Jesus and Feminism

I used to think that if God was any sort of feminist he would have made Jesus a woman. I mean there are a lot more prominent men in the old Testament than women and I thought that God might have taken the opportunity to even it out a bit.

Not only was this kinda presumptuous (and probably slightly heretical) on my part but the sad fact is that if Jesus had been a woman she would have had very little influence. She could not have been considered a religious teacher, people wouldn’t have followed her ideas or even listened to what she had to say.

But if we think of it another way Jesus being a man puts him in a much better position to be a feminist. It would be relatively unimpressive for a female Jesus to treat other women equally, and it would have been considered disrespectful for her to try to treat men as equals.

But don’t just take my word for it, let’s have a look at some specific examples.

Luke 10:38. The story of Mary and Martha (it might be worth reminding yourself of this one, don’t worry it’s pretty short). This story always used to annoy me because I feel like if Martha had just stopped making everyone’s dinner and doing the washing up the disciples would have been all like “woman! Where’s the food? Do you expect us to cook it ourselves?”

I had, as usual, got completely the wrong end of the stick. I recently read that when Jesus was teaching in the sisters’ house, both women listened and learned from him. But this time Jesus and his disciples turned up unexpectedly so Martha gets going with the cooking and (it’s been suggested) she wanted it to be a really good dinner, because Jesus was really important. But she starts focusing too much on all the stuff she has to do; she puts the meal above the one she is making it for.

So Jesus tells Martha that what Mary is doing is alright, that he doesn’t care if the dinner isn’t restaurant quality, he would much rather she stopped worrying about the domestic jobs and joined her sister.

The part of this story relevant to this post is that Jesus encourages the sisters to do something usually only acceptable if you were a man: learning religious teaching and ideology. Men and women are totally equal in his eyes and his message isn’t only for the privileged.

Then there’s the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Men didn’t really speak to women in Jewish society, as far as I can gather it was considered beneath them. They didn’t speak to Samaritans either (Jews and Samaritans had a lot of beef over where the right place to worship God was and stuff like that). So this story is as much about racial acceptance as it is about feminism.

Jesus could have treated this woman as lower than him (as a lot of people in his sandals would have done), or, since we know he’s a nice guy, with pity. But he doesn’t. He treats he as an equal, he asks for a drink and strikes up a conversation. And he knows that she isn’t exactly pious but he doesn’t condemn her or suggest she pray for forgiveness. He isn’t patronising, neither does he exercise his superiority. 

Instead he offers her an opportunity to tell him the truth (when he asks her to go and get her husband, knowing full well that she isn’t married to the man she lives with) and to get closer to God. He offers her this opportunity because he wants her life to be fuller, better, happier.

Not only does she take the opportunity but she runs back into town and tells everyone she meets about Jesus. This is one of the first examples of evangelism and it’s carried out by a woman.

There are plenty of examples of Jesus treating women and men equally but these are the ones I know a bit about. There’s just one more I’d like to mention.

When Jesus was born the people that come to see him give us an idea of who he came to earth for: shepherds and wise men, minimum wage earners and foreigners. The people at the bottom of the heap and the people on the margins. Likewise, the people who saw him come back after he died show that he isn’t an exclusive God. Guess who the first person was to see the Son of God when he came back to life? Well, you can read that for yourself: John 20:10.

Jesus showed us how we ought to live: he treated and loved everyone as equals.

“God shows his great love for us like this: Jesus died for us while we were still sinners (before we even wanted anything to do with him)” Romans 5:8.

This is my second post about feminism and where it fits in with the Bible, my third one will probably be looking at the New Testament and the early church. Also thanks to Angela Spreadbury who inspired me to consider the story of the woman at the well with her fantastic talk the other week.

Any suggestions/comments/questions are welcome as always :)