Gender and genealogy

Genealogies play a big part in Advent and I've read a couple of things recently about the place of women in Matthew's genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17) that I'm trying to ponder a little because there's something about them that make me a little uneasy.

Matthew includes four women in his list - Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba - and my response to their inclusion has, in the past, been a fairly simplistic, 'Oh, how nice that Matthew has gone to the trouble of naming four of the women who played a part in Jesus' story!'

There are, of course, many, many unnamed women whose presence in the list are implicit - for every man whose name appears there is a woman who conceived and gave birth to the son whose name appears next on the list.

So why, when that list of unnamed women includes people like Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel (to name the three most obvious), does Matthew choose Tamar (who tricked her father-in-law into sleeping with her in order to preserve her dead husband's line), Rahab (a prostitute), Ruth (who may or may not have engaged in some morally dubious shenanigans in order to claim the protection of a male relative) and Bathsheba (who had an adulterous relationship with David)?

I've read two explanations recently. Kenneth Bailey, author of Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, suggests that the list as a whole 'Matthew gives us clues about the kinds of people that the Messiah came to save. He was to be a Savior for women and men who were both saints and sinners, Jews and Gentiles.'

In contrast, Paula Gooder, in Journey to the Manger, suggests that these sinful women are included specifically to place Mary's situation into a broader historical context in order to protect her reputation; God has always used fallen women and Mary is just the latest. What I think is particularly interesting here is that Gooder appears to have opted for the worst case scenario with Ruth, choosing to highlight the possible use of a euphemism in the text ('at his feet' can, apparently, refer to the genitals) rather than focusing on her self-sacrificial actions as the Gentile daughter-in-law of an impoverished Jewish widow.

Personally, I can't help but go back through the list and reflect on the damaged and damaging men who also made the list, individuals who lives (and leadership) were often far more problematic than those of the women whose names appear, and yet they don't stand out in this list, simply because of how the list is constructed.

But maybe the point is that all of these people were flawed (some more obviously than others) but some allowed themselves to be used by God (consciously or unconsciously) in the face of huge personal cost and at severe risk to their reputation. Is it possible to argue that that cost and risk was always going to be greater for women in the Old Testament (and, indeed as Gooder suggest, in the New) and therefore we shouldn't be surprised that the women God used were those with the least to lose? Perhaps, but I'm not sure that really answers the question of why women like Sarah, Rachel and Rebekah don't make the cut but these four women do.

Blogging for Advent. Again.

This year I've had no time for blogging - when academic study prescribes the writing of 20,000 words in a year and work includes producing regular content for a website there's not much head room left for writing for fun! Well, not for me anyway!

But I've always found Advent a useful time to come back to blogging; it's time-bound and contains themes and ideas that are ripe for pondering, and since it's appearing on the horizon once again I'm wondering about using this as a space to explore some of the themes of my MA dissertation, not least because many of those themes are intrinsically linked with Advent and Christmas.

Although I don't yet have a dissertation question, I do have some broad themes that I'm exploring. From a biblical perspective, the key theme is Jesus' identity as the Messiah and at this early stage I'm considering a number of questions:

• What did Jesus understand the concept of Messiah to mean?
• What was the prevailing Jewish understanding of 'the Messiah' during the period of Jesus' earthly ministry?
• What were the points of connection and difference between these two understandings of the Messiah? 
• Who and what do twenty-first century Christians understand the Messiah to be?

So there are some obvious points of connection between Advent and my dissertation, since the purpose of this season of preparation is precisely to reflect on what the Bible has to say about who Jesus is, why he came and what the long-term implications of that coming are.

Therefore, alongside some more academic reading, I've decided to work my way through several different Advent studies in order to reflect more deeply, and from a variety of perspectives, on how this season might shape my academic thinking, and I've started now in order to give myself a little bit of extra time!

I've also taken this decision in part to try and avoid the major pitfall inherent in any kind of theological study, the very real danger that reflection on the nature of who God is becomes an exclusively academic exercise with little or no spiritual or practical value.

But my decision to share this process is a reflection of some of the frustration I've felt over the last few months at not really having a space in which I can explore my thoughts and ideas with others. I'd like to think that this time of year might create space in which others would be interested in exploring this theme of Jesus the Messiah with me.

If that's the case, you might like to try and get hold of one of the Advent studies I'm going to work my way through. They are:

Jeremy Brooks: A Long Way Off: A daily walk from Advent to Christmas ISBN 9781848677265

Stephen Cottrell: Walking Backwards to Christmas ISBN 9780281071470

Maggi Dawn: Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between): Daily Bible readings from Advent to Epiphany ISBN 9781841015668

Paula Gooder: Journey to the Manger: Exploring the Birth of Jesus ISBN 978848257948

David Thomson: Christmas by Candlelight: Readings and reflections from Advent to Epiphany ISBN 987185078993

(Can I encourage you, where possible, to get hold of these books from your friendly local bookshop - Christian or otherwise - rather than from the Interweb?!)

The Maggi Dawn, Jeremy Brooks and David Thomson books are made up of daily readings and reflections while the other two take up key themes over a number of chapters and contain suggestions for personal and group study.

I'm not entirely sure what shape my blogging will take over the next few weeks; as ever I caveat this entire post with the warning that this may in reality be the last thing I write for another year!!

