first to encounter his resurrected form.
How do we reconcile all these differing ways that the bodies of women live in Scripture?
International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on March 8th, has become a way to share stories of how gender identity is implicit in power struggles affecting all of us. Proverbs captures the voice of Wisdom speaking about the creation of the world. Wisdom is gendered as female whenever she appears in the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha books of the bible and is characterized as a divinely inspired agent of God’s creativity and righteousness: pursuing Wisdom is a way of being close to God. The Holy Spirit is always characterized in ancient language in the feminine - it became masculine only in English translations. Therefore, the feminine principle is a full partner in the Godhead with the creation of the World. But in the New Testament story, she is most often in the background of narratives, often unnamed and often marginalized.
Over time, this imbalance became reflected in our churches. In the centuries of the faith since Jesus walked the earth with his female friends, it has been a relatively recent development to have women leaders. This year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada has been marking fifty years of the ordination of women. It took more than 500 years in our tradition to arrive in a place where women can be found in all orders of rostered ministry in our church, while in many other denominations of Christianity women still don't have that representation.
The body of a woman carried the incarnated Christ. The body of a woman reached for the gardener in the tomb as she called out his name. How can we develop a deeper appreciation and love for the embodied witness of women to Jesus, in his life and in ours?
If we did so, how indeed might the world be about to turn?
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| Image by Caroline Legg |
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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.
The next devotional day is Monday, March 9th.
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LC† From Dust, Still Holy is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!