Men and Women in Christ.Elisabeth Behr-Sigel.

Christ in history was neither a political agitator nor a reformer of the traditional mores of the society in which He was born. Even though He showed himself free from many taboos and prejudices especially with regard to women, Jesus did not spend His time transgressing the customs of His time. "The one thing necessary" for Jesus was the interior turning, conversion, the change of heart that opens the door of the Kingdom: "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." His preaching is summed up in these words, but this change of heart must be ex­pressed in acts, whether it is expressed in ordinary or exceptional circumstances.

Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

Jesus did not encourage women to take on roles or life-styles that were considered masculine in the culture of the time. The women that Jesus associated with busied themselves with household chores and served at table. The number of such women is remarkable, and the gospels often give us their names. They were sometimes prostitutes. However, He did not send the courageous women who had been following him since Galilee back to their husbands and their pots and pans, and in fact, He praised Mary of Bethany who left domestic cares to her sister Martha.
He did not separate his listen­ers into two categories with different vocations thereby necessitating two types of discourse. In the collection of His sayings, we find exhortations addressed to the rich, to Pharisees, and to the scribes. We find no advice given to women as women. Such advice was to appear later in the apostle Paul's writings since he was concerned about organizing the life of the communities that he founded while they were waiting for the Lord's return, a return that seemed overdue. For Jesus, the only thing that counted was the response given here and now to the invitation to the wedding feast of the Kingdom. This invitation was addressed to everyone, men and women. Each person is called upon to assume the radical requirements of faith, love, sharing, and renunciation of the egoistic self in order to enter the Kingdom of God which had arrived in the person of the Messiah, Christ the Anointed of the Lord. There is no essential difference between the confession of Martha before the resurrection of Lazarus (In 11:27) and Peter's later confession as related by the gospels.

Jesus fully assumed his historical condition as a mascu­line human being, but the values that He exalted especial­ly in the Sermon on the Mount, are those which according to cultural tradition, especially in the West, are supposed to be feminine: gentleness, humility (Mt 11:29), forgiveness of offenses, and nonviolence (see Mt 5). In opposition to the classical, virile, and unfeeling hero, Jesus did not attempt to put down His emotions. For instance, He wept at the tomb of his friend (In 11:34-35). His relations with women show no trace of domination or seduction; there is no sign either of an idealization of femininity. The exaltation of feminine purity was often hypocritical because it was a purity expected of women only and not of men. The ugly side of this exaltation was cruelty and scorn towards the prostitute and the adulterous woman. To this feminine purity, Jesus opposed the sober reminder of the common state of sin: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" (In 8:7). Jesus took care of the sick, of the physical and moral wounds of men as well as women. He healed them, put them back on their feet: the paralytic of Matthew 9:2 (Mk 2:3; Lk 5: 18) just like the crippled and bent over woman of Luke 13:10-13.

Healing of the Woman 

with an Issue of Blood.

Even more striking in the cultural context of the time is the fact that Jesus spoke with women. He asked them questions and allowed them to ask him questions, like the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well or the Syro-Phoenician woman of Matthew 15 and Mark 7. They were for him real persons, beings who could speak, and not merely sexual individuals; the dialogues with them were fruitful. Jesus confided the revolutionary secret about worship "in spirit and in truth" to the Samaritan woman, and the somewhat ironical conversation with the Canaanite woman ended up as a sort of preannouncement of the opening of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Among Jesus' most intimate friends, we find women as well as men. Beside the "disciple that Jesus loved," Peter, James, and John, we have Martha, Mary of Bethany and Mary of Magdala who, on Easter morning, recognized the Master just by the tone of His voice when He pronounced her name.

This total equality of everyone, of men and women called to a personal meeting with the Bridegroom who opens to them the door of the Kingdom's bridal chamber, in no way implies a negation or a rejection of the otherness of men and women. In fact this otherness constitutes a modality of encounter. It permeates the encounter like a perfume, like a melody that is unique for each person.

The men and women in Jesus' entourage did not have stereotyped and uniform ways of behaving. The Lord respected their differences, partly linked to the sex of each person. With an infinite delicacy, He was inclined to what some would call manifestations of feminine sensitivity, even when these were disturbing. Others were scandalized by them or looked at them with an ironical eye. He did not rebuke the sinful woman when she let her tears fall on His feet, wiped them with her hair, and kissed them. She obviously put Him in an embarrassing, even ridiculous, Situation. He recognized the faith and the love of the woman, opposing them to the coldness of his host Simon the Pharisee. Jesus said to the woman, ''Your faith has saved you! Go in peace" (Lk 7:36-50).

Mary of Magdala in the garden on Easter morning, rightly or wrongly identified with the anonymous Sinful woman at Simon's supper, "threw into the world an emotion that we still feel," according to the words of a contemporary Orthodox spiritual master. The waves of that emotion touch the hearts of men as well as women. We see the same love for Jesus break out in the masculine impetuosity of Simon Peter when he threw himself into the sea to go meet the resurrected Lord (In 21:7).

Jesus neither scorned nor feared sexuality. He performed his first miracle at the wedding at Cana, and His presence changed the earthly Joy of conjugal union into the antici­pated joy of the messianic Kingdom. Likewise, the woman who is joyful after the suffering of childbirth is mentioned in the farewell address as a sign of the glory of the age to come, a glory that must first endure the afflictions of the present time (In 16:21).

All the richness that has its origin in human sexual bipolarity is found in the gospels, but it is transfigured by Jesus' glance. In that bipolarity, He sees the signs of the Kingdom. We are very far, however, from a rigid and structural opposition of the masculine and the feminine. Just as the call to enter into the Kingdom through Jesus the door is for all men and women, so- is the promise of the Spirit.

"All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together With the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers" (Ae 1:14,). This is the first Christian community, the embryonic Church, as we hear about it in the Acts of the Apostles. In this little group, the prophecy of Joel is fulfilled, a prophecy that Peter recalls on the day of Pentecost:

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I Will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy”. (Ac 2:17-18).

Reference:

The Ministry of Women in the Church. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel.(1987)