If you would like to go through this process with me - whatever it ends up looking like! - do leave a comment here or, if you access my blog via Facebook, on the post in which you found this link. Do be forthcoming with ideas, questions, book suggestions or anything else this or future posts (assuming there are some!!) brings to mind.

Thank you!

Putting on my dancing shoes

So.

I went to my first dance class this evening!

Four of us wandered along to a fairly uninspiring working men's club on one of Leicester's less salubrious estates to be greeted by a fairly uninspiring gentleman who asked for our money but not our names and basically told us we were a bit early (when the website had clearly told us to turn up in good time the first week). Then we were all unceremonious split up with no explanation by a stern, unfriendly lady who (obviously) turned out to be the teacher.

From such inauspicious beginnings things can obvious only get better, which they duly did! We had a great time! The basic lindy hop steps were really straightforward and the stern lady and her far less stern partner turned out to be excellent teachers. And yes, there were more women than men, but not by much (and I reckon there were fifty or sixty of us altogether!) so we just stood in a circle and the men rotated and it was all good!

So, yes, we will be going back next week! And the moral of the story is that if there's something you've always fancied having a go at, arm-twist a few friends and get on with it!

We'll see how long it lasts...

A New Perspective

I've been thinking about age quite a lot recently (in case you hadn't noticed...). Some of that started with Judi Dench: her appearance on The Graham Norton Show a few weeks ago, an interview in the Christmas edition of the Radio Times in which I discovered that she was about to turn 80, and then watching Skyfall on Christmas Day.

I was struck by the difference between her and other 80-somethings I know: by her physical wellbeing (although she is losing her sight), her mental agility and general sparkiness, as well as how amazing she looks.

Barry Norman, who conducted the Radio Times interview (and who is himself 81), brought up the subject of aging:

She will be 80 this month, but when I mentioned it she got quite upset. “No, steady! The moment you say an age, people think bath chairs and sitting with your feet up. They say, ‘Take it easy.’ Why do they say that?

“The worst thing you can possibly do is stick somebody in a room in front of the television and not speak to them. No stimulus at all – not a jigsaw, not a game of cards, not a nice dog to cuddle. People immediately associate old age with infirmity. They say, ‘Oh, you must take it easy,’ and I think, ‘Get off!’ I don’t mind people being helpful, because I can’t see very well [she has macular degeneration] but I don’t want them to help me.”

So is Judi the exception that proves the rule that old age equals infirmity? Almost as an afterthought, my dad handed me a book as I was heading back to Leicester after Christmas. Called Coming Up Trumps, it's the memoir of Baroness Trumpington, a rather astonishing woman who I'd heard interviewed on Radio 4's Midweek back in April. It reads like a cross between PG Wodehouse and Forest Gump but with (slightly) more swearing. I read it in two sittings over two days.

Born Jean Campbell-Harris to an army officer and his American heiress wife, she grew up in privilege before her family lost everything during the Wall Street Crash. She worked at Bletchley Park during the war and in Madison Avenue (of Mad Men fame) in the fifties before marrying an Eton master. She was Mayor of Cambridge before being made a Conservative peer by Mrs Thatcher at the age of 58, becoming first a health and then a agriculture minister. At the age of 92 she still attends the House of Lords whenever it's sitting. The list of people she's met - and the circumstances under which she met them - is genuinely astonishing.

Towards the end of the book, she mentions that she was featured in a Channel 4 documentary about six women in their seventies and eighties, Fabulous Fashionistas, which I had, co-incidentally, stumbled across on 4od but never got round to watching. So watch I did. I'll be honest - I'm not sure why she was included in a programme about clothes, but it was interesting to see her interviewed.

But even more interestingly, it meant I stumbled across five other older women who are defying the stereotype of age equalling infirmity, including Gillian Lynne, 87, choreographer of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, who still works full time.

So are these women exceptions? Is their collective unwillingness to retire about vanity? Money? A desire to stay young? Or are they living lives that are stimulating and inspiring, surrounded by interesting people and new opportunities? Are they, or their circumstances, fundamentally different to those of the eighty-somethings I know?

One of the things that struck me was that all these women (including the ones I haven't named) has the ability to embrace change, to roll with the punches of life. Each has suffered significant loss. Almost all has had some kind of second wind in the second half of their lives - as the oldest female minister at 69, as a shop assistant at 71, as an Oscar-winning film star at 62. Clearly it helps that they've all enjoyed good health - consider today's news that most types of cancer can be put down to bad luck. But to what extent is it significant that they have chosen - and they do appear to have chosen - not to succumb to the pervasive social stereotype that old age means infirmity?

I'm really grateful to have stumbled across these women at this point in my life - perhaps over the course of this year they'll inspire a new perspective on the big 40...

My Year of Living Intentionally (or Forty Before 40)

It's New Year's Day. Welcome, 2015.

Who knows what this year will bring? Well, all things being equal, it will bring my fortieth birthday. I'm trying not to be terrified by the prospect and am instead gradually coming up with a list of things I'd like to do this year. Whether I'll reach forty things I've no idea but it might be fun to try!

So, number one...

Learn To Dance

I think this is really something I've always wanted to do and I've always been quite envious of those who can. I love watching dance and after almost a decade of Strictly obsession it feels like the time is right to have a go myself! So I've been googling dance classes in Leicester and have hit upon lindy hop as a possibility. I think it's a bit like jive but your feet seem to stay a bit closer to the floor and there's no chucking people around!!!

So there we go. I'll keep you posted...