Magnificat E-Book

Debbie Blue

• Herausgeber: JUANUNO1 Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 220

Beschreibung

WOMEN THAT BREAK THE RULE RULES AND MAKE THEMSELVES VISIBLE. THOUGHT AND ACTION PROVOKING. INTIMATE, FURIOUS AND LOVING, Debbie Blue GIVES VOICE TO THE WOMEN OF THE BIBLE AS TOGETHER THEY TURN THE TABLE OF PATRIARCHY. "The sayings of the wise are like goads," warned a preacher of old: words that are not as restful as one might expect. The wise speak and are goaded into action. Or perhaps the community works and the wise merely capture its hidden wisdom –words and deeds that can be more disruptive at times than polite. Debbie Blue attempts to tap into this spirit as she develops her preaching ministry as a founding pastor of House of Mercy, in St Paul, Minnesota. Debbie took a step further along the line of the preacher of old. She collected her sermons, and as a result you have this book in your hand. Its contents are piercing as nails sometimes: Goads that are unsettling more than complacent when it comes to questioning patriarchy. This is a collection of fifteen sermons that revolve around women. "The women in the Bible break a lot of rules, resist empire, disobey the cultural norms, cause good trouble (and sometimes not such good trouble). They are fully human. They help us glimpse the possibility of transformation (not always, but often). I think we are at a time and place in the life of the world where we need to hear their stories." THERE IS A STORY BEHIND THE REIGNING, PATRIARCHAL CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE. IT IS THE STORY OF WOMEN, THEIR GOD, THEIR RESISTANCE True to her style, pastor, preacher and author Debbie Blue, in Magnificat: A God Who Never Stopped Considering Women, spurs us on to that "possibility of transformation". She and the women in the stories with their resourcefulness, dancing, joie de vivre, irreverence, solidarity, pain, laughter and anger, constantly reminds us that  God loves us and means to set us free.

Leseprobe

Praise for Debbie Blue andMagnificat

Magnificat is a sermonic tour de force where the women of Scripture are more fully seen, taken seriously, and considered tenderly. Debbie Blue preaches through the stories of women and the feminine testimony in the text with skill and insight. She explores the reach of these women in the folds of our Christian tradition, but also from Jewish and Islamic sources, bringing their humanity and redemptive potential into full view. She weaves together rigorous interpretation, complexity, and a holy audacity as she bears witness to the expansive trajectory these women set for the community of faith today. This exploration through a collection of sermons reveals a deep love and mercy for the women in Scripture and the communities today hungry to connect with them. Their stories instruct and inspire, provoke compassion and invite us to join in the salvific arc of Scripture by the grace of the Spirit at work in each sermon. Magnificat follows the lead of the women, where there are no easy heroes or happily ever after’s, but where one can glimpse profound hope in each testimony given. Debbie Blue honors the women of Scripture and honors the community of faith with this gift of sermons for our journey onward in the ways of Jesus.

- Kelley Nikondeha, Author of Adopted: The Sacrament of Belonging in a Fractured WorldandDefiant: What the Women of Exodus Teach Us about Freedom

If you suspect that the Bible wasn’t written to warm our hearts (at least not female hearts) you’re ready for Debbie Blue. Elevating texts that feature women, she peels away misogyny to show how complex humans navigated a relationship with God — the One who is merciful and loving, but also beyond our grasp. Her words help scripture achieve its purpose and break our hearts open.

- Rev. Ruth Everhart, Author ofThe #MeToo Reckoning and Ruined

Debbie Blue’s Manificat is a powerful collection of reflections on the profoundly important role that women have played throughout the history of our faith. Her insights into the stories of these women and the lessons that their lives teach us will challenge and inspire everyone who picks up this book, inviting us to look again at many familiar stories with fresh eyes and from a new perspective and be captivated by the prophetic wisdom and faithfulness of these women of faith.

