Women and men

Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples. Luke 8:1-3 NLT

Jesus lived at a time when the status of women in society was not equal to the status of men. The disciples he chose were all men, but Luke the doctor is careful to record that he had many female followers. Why did he not choose “disciples” from among these women? What was it that attracted them to him enough for them to follow him from town to town supporting him with their finances and their service? What kind of relationship existed between Jesus and the women he met?

The first thing that I notice from this passage is that “he took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women.” I do not get from this an impression of Jesus wandering through the towns of Galilee with a whole lot of male and female “hangers on.” Jesus’ actions seem more intentional, more planned than that. He took his disciples and some women. The word “took” suggests to me that Jesus chose these people, men and women, to come with him. The men he took were the followers he had designated apostles. As such they would become the future leaders of the Christian movement. The women he took were just as much his followers, but they had not been given the role of apostle.

This differentiation, with men given leadership roles, and women apparently left with support roles, causes all sorts of trouble for the modern reader in the age of feminism. Was Jesus establishing a norm here? Was he implying by his actions that leaders, his closest friends and followers, should be men and not women? Was he saying that women should only ever be servants, that leadership is male? There appears to be a certain group of Christians today who believe so.

But I find this hard to accept, because of two things: first, because of Jesus’ obvious high regard for women, and second because of how he thought about leadership, as being a servant role (which comes out later in his teaching).

Jesus’ high regard for women

In the chapter before this we read of how Jesus praised a prostituted woman as a model of faith for the Pharisees. The confronting thing here is that she was a prostitute. How could he lift up such a sinful person as an example to be followed?

The fact that she was a woman reflects more about the nature of society at the time than his opinion of women: then as now women were in many cases more exploited than men. Prostitution was a business that existed only because there was a demand. That demand was from men, and it was surely the demand that was the greater sin. People in a position of weakness and subservience are generally the suppliers of such demands, not primarily because of their sinfulness primarily but because of their need, their desperation. Few women (or men) choose prostitution as a career out of preference or passion. They are forced into it out of need, or exploitation. When Jesus lifted this woman up he was lifting her up as one who was oppressed and needy. He never denied that she was a sinner, but he saw her “sin” in a completely different light to the Pharisees.

And her sin was not that she was a woman. She was oppressed and needy because she was a woman, and that had led her into behaviour that was wrong. But that wrong behaviour was more the result of the sinfulness of men than the sinfulness of women. It was not because she was morally inferior, even if she was socially and economically oppressed in that patriarchal society. Jesus could not have treated her the way he did if he believed women were naturally inferior. His treatment of her indicates to me that Jesus had a very high view of women, including those who had found themselves trapped in the tragedy of prostitution.

Why not female apostles?

So if Jesus had such a high view of women, why didn’t he choose his apostles, and therefore the leaders of the early church, from among the “fairer sex”?

I believe that what is depicted here is simply a reflection of the society and culture Jesus lived in, which appears to have been a patriarchal rather than matriarchal society. Jesus was born into a particular historical and cultural context, and though he challenged people to think in unconventional ways, in this particular area, he followed the social conventions of the time.

But only to a certain extent. I suspect that having women at all – from varying levels of society – among his followers was somewhat unexpected, even slightly scandalous, at the time. And Luke makes sure to include this fact in his written account. He wanted it recorded for posterity that Jesus accepted women, as much as men, as his followers.

But then, as now, the relationship between men and women, especially in younger people, was complicated by sexuality, a reality of which Jesus was acutely aware. Jesus was a man, and as such a close relationship with a woman, or with a group of women, was not possible in that cultural and historical context. Even today close relationships between men and women are by nature different, and in some cases more difficult, to close relationships between people of the same sex. Close relationships between people of opposite genders are complicated by sexuality, so it was best that Jesus’ closest relationships were with men, to avoid such complications.

However, that Jesus was a male does not mean that God is male, though he is described as a father and the male pronoun is used in references to him. My understanding is that God is as much female as he is male, since both males and females are created in his image. Everything that is conventionally female comes from the nature and character of God, just as everything that is males does. God could have just as easily chosen Jesus to be a female, in which case the apostles would doubtless have been women. But it would have been hard for a female Jesus and female apostles to do what Jesus and his apostles did because of the way society was structured at that time and in that place.

