Rev. Deborah solo-casts again, this time exploring the origins of Jesus Christ as told in the Gospels of Mark and John through the lens of gender.
Transcript
DDM Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
DDM Hello and welcome!
DDM In this episode I want to continue looking at Mark and John’s origin stories of Jesus, how they differ, why they differ, but particularly in how they deal with the issue of gender. If you go back to a previous episode, you will see Elizabeth and I looked at this theme in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but I want us to look at them through Mark and John’s eyes.
DDM Rember Mark is writing after the temple has been destroyed, to Jews and Gentiles who are socially and economically struggling. This is an incredibly difficult time of social change, feeling like everything that had given security is destroyed. And they are feeling very vulnerable.
DDM And then Mark begins his gospel with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” Everybody is ready for good news, especially the poor and the vulnerable who are reading Mark, so what is this good news?
DDM In times of great social change, we always see two movements emerging. One will be to want to go back to the way things were, a return to the old ways, family values, a deeply conservative movement. And the other will be the need for something radically new, realizing that the old ways no longer work or even can work, they are gone and a new way needs to be found.
DDM Mark will give the community the latter. And so he begins with Jesus, no mention of Mary or Joseph, of a traditional family, of conception or childhood, not even the mention of a human father or virgin birth. For Mark, there is no emphasis on Jesus’ mother or any female role in his origins. For Mark he is simply the divine Son, the Son of God, not created through any gendered family story, but declared through God’s own voice breaking into our world at his baptism. You are MY Son, the beloved. For Mark, the birth story of Jesus is not about pregnancy and birthing, but about baptism, a choice we make to proclaim that we too are God’s children, beloved and pleasing to God.
DDM In fact, in Mark’s gospel it is interesting that Mary and his family don’t appear until much later in the gospel, where Jesus in very difficult words literally redefines family. When people are telling him your family is here for you, Jesus says, “Who is my mother and brother and sisters? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
DDM This must have been almost offensive to his traditional biological family. But here we see Jesus teaching us that to follow God may mean we need to detach our identities from our traditional family and gender structures in order to do the will of God. And that following God will mean we inherit a new family, not based on gender, biological roles, and relationships, but on seeking and doing the will of God. This is not biological family first, but the family of those who do the will of God first. This is not traditional family values, but upending the patriarchal family systems, by creating a new family not defined by biological or gendered roles.
DDM What is interesting in Mark’s gospel is that although women are absent as birthers and mothers in the beginning of Jesus’ story according to Mark, they are crucial at every important moment in the rest of the Gospel narrative. Women are the ones at the foot of the cross when the male disciples run away, women are the first witnesses to witness the empty tomb and the resurrection.
DDM Mark is showing women in his gospel not as birthers and mothers first and foremost, but instead as disciples and witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and therefore disciples and apostles in this new faith community.
DDM At a time of great social upheaval, Jesus is calling this new community of faith, after the destruction of the temple, to build a new faith community, where women will not be seen primarily as mothers and birthers of the old patriarchal society, but instead women will be disciples and apostles of a new family and community in this kingdom of God on earth.
DDM And so, what is this good news that Mark is proclaiming in terms of gender?
DDM Well, that your identity does not come from being a mother or father, from your gender and traditional gender roles. But your identity comes from your choice to become a part of God’s family, that you are a child of God, beloved and pleasing to God. Mark is reminding them that their identity comes not from their birth stories, around economic standing, family history, or gender but instead through divine calling. And to respond to that divine calling will mean that they will be free, and perhaps even asked, to break social boundaries, even patriarchal ones, to build this new community of discipleship.
DDM Mark is reminding this vulnerable community of readers, that when we step out of these class and gender categories, when we are prepared to let go of our identities as mothers or fathers, when we let go of our identities as men or women, jew or gentile, then we are ready to stand with Jesus at the cross and see the resurrection of God and of our lives. Discipleship for Mark will replace hierarchy.