- Rev. Brandan Robertson, Author ofFilled to Be Emptied: The Path to Liberation for a Privileged People 

They are few books on re-readings by women that I have read with keen enthusiasm and interest. Debbie Blue’s Magnificat, is one of such books. As I was preparing my endorsement I thought that it would suffice to read the Introduction and perhaps one or two chapters. But as soon as I started with the Introduction I could not stop reading Debbie’s “sermons.” Each one of the re-readings of a chosen text is unusual, imaginative, courageous, audacious and pleasant. Amusing in some passages, startling in others. Debbie has a special knack for observing every corner of the text. She considers them up and down, she peers into every nook and cranny, there is no detail that eludes her gaze. She unmasks malicious patriarchal interpretations and brings forward fresh approaches. She gets out of comfort zones, which is the most appealing trait of her contributions: you receive what you are not waiting for. You might go along her writing thinking that you are going to find what it usually has been and is said about the text, but then you discover that such is not the case. And you give her a nod of assent. She helps her readers to see that things are complex, that they are not that simple as one might believe; nothing is black and white, all of us are bad and good at the same time. And yet, reading Debbie Blue is not just a pastime. Her narrative challenges the traditional ways to read the Bible. Her contribution is even of a methodological nature since it persuades us that things are not what they seem to be. Moreover, Debbie’s simple and enjoyable reading allows for her rabbinic and Christian, and even Islamic sources to be seen, as well as the influence of thinkers and artists. She questions patriarchal interpretations of the Bible, but she does not do away with the sacred text. She simply sets that text within this complex human history and lets her readers see its striking aspects, which are the same that are rarely exposed.

- Elsa Tamez, Mexican-Costa Rican Bible scholar and Theologian, author of several books, such asWomen in the Jesus’ Movement(JuanUno1 Books, 2021)

Magnificat: How God Never Stopped Considering Women by Pastor and Author Debbie Blue is a compilation of fifteen sermons. Each homily concerns biblical women, eight in the Hebrew Bible and seven in the Christian Testament. Some sermons focus on more than one character, others have as subject a singular figure, while two are centered on female personification of a biblical concept, Woman Wisdom and the Whore of Babylon. Every discourse surveys a wide array of concerns about human existence in its relationship to the Holy One and the world. The presentations are bound to entertain, amuse and inspire. At times I laughed and other times came close to tears. Storylines are followed and characters are explored with dexterity and attention to the text and its interpreters, including the contemporary audience. Blue displays phenomenal skill in engaging the audience with the biblical story and characters while casting them in fresh perspectives. Regarding the daughters of Zelophehad: “It’s not often you find a story in the Bible where women challenge God’s law….and God says, the sisters are right. Sorry. My bad. Scratch that whole patriarchal thing we wrote at Mount Sinai about inheritance, give these women some land!” The female subjects are depicted in a nuanced way, not entirely good or entirely bad, but with all the proclivities of which the human heart is capable. In her remarkable sermon on Salome, Blue highlights the fear that permeates the story. As a part of the conclusion she writes: “The way out of fear is trust. But trust isn’t something you can exactly attain to or strive for or work up. It’s something that slips in beside you when you are loved in a way that can be trusted. …. God loves in this way.” One can only say “Amen” to that.

- Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos, Professor of Old Testament Emerita at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

I start a sermon by Debbie Blue with a sense of adventure and expectation. She leads me to see biblical texts with new eyes. She unrelentingly searches for the yes of God’s love even in texts that appear only as a no. That is not to say her sermons are gentle—all warm fuzzies. She, like the God revealed by Jesus Christ, lovingly confronts the many ways we have strayed. These sermons on women in the Bible give her ample opportunity to do all I have said above.

- Mark D. Baker, Professor of mission and theology at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary and author ofCentered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community Without Judgmentalism

In a religion that has historically not been so considerate of women, Debbie Blue is masterful at finding the cracks in the patriarchal foundation and blowing them up with homiletic dynamite. (Ruth actually proposes to Boaz? Wisdom can be personified as God’s nursing child? Mother Mary is a threat to monotheism?) The rubble is something glorious, a reminder that we do not have to be good or pure or male to be loved and embody Love in return.

- Erin S. Lane, Author of Lessons in Belonging from a Church-Going Commitment Phobe

A thorough reading of this book, going through every single story, actually is a necessity. We as readers start to see the cracks in the patriarchal reading of the biblical text. Thus the bodies, desires, blissful ambiances, anger, power, struggles of women well up to the surface: women in the Bible, their faces and voices. As she goes mentioning them by their names, Debbie touches off a creative process that helps us to be and stay with them by means of the word, to undermine weighty historic mandates, to dismantle prejudices, to abandon naivety.