God’s choice of Jesus being incarnated as a man – and he had to choose one or the other – has had all sorts of unfortunate results for how subsequent generations of believers have viewed the roles of men and women. In our cultural and historical context I can imagine that God could make Jesus a woman and achieve his purposes, but that was not as easy for when and where the historical Jesus came into the world. But I believe that we have to be careful not to draw wrong conclusions about the nature of men and women based on the historical social context of the Bible. It is a mistake to believe that God is male because Jesus was, as it is a mistake to believe that leadership is male, because the first apostles were.

Jesus and the status quo

It is clear from the Biblical records that Jesus challenged the normal view of women in his society, by ministering to them and loving them, indeed, by interacting with women in general in much the same way he interacted with men, even if he did not choose women to be his apostles. But he did not challenge the status quo of gender roles in society any more than he challenged other social structures, such as social inequality between the rich and the poor. He may have sowed the seed of the idea that all people are created equal, but he did not state it unequivocally, nor did he challenge people to defy the status quo and rebel against social norms, any more than he challenged his followers to rise and take up arms against their Roman oppressors.

Jesus loved people and people – both men and women – loved him. His love was not of a sexual or romantic nature. He loved people the way a father loves his children. The message of the Kingdom was as relevant and attractive to women as to men. Jesus healed and delivered women of their demons as often as he did men. To Jesus, people were neither male nor female, they were simply people. In short Jesus treated men and women the same, and so should we.

Core beliefs

“A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say? I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house right on the ground, without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.” Luke 6:43-49 NLT

We all want to be good trees that produce good fruit. We all want to be known for the good things we do, coming from “the treasury of a good heart.” But I must say that when I look at the real me I wonder if I am more like the brambles and thorn bushes.

The bit that strikes me is when Jesus says, “you don’t do what I say.” I feel he is talking to me. I look at the list of challenges in his sermon and come up wanting. Do I do any of those things, I wonder? Sometimes, maybe, but often not.

Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek. Give away your clothes. Give to those who ask. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. Be compassionate, like your Father. Do not judge. Forgive. Be generous. Be teachable. Be self critical. Know yourself. Fix yourself.

If I avoid honest introspection I think, yes, that is me, at least sometimes. But if I am brutally honest, I realise that these ideals are not a description of me. Gradually it dawns on me that I am really more like one of the people Jesus addresses when he says: “why do you keep calling me Lord, Lord, when you don’t do what I say?”

And that is scary. Because I have always thought of myself as being the wise man who built his house on the rock, but if I am honest I am probably the other guy, the foolish one, the man whose house was built on the sand. Because the rock on which we build our house is not Jesus, as I have sometimes thought, but our willingness to follow Jesus’s instructions. Do them, Jesus says, and your house will be secure. Ignore them and your house will fall (“collapse into a heap of ruins”).

But how can we live that kind of life? Jesus’ standards are so “unnatural.” It is simply not normal to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you, to pray for those who persecute you. To give without expecting anything in repayment. To refrain from judgement, to forgive people who hurt us. Normal human behaviour is quite the opposite. Even the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), as simple as it sounds, is hard to follow all the time, especially when the “others” are people we don’t like!

But as “unnatural” as they are, these are the directions that Jesus gives us. He calls that sort of life “good fruit.” Good fruit, he says, comes from a “good heart.” How do we live the life? We live it out of a good heart. If we have a good heart, the rest will follow as naturally as grapes from a grapevine or figs from a fig tree!

But how do we get a good heart? If the fruit we see in our lives suggests that we are one of the ones with a “bad heart” rather than a good one, how do we change it?

Our heart is more than feelings: it is our beliefs, our attitudes, our values, our worldview. This sermon of Jesus, recorded not just in Luke’s gospel, but some of the others too, is sometimes called the “Beatitudes”. That is a strange word which is understood in different ways, but one definition I have heard for beatitudes is “beautiful attitudes”. These teachings are Jesus’ attitudes, his worldview.

