by Mike Stavlund
Old Testament Reading: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
For Sunday, November 11, 2012: Year B—Ordinary 32
As the father of three girls, and the husband of yet another woman, I am perhaps becoming more sensitized to the female characters we see in the Scriptures.
There aren’t very many of them, and even fewer who are very strong characters. Their locus of control is far outside of themselves: they seem to be in need of male characters (not to exclude God) to direct them through their lives. They appear to bat their ample eyelashes, asking any male figure within earshot (prayershot?) “Oh, whatever shall I do?”
Widows, Widows, Everywhere
This week, the Lectionarians are all about widows, the typological figures of societal disempowerment and helplessness. In many places, the Bible demands that we protect such women, who lacked much ability to change their situation in their patriarchal world. But the widows this week don’t get much gentle treatment.
God sends Elijah to Zarephath to prevail upon a poor widow to feed him. Her quite reasonable hesitations about this peculiar arrangement are overruled by a strange man claiming a stranger word from the Lord.
Ruth lost her husband, then her sons, and so goes in search of a man to redeem her.
In both cases, these female characters are acting at the behest of other, much stronger characters. At least Jesus’ widow of the week is slightly more empowered—no one is giving her advice or directions or making outlandish promises regarding her situation.
On the Threshing Room Floor
Ruth follows the directions from her deceased husband’s mother: get cleaned up and dressed up and approach the man who has a legal obligation to you-- your Kinsman-Redeemer (does anyone else feel vaguely uneasy that Ruth isn’t encouraged to study up or prepare her most compelling argument, but is instead told to doll herself up?). And of course none of this should happen until Boaz has a belly full of food and wine.
Whatever happened between Boaz and his cloak and Ruth, we are struck by what a cork in the ocean of patriarchy Ruth is. She needs “some security”, which begins by being admonished by her mother-in-law (who apparently has a better sense of the machinations of this male-dominated culture) so that she can attach herself to her Kinsman-Redeemer, “who will tell [Ruth] what to do”. Even the Lord God Almighty gets in on the bossiness, too, “making her conceive” and bear (wait for it...) a son.
The story has a happy ending, but an uneasy middle that lingers like an unpleasant aftertaste.
The Hardest Question
Do Bible women still need redemption? Do we even notice how helpless they are, and how much they get bossed around? Were they sagely playing the game of patriarchy, or victims of it, or both?
How will it read when our daughters become the next generation of Lectionarians?
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Mike Stavlund writes from a 5-car pile-up at the intersection of his Christian faith and real life. A husband of over 15 years and a father of 4 children, he lives with his wife and 3 daughters in a small house outside Washington, DC. He’s a part of an innovative emergence Christian community called Common Table, a co-conspirator with the Relational Tithe, and a proud part of the collective called Emergent Village. He blogs at MikeStavlund.com, and his first book, "Force of Will", will be published by Baker in the Spring of 2013.