As one who is engaged in a broad women’s movement that works in dialogue with those who fight for children’s rights, Debbie Blue spurs us on to display reflections, feelings and reinvigorated actions. Her criticism destroys dominant adultcentrism and heternormativity thus allowing for the construction of love-based visions from feminist perspectives and with a strong emphasis on rights.

- Liliana Simari, Pedagogue and Educator, Social Activist in Argentina.

Copyright © 2021 by Deborah Ann Blue

Magnificat

A God Who Never Stopped Considering Women.

de Debbie Blue, 2021, JUANUNO1 Books.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Published in the United States by JUANUNO1 Books,

an imprint of the JuanUno1 Publishing House, LLC.

www.juanuno1books.com

JUANUNO1 Books, logos and its open books colophon, are registered trademarks of JuanUno1 Publishing House, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Blue, Debbie, author.

Magnificat : a God who never stopped considering women / Debbie Blue.

Published: Miami : JUANUNO1 Books, 2021

Identifiers: LCCN 2021949034

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021949034

REL058010 RELIGION / Sermons / Christian

REL006400 RELIGION / Biblical Studies / Exegesis & Hermeneutics

REL012130 RELIGION / Christian Living / Women’s Interests

Paperback ISBN 978-1-63753-104-4

Ebook ISBN 978-1-63753-105-1

Editor: Alvin Góngora

Reviewer: Susan Tovar

Interior Layout: María Gabriela Centurión

Cover Design: JuanUno1 Publishing House LLC Media Team

Publications Director: Hernán Dalbes

First Edition

Miami, FL. USA.

November 2021

For Olivia

until it is true.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Praise for Debbie Blue and Magnificat

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1. Heartbreaking Stories: Rachel and Leah

2. The Desirous Woman: Potiphar’s Wife

3. The Empire Disease: The Midwives of Exodus

4. All The Women Followed Her: Miriam

5. Fierce Serenity: The Daughters of Zelophehad

6. A Moabite! Ruth

7. It’s Not About Sex, it’s About Power: Bathsheba

8. She/Her/Hers: Wisdom

9. Magnificat: A God Who Never Stopped Considering Women

10. Foolish or Free? Matthew’s Ten Maidens

11. A Tragic Story about People Who Are Afraid: Salome

12. Restructuring Consciousness: The Woman in Search of the Coin

13. Angry Women: Luke’s Persistent Widow

14. The Prophet Mary

15. Patriarchy in Drag: The Whore of Babylon

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction

Some days I stare at the Bible passage I have to preach on for hours, paralyzed. I’ve probably read it a million times in the twenty-five years I’ve been a pastor. As much as I want to believe in the life-giving love of Jesus, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m looking at a dead fish. I stare some more. I call a friend, “I have lost my faith,” I say, “I suppose I should quit the ministry.” This happens, maybe, once a month. You‘d think I would learn the condition is cyclical. I will move through it, find some faith (or the spirit will find me) and I will manage to give a sermon once Sunday comes. But if you asked Jim, my husband, he could tell you how many times I’ve insisted, against his reassurance, “Yes. I know it passed last time, but I’m afraid this time there will be no revival.” I’m grateful that (so far) he finds my ritual histrionics amusing.

There are weeks when it is not like this at all, when I start off running, with passion (if not always perfect faith). This is almost inevitably the case when the text before me includes a woman. Every text that comes up in the Revised Common Lectionary involves a man (as an author or character or voice). Jesus is a man, obviously, and though YHWH is not, God often comes across that way: male pronouns and titles abound (He/Him/His, The Father, King, Prince, etc.) So, it is thoroughly refreshing to encounter a woman or an image of God that is not male in the Bible. I don’t think patriarchy has been good for the world or the church (not women or men or non-binary folks, not children or marginalized people, not the colonized, not the water or the earth). So I am eager to find the cracks in the patriarchal narrative and pull, dig, plant dynamite if necessary to open space for the alternative narratives that are not always recognized, or that lie under the surface.