A good heart is a heart that believes, values, thinks, makes its goal, the attitudes of Jesus. If we want to have a good heart, with good things flowing from it, if we want to be a good tree, producing good fruit, if we want a faith that is secure in the storm, we need to adopt the attitudes of Jesus, his worldview. We need to get to know him, understand the way he thinks, and incorporate his way of thinking into our own lives.

This is a lifelong task, and there is only one way I know of doing it: spend time with Jesus. Listen to him, watch him, copy him. Another of Jesus’s disciples, John, called it “abiding in him.” Or “remaining in him.” That is the key to bearing “good fruit.”

Love your enemies

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-36 NLT)

This has got to be one of the most radical things Jesus ever said. He is challenging people to do something which is completely unnatural, to love their enemies. It raises some questions.

Who is my enemy? Jesus spells it out. My enemy is the one, or the group, who hates me, excludes me, mocks me, curses me. The one who mistreats me, takes advantage of me, abuses me. There seems to be an increasing number of groups in society that “hate” Christians, or that treat them with contempt. But for us as individuals our enemies could just as easily be someone at work, at school, at home. It could be our husband or wife, our parents, our children: anyone who hurts us. Who is your enemy?

These are the people Jesus says to love. But, such a love is unnatural. It is natural to love our friends, the ones who like us, the ones who affirm us, the one we like. There is a big difference between these different loves. “Natural” love changes nothing. Jesus’s challenge could be, “If you love those who love you… what difference does that make to anything.” Such love just preserves the status quo. But unnatural love can change the world, from an individual level to a national level.

What is this “unnatural” love? What does it look like? Jesus spells that out too. “Do good… bless… pray for… turn the other cheek… give your shirt… lend without expecting repayment… let them take advantage of you…” And ultimately, “do to others as you would have them do to you.”

We see from this that the love Jesus speaks of is not about feelings, it is about action. We are used to thinking of love as a feeling, an emotion. But Jesus says nothing about how we should feel toward our enemies. Only how we should act. Loving our enemies is about what we do, not the emotions that well up in our heart, which are likely to be, if we are honest, fairly negative.

In effect, Jesus says do not act out of what you feel, but out of what is right. Do good things, kind things, for your enemies, no matter how they make you feel. This is indeed a radical message for a world obsessed by doing “what feels right.”

But that raises another question. How can we do this? What enables us? Where do we find the strength, the will, to react in such a way? How do we react with our will rather than our emotions? How do we respond out of our convictions rather than our feelings? Jesus does not answer that question, at least not here. Perhaps Luke will address it later in his book, but here it is just a challenge, thrown out to his listeners by Jesus.

Even if he says nothing of where the strength to do all this will come from, Jesus does speak of a reward if we succeed. “Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High.” This implies a reward in heaven, but I believe that the rewards on earth are also great, in terms of changed relationships, restored families, and the establishment and extension of the “kingdom of heaven.” Heaven on earth!

Not only that, but when we act this way we become “his children,” just like our dad, for loving like that is what he does. What reward could be greater than feeling the Father’s delight, his pride and his joy?

Heaven

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, their ancestors treated the ancient prophets that same way. Luke 6:22-23 NLT

Jesus says that following him may well lead to persecution, and challenges his followers to be happy when they are persecuted. It is not normal to welcome persecution. Our natural desire is to be loved, affirmed, included. Jesus’ challenge is to react not in the normal, natural way, but in an unnatural way: be happy, leap for joy!

How can we do what is so unnatural? Jesus says, simply, by focussing on the rewards of being a Christian, instead of the present suffering. That reward is in heaven.

However, we live in a world where heaven is not a common topic of conversation, even among Christians. We talk about many things when we meet people, but heaven is rarely one of them. The subject of death and what comes after is almost taboo in our society. Even as a doctor I speak seldom of heaven, though the end of life and incurable disease are part of my daily fare.

The goal of so many people’s lives, even Christians, is more about “heaven on earth” than “heaven in heaven” – the reward that comes after earthly life. That is the root of materialism, the pursuit of pleasure, the creation of heaven here and now. If heaven is a place of riches and joy, of great reward, we want it now, not in some vague supernatural future after death. Credit card thinking has taken over – buy now, pay later. Have it all now, fix up the bill some other time. But that kind of thinking is a deception.

