It was Saturday night of the annual fall retreat. I had been part of this weekend for years, first as a youth minister in training and now as the trainer. A ministry experiment, it gave rookie youth ministers a place to try different leadership roles, a place to bring their young groups and cultivated an amazing, creative event where young people connected with God.
But on that night, a 20-something woman approached me. She grew up going to these retreats and had volunteered many times. This weekend, she led the worship. Fumbling with her words in a way that betrayed emotions just below the surface, she expressed gratitude for my presence on those retreats, pointing out that she rarely saw women leading in youth ministry contexts.
Her comments took me by surprise. The organization overtly supported women in ministry. But the reality remained (and remains still) that the youth ministry culture in our country tends to be hyper masculine, at times copying the personas of reality TV hosts or late-night comedians. Even in our organization, there were fewer women than men in visible leadership roles. She had never worked with a woman in leadership.
I remember how important it was for me to finally see fun, competent women in positions of leadership. It gave me imagination to say, “Hey! I had no idea women could do that! Maybe I can too!”
I wrestled all the way through my education at a conservative seminary with the reality that most of the stories of women in Scripture are negative. I rationalized that these stories describe where the community of God is in that moment and aren’t seeking to prescribe the role of women in our culture today. I recalled the internal gnawing I felt when I chose to believe that someone with more academic chops than I had figured out that the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair is indeed Mary Magdalene when it didn’t seem clear to me (thanks for clearing that up, Christy!). I remember learning the connections between the Samaritan woman that Hearlson references, proud of myself for understanding the cultural context of the biblical era and never once thinking that she may be a victim of the marital norms of the day. And Martha! I’ve always pictured her in the kitchen! As Christy Lang says: There is no kitchen!
But as a youth worker and as one who has mentored other youth ministers, I struggle with how to speak of this. Telling stories of women from places of power seems antithetical to the overall story of the Scriptures. There has to be a way to start the conversation about female role models in the New Testament.
How do we speak of such things in the larger church context? If the rest of the church holds a negative view of women because of our biblical hermeneutic (whether unintentionally or subconsciously), how do we speak of them without merely sounding like women whining?
What does this even mean for the many churches, especially those with a youth ministry staff, whose hermeneutic tells them women are not ordainable or qualified to lead men? Is there a way to see Mary Magdalene, Martha and the Samaritan woman afresh, even in these places?
I believe the reframing Christy Lang Hearlson does with these three New Testament women offers us a place to start. She asks us to examine these stories afresh, to challenge the assumptions we’ve placed on these offerings, like assuming Martha is in the kitchen, and realize that there is no kitchen.
But there’s more, isn’t there?
The internal, accepted perception most of us have regarding these three women shows us the double standard still at work in our culture, the one that says, Girls need to be good, and boys will be boys. We know many of the men in Scripture have back stories: David and his adultery and murder; Saul persecuting and killing Jesus’ followers; Matthew collecting more taxes than necessary from his own people. We don’t question their impact or their leadership. But, for some reason, when Mary Magdalene is purged of some demons, she’s disqualified from being a leader in Jesus’ movement.
We can help our students acknowledge the double standards and the biases we all have. We can help them understand the assumptions we bring to the text and the assumptions that have been implanted in them. Following the way of Jesus calls us to challenge our own assumptions. It’s the basic definition of learning.
To do this, we have to be willing to address our own assumptions and biases. Understanding and challenging our own internal biases is not easy or fun. However, facing these pre-understandings might shift our understanding of God or God’s call in our own life. It might challenge us to live differently.
Christy’s article makes me want to sit down with some students and look at the story of Mary and Martha in the original Greek. I want to walk them through the original language and help them understand the interpretation that always takes place during translation. I want to help them understand the assumptions many have made about this passage. If I could do that, I’d walk them through the various places where the word diakanion is used in the New Testament, learning the places and stories in which that word is used, working together to better understand the word and how to better interpret the Mary and Martha story.
But beyond all of that, these stories remind us that people are complicated and each story unique. These complicated people with their convoluted stories offer great fodder for conversation with our young people about the challenges of life.
Reframing these three women provides a helpful start for inspiring our imaginations to think differently about women in Scripture and the need for female role models. My hope is that we don’t stop there.
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