This is a book of sermons on texts in the Bible that include women. Many of them are drawn from the year our church, House of Mercy, decided to forgo the Revised Common Lectionary in favor of a lectionary we created that featured stories of women every Sunday. It was a fruitful year. I can imagine spending the rest of my years in ministry preaching on the passages in the Bible that include women, but I recognize this might not work quite so well for everyone else in our church (and I suppose there are quite a few crucial moments in the scripture we would miss). The folks who write the curriculum for our children had difficulty handling some of the stories in a way that felt child appropriate. My male colleague was totally on board but in practice, found it challenging.

The women in the Bible break a lot of rules, resist empire, disobey the cultural norms, cause good trouble (and sometime not such good trouble). They are fully human. They help us glimpse the possibility of transformation (not always, but often). I think we are at a time and place in the life of the world where we need to hear their stories.

I am fascinated by the history of interpretation. Though I am often frustrated by it as well. Shocked, some times. This has happened over and over again through the years I have been a preacher especially (though not exclusively) when I am researching passages that include women. Luther was a tremendous theologian to whom I am grateful for many things, but when he accuses Hagar of kidnapping Abraham’s son and claims she is the cause of all the sins of the family, I am not persuaded by his exegesis. Tertullian is adamant that God became fully human in Jesus. As someone who values incarnational theology, I am thankful for this. But when he goes on about how much the implications of that humanness disgusts him, “the filth within the womb of the bodily fluid and blood, the loathsome curdled lump of flesh which has to be fed for nine months of this same muck,” I feel smoke start coming out of my nostrils. Misogynist interpretations have laced the Judeo-Christian faith with toxic and habitual tendencies to dehumanize women (and black, indigenous, gay and queer folks, anyone who is not white-ish, straight and male). Though women have been allowed to read the text and even lead the church for some years now, clearly this privilege is not yet universally extended nor have we defeated sexism (or white supremacy or colonialism) by any stretch of the imagination.

As you read this book you will sense that I have a lot of frustration with some of the historical interpretations. I think it’s important as a community entrusted with sacred texts, to confess the failures of our past, not to shove them under the rug or excuse them because times were different then. It is not just a problem of the past. Even now the Bible is used to dehumanize the other. Clearly, it’s something we need to keep working on. I know I do. I am not certain of all that much, but I am certain that God’s word is not meant to provoke us to hate and condemn and scapegoat. And though I may quickly recognize how some readings of scripture are harmful, my own scapegoating tendencies may elude me at times.

The foundational misogyny bothers me and I don’t feel a ton of mercy welling up inside me when I confront it, but I hope my own lack of mercy does not obscure the revelation of the ever-merciful love of God abounding. I mean to point to it, even amidst my failures. Maybe sometime, farther along, when the spirit has had some more time with me, I will be able to lower my gloves, but I’m not there yet. I feel like I’m still digging around. I hope the dirt I throw up won’t get in the way of your glimpsing the love when you read these sermons.

As much as I’m sometimes offended by the history of interpretation, I am also occasionally thrilled and surprised. This often happens when I encounter an interpretation of a familiar story from a Jewish or Islamic perspective. I am grateful we share some foundational stories. It helps to see them from a different angle. I think we can use all the help we can get as stumbling humans longing for God. Sometimes the Christian imagination needs a jolt. I often draw on these interpretations in my sermons.

You will also notice that I frequently comment on how women in the Bible have been depicted in art history. My husband, Jim, is an artist. I have an office above our garage, next to his painting studio. I write sermons in a room full of commentaries next to his studio full of art and art history books. It’s a fruitful if sometimes disconcerting juxtaposition. He is particularly interested in the history of liturgical art and often explores these images in his work. I could hardly avoid them if I tried. Whether or not we are aware of how Rembrandt depicted Potiphar’s wife, art has been a part of creating the culture in which we swim.

Just a few more things to warn you about. I write “maybe” and “seems” and “I think” a lot. Most editors don’t let me get away with this and I imagine by the time you read this some of my tentative language will have been weeded out. But I do hope some of it will remain. I don’t use qualifiers because I never learned one’s writing is stronger without them, but because I feel that where biblical interpretation is concerned, a certain tentativeness is called for. I really don’t know. I don’t want to claim to know. “Maybe” seems appropriate. I have strong feelings some times. And you will certainly detect this, but I am the farthest thing from convinced that I have discovered the right way to read a text. The word of God is meant to engage us, draw us in, as the people we are—with all our brittle edges, and craggy emotional landscapes—all our differences and fears and prejudice. We might struggle with the Bible. We may not like it at times. I think that’s okay. God longs to embrace us as we are and open us up to more love and more mercy than we are capable of imagining. I hope these sermons occasionally gesture in the right direction.