Secular humanist thinking has discarded as fantasy the idea of heaven, and has replaced it with the dream of having as much as possible before we die, because after death there is nothing. Heaven is just wishful thinking, they say: “pie in the sky when you die.” Wake up and see that if you don’t have what you want now, you will never have it. This life is all there is. Are we to buy into such thinking?

Sadly, we Christians often do. We find ourselves aspiring to riches and comfort on earth, forgetting heaven. We start thinking in the way of the world, rather than the way Jesus taught us to think. We get deceived into seeing death as the final victor, and spend our life’s energy trying to make this life the ultimate experience.

Some sceptics see the idea of heaven as a construct used by the wealthy and the powerful to keep the masses in their place, to stop them aspiring to more. Rather than sharing their wealth, they offer the poor and needy heaven to keep them happy. They promise the poor riches in a future life, refusing to bless others with the blessings they themselves have received. But this is a distortion of Jesus’ words. He is not promising comfort and hope here to the rich, but to the poor. He has already spoken to the rich: “What sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now.” (Luke 6:24 NLT)

How much should we focus on heaven? There is a balance to be attained here, since both extremes lead to problems. If our focus is all on heaven, we can end up ignoring the problems of the world around us and become too “heavenly minded” to be of any “earthly good.” If we ignore heaven, living as if it is not real, we expend all our energy on the materialistic deception – that the winner is the one with the most when he dies. But that is meaningless, and a “chasing after wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1 and 2).

Jesus says that focussing on heaven will bring us joy in the midst of suffering. And suffering is real. Few individuals are spared suffering of some kind during their earthly sojourn, though many go to great lengths to avoid it. We suffer ourselves, and we see those around us suffering.

The challenge for us, it seems to me, is to focus on heaven when we think of our own suffering, and focus on earth when we think of the suffering of others. This helps us to be like Jesus. However, our natural tendency is the opposite: we focus on earth when we see our own suffering, trying to create a protective cocoon around us, a world of beauty and ease and prosperity. But when faced with the suffering of others we say, “don’t fret, heaven awaits you.”

Heaven is not something we think of much these days. But perhaps it should be.

The truth about God

Luke 5:1-6:11.
A long passage. Read the whole thing here on bible.com. It concludes with this story:

On another Sabbath day, a man with a deformed right hand was in the synagogue while Jesus was teaching. The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.

But Jesus knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” So the man came forward. Then Jesus said to his critics, “I have a question for you. Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?”

He looked around at them one by one and then said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him.

A wrong picture of God
Jesus came preaching a message about the Kingdom of God. This chapter and a half in Luke’s gospel records that sermon in action. It shows a radical departure from the “accepted wisdom” about God and how we should relate to him. The “accepted wisdom” of the time was the model of interaction with God that the Pharisees preached. It involved a complex set of rules that needed to be followed to the last letter. Any breach risked punishment, often severe. For, in their minds, the error of one might lead to the anger of God towards the whole community.

That was the picture of God that people had in those days: an angry, spiteful God watching our every move just waiting to find fault in order to punish us. As if that was what he wanted to do. The Pharisees had taken on themselves the task of enforcing the law, to keep God’s wrath at bay. It all came from their picture of God.

However, when Jesus came along he said and did things that showed that the Pharisees understanding of God – which was the generally accepted view of the time – was completely wrong. They had somehow got the wrong message and painted the wrong picture. Jesus came to show them – the Pharisees, the people of Israel, and everyone, both then and now, the truth about God.

And the essence of that truth is simply this: God reaches out to people because he loves them. The religion of the Pharisees, which was the religion that the Jews knew and loved, was a religion of people reaching out to God, to try to get his love and acceptance. They were a people desperate for affirmation, a people desperate to be treasured and nurtured by their heavenly Father, a people just like us.

But the God that had been presented to them was one that seemed often distant, disdainful and disinterested. The process of getting to him was complicated and difficult and easy to mess up. The Pharisees loved their religion, with its complex rules and regulations. They studied it and interpreted it and did everything they could to apply it to people’s lives. I don’t believe that Pharisees were intrinsically bad people, any more than you or I. They were victims of their own misunderstanding of the nature and character of God. The sad thing is that they were so unwilling to even consider the possibility that what they believed so strongly could be wrong. But aren’t we all a bit like that?