DDM In Mark’s gospel all are welcome to be a part of this new family, and all it takes is an act of choice. One that we are all equally free to make, regardless of our gender, our class, our culture, our status.
DDM Now John, remember, is speaking to Jews and gentiles that have been thrown out of the synagogues and Roman world because of their wrestling with who this Jesus is? And so how does John deal with gender in Jesus’ origin story?
DDM John begins with Jesus as beyond gender. In the beginning was the Word, through whom everything was created. So for John, the beginning takes place in the universe, not in a womb. Everything in all its gender shapes and forms come from Jesus and are created through this Jesus. And yet, when this Word enters our world, the Word enters being named not as male or female but flesh. Jesus comes in the flesh of humanity.
DDM And so again we see John presents Jesus without a biological mother or father, because Jesus always has been, and was never created. Jesus is instead the creator. And when God enters our world, it is as humanity, the focus being on the humanity of God – not the gender. And so, we see in John’s account that Jesus transcends and bypasses gender entirely. This story is not about biological reproduction or male lineage, but instead about a God who exists beyond our patriarchal structures with no reference to a mother or a father, and who choses not gender but human flesh. This is a story of incarnation, not of birth.
DDM John will later speak a lot about the need for us to re-born, again taking life and salvation outside of biology and gender, and about the need to be find life outside of “a man’s will” – referring to patriarchal paternity, or from the flesh referring to a woman’s body, but instead born from the Spirit – which is again beyond gender, and irrespective of gender. So John gives to us in the opening verses a way of being in flesh, embodied but beyond gender and traditional forms of gender.
DDM However, in order to attempt to silence or pull Jesus down the crowds say, isn’t this the son of Joseph? We know where you come from. John quotes these voices and comments to show to his readers that human birth stories have nothing to do with divine character and identity, no matter how much others may try to make them so.
DDM A little later in John’s gospel, the first sign of who Jesus is will be with Mary at a wedding. John doesn’t introduce her as Jesus’ mother, but rather in the formal title Woman. This is Jesus symbolically seeing even his own mother as a Woman in her own right and being, not simply as his mother. This shows us how Jesus is calling us to see each other in this new community. Not primarily as mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, but as individuals beyond patriarchal roles, individuals in our own right. Even for Mary, the Mother of God, this mothering role must give way to faith and discipleship, and so the story is about Mary the believer and Jesus the Messiah.
DDM Again it is in John’s gospel that we so clearly the creation by Jesus of a new family, so at the foot of the cross Jesus says to Mary – not mother – but Woman, behold your son referring to John, and then to John he says Behold your mother.
DDM Mothering for Jesus is not primarily biological, but it is the role we embrace in this new family. And so, in this story in John, a new spiritual family is created, beyond biological and gender ties, but rooted in faith.
DDM Just as we see in Mark’s gospel, moving beyond biological gender is not a diminishment of who we are, or of who women are. Mary is the Woman who begins his public ministry at the wedding of Cana, it is the Samaritan woman in Johns gospel who is the first to proclaim him as Messiah, it is Martha of Bethany that makes the strongest confession of faith – I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God and it is Mary Magdalene that is the first witness of the resurrection and becomes the first apostle. And so, women in John’s gospel are held in the highest regard – but not because of their biology, but because who they are as people.
DDM John is reminding this community that has been excluded from the rest of their people, that they have an opportunity to create a whole new community of faith. That this is the beginning of a new family, but John is equally saying to them, don’t repeat the patriarchal structures that don’t serve you. Instead find a new way to be together as a faith family, of deep equality, irrespective of biology and gender.
DDM Because in Johns gospel salvation is for all, to all who receive him, he gave power to become children of God. This ostracized community are being called children of God, irrespective of whether they were Jewish or gentile, male or female, poor or middle class. And they are to share in the divine life of the Word of God through faith and being reborn in the Spirit.
MET Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prof. find us at our website, https ://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM Music by Audionautix.com.
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