1

Heartbreaking Stories: Rachel and Leah

Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.  Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful and lovely.  Jacob loved Rachel; and he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.”  So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast.  But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.)  And in the morning, behold, it was Leah; and Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” Laban said, “It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the first-born. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.” Jacob did so, and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to wife. (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.)  So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.

When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

Genesis 29: 16-31 (RSV)

Acknowledging moral ambiguity and embracing uncertainty is not really part of the North American way. I grew up here, not in France or Mumbai or a nomadic tribe, so I don’t know what might have seeped into the structure of my consciousness if my formative years were spent elsewhere.Maybe it wouldn’t have been that different. Perhaps a fear of uncertainty and a discomfort with ambiguity is something deeply embedded in what it is to be human—something almost inescapable in the structure of our consciousness.

But whether it’s North American culture or the human condition, I often feel (in spite of what I actually believe or strive to believe) that there are some very bad people out there and they are different from us. Me and my people, you and I, know something that those people don’t—cling to something precious and important and beautiful that they have no respect for. I feel a certain sense of indignation toward the portion of the population that is seemingly unconcerned with what I know to be essential.

I have felt this tendency to fixate on the offensive behaviors and beliefs of others building toward a fevered pitch recently. It is not just me. Try spending a half hour on Facebook or Twitter. Division animated by certainty is making peace and love and civility seem far off these days.

Recognizing that the algorithms of socially media platforms have kept us in our separate bubbles, I have made an effort to seek out views from people who are not in my tribe. Sometimes it makes my blood pressure rise. I have found that most people think they are on the right side of things—their views are the righteous ones, their people are the good people—and there is a chasm fixed that separates an “us” from a “them.” It can seem a bit hopeless. Where do we go from here?

If there’s anything that breaks up that narrative for me—that narrative where there’s good and there’s bad and you can be clear which side of the line you’re on (and this is a tough narrative to break), it’s a close reading of the Bible. This is sort of funny considering the reputation the book has in some circles as a vehicle for clearing all this up. It makes sense to me though, that the Word of God would work like this—pulling us together somehow, rather than drawing lines that separate. Instead of reinforcing the structure of the good people versus the bad people, it’s more: we’re all bad, redeemable, and in this together.

Every time I go back to read these stories about the patriarchs and matriarchs, part of me laughs. Who writes this kind of book about the founders of their nation, their religion, and their people? They are so bad. Or at least a long ways from good and kind and heroic.

If you like morally unambiguous stories about righteous heroes and good people with happy endings, you’ll have to look somewhere other than the Bible. God does not even come across as unambiguously good in these founding narratives. There is no happily ever after. The Torah (the heart of the Hebrew scripture) ends with Moses, the great(ish) prophet and deliverer looking out over the land God has promised the people and God says, “I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.”

Moses has been on a long, often-torturous journey toward the Promised Land. He has worked hard and (mostly) faithfully for God and the people. Will he really never be allowed to set foot in the good land flowing with milk and honey? Maybe these stories are funny in places, but this? This is heartbreaking.

You’d be hard pressed to find unadulterated peace, happiness, and goodness anywhere in the Torah stories. The stories seem to go out of their way to show us how unfit their protagonists are—how often unhappy, compromised, and unfulfilled they are. One begins to wonder if that is part of the meaning—part of what is being revealed. And yet, it seems inadequate, to me, to summarize the whole complicated, heart breaking, strange, and occasionally beautiful narrative, by saying, “Well, God works through broken people.” Like that is somehow the heart warming point of it all.

I’m not sure the revelation is meant to warm our hearts. The word of God is more heartbreaking than heart warming. To hear it is not painless. I think God might be trying to break our hearts—break them open.

The Bible is not big on optimistic stories where progressive values eventually give birth to a nation of good people. I wish that’s more how things played out, but it just isn’t how it goes. The Bible isn’t a particularly optimistic book, really. It is more like glimpses of profound hope and love in the midst of heartbreaking stories about people who aren’t especially good.