One thing is clear, when Jesus came along and began to challenge a lot of the Pharisees’ teaching, they were not happy. They felt threatened. They questioned his teaching and his motives. And they couldn’t but help be jealous of his popularity and growing influence.

New wine
This passage in Luke’s gospel reveals why Jesus was becoming so popular, and why the Pharisees felt so put out. He was introducing a whole new way of thinking about God, and he introduced it not by just teaching a new philosophy but by showing a new way. He called it “new wine,” and spoke of the old religion as “old wineskins.” Not very flattering really. And he was quite open about saying that when new wine is put in old wineskins that the old containers don’t cope well with it.

The difference between the two ways of interacting with God is staggering really. There is a fundamental change: the old religion was about trying to reach God. The new wine was about God breaking into our lives and surprising us with all kinds of unexpected blessings. Just take a look at the passage and see:

There was the fishing episode. Jesus pushed into Simon’s life and transformed it, then invited him to an ongoing friendship, where Simon could become an integral part in God’s agenda for the world. Jesus wanted Simon to be part of his band.

Then there was the leper. A man everyone avoided, yet Jesus responded to his simple cry for help and restored him to be the man God had always wanted him to be. He gave him a fresh start.

Then there was the paralysed man, struggling with guilt. Jesus forgave him, released him from the burden of anxiety about whatever it was that was weighing him down. Gave him freedom from guilt. And healed him to boot.

Then there was Levi, a man who was in so deep in sin and corruption that he thought there was no way out. He was rich but he was not happy. He had a lot of so called friends, but he was lonely and sad. He knew how to celebrate, but his parties were empty and superficial. Jesus gave him a new start too, and then celebrated his change of direction with all Levi’s old friends.

Celebrating God’s closeness
Jesus taught that partying was as much a part of the new order as fasting. That God was as happy to be celebrated in a banquet as he was to be the subject of religious devotion. That the hallmark of the new way was the presence of God with his people, rather than endless exercises to span the huge chasm between them. That celebrating that presence, that closeness, was what life should be all about.

People before principles
The Sabbath was traditionally a day set apart for God. No work was to be done. Doing any work would risk incurring the wrath of God. At least that’s the way the Pharisees understood it. They spent long hours debating what should be regarded as work, and what was permissible on a day of rest. The keyword was fear – anxiety lest a rule be broken and God be angry.

Jesus stepped right over this understanding of the Sabbath and showed by his actions that the Pharisees had misunderstood the point. That they had misunderstood God. Jesus was more concerned for his friends than the rules. They were hungry. He gave them something to eat, regardless of the fact that his actions in doing so could be interpreted as breaking the law. He showed us that God is more concerned for us and our needs than he is for the law. He is a God, first and foremost, of compassion. He sees our needs and wants to meet them. He may do that in unconventional ways.

Even healing was regarded by the Pharisees as being inappropriate on a day of rest. It was better, in their system of belief, to pass by a suffering or disabled person than to risk God’s anger by helping that person. They didn’t realise that God was more angry about passing by the needy person than by breaking these man made rules. Jesus once again showed them the true heart of God, a heart of concern, of compassion, of mercy and of grace.

A strange reaction
When I read about the ideas that Jesus was presenting and demonstrating, I get excited. This is the kind of God that I can be proud of, that I can talk about, share with others. This is a God that I want to celebrate, to praise, to worship. This is the kind of God that I can trust to take control of my life. What’s more, the vision of the kingdom that Jesus presents is the kind of world I long to see, a world of involvement with people, compassion and mercy, of never giving up on people, of reconciliation between people and God, of people and people.

The extraordinary thing to me is that there were people – the enemies of Jesus – who did not like this picture at all, they could not embrace such a vision of God or his kingdom. Not only did they not like it, they were “wild with rage” at Jesus, as Luke’s account records.

There are still people like that, people who get angry with Jesus, who do not like the picture he paints of God and his kingdom. But as for me, I know which way I want to follow – the way of Jesus.