Sunday Homily 6-28-09, 13th Ordinary Time
Readings: Wisdom 1, 13-15, 2, 23-24; Psalm 30, I will Praise You, Lord, for You have rescued Me; 2 Corinthians 8, 7-15; Mark 5, 21-43.
Wisdom: One of the 14-15 books of the deutero-canonical books of the bible. Not part of the orginal Jewish bible, not part of the OT nor the NT, but in between and the subject of controvercy over the centuries. Were they really part of the bible or not? How do you know? Catholic church accepts the books.
Author: not Solomon, but a Jew living in Alexandria, Egypt, who spoke and wrote excellent Greek.
Date: ca. 100-200 BCE. How do we know these facts? Because of text analysis. For example, while the author wrote in Greek, he uses phrases and expressions that have a Hebrew flavor. Also, he mentions rulers and places that reveal date and locale.
Sources: Catholic Encyclopedia on line
This is Radical
There is a novel going around called Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See. I recommend it. The novel tracks the lives of two middle class, educated sisters who are born in Shanghai in the 1920's or early '30's. It follows them through a time in 1937 when the Japanese invaded China to the time when they end up in California as arranged brides. The novel has good character development and provides a view into a time just before & after the Second World War from the perspective of Chinese middle class women.
What struck me in a unique way was the mother of the two girls. She was, according to the girls, an old fashioned mother. That is, she bound her feet so they would not grow. From the novel I discovered what a barbaric & painful experience this was for women, young & old. Imagine the pain of wearing shoes too tight or new. Why? Beauty? I discovered in researching for our homily that another reason was to limit the mobility of women. So they cannot run away or even run. The reason for the demand was to limit mobility; the side effect was beauty, all because of male bias against women.
I remembered this novel when I read about Jesus healing two females. Do you realize how radical this was, especially with the woman bleeding? Leviticus, the third book of the Bible, has a lot to say about women who bleed. For instance, a woman giving birth to a boy is ritually unclean for 7 days; a girl baby, 14 days (chapter12).
In Lev. 15 it says that during menstration, women were ritually unclean, which meant they were considered socially dead, not allowed in the temple, not allowed in the community, could not touch anyone and no one was allowed to touch them or their clothes or they, too, were ritually unclean. So what does the lady in Mark do? What does Jesus do?
Do you realize today how historic and universal this bias was against women? Plato in The Republic says that Socrates asked, Do you know of any thing done by humans which is not done better by the male.
Hindus teach that a woman must immolate herself after her husband's death. Buddhists consider it bad karma to be reincarnated as a woman. Jewish men are taught to pray, Blessed be God who has not created me a heathen, a slave, or a woman. Our Bible in Genesis blames a woman for the origin of evil in our world.
In 1873 in Illinois a case was decided against a woman. She had passed the bar exam to be a lawyer, and the court would not grant her appeal to receive a law license. A judge said that the place of a woman was in the home and that women did not have the fortitude to deal with such issues as the law.
The church fathers, as they are called, had their own bias. St. Jerome says that when a woman wishes to serve God more that the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called a man. You do not want to know what St. Augustine thinks about women.
So why this historic and universal bias against women by men (& women)? One reason, from my research, blood. Another is the male nervousness & weakness around women, beginning in adolescence.
So here comes Jesus along. The woman touches him. He could have had her killed by the crowd. What was she doing in the crowd anyway? And what does he do? He calls her "Daughter," and heals her. This is revolutionary. He moves from bias to inclusion & acceptance.
In Galatians (Chapter 3) it says there is no male or female. Just folks. We are being called to get rid of the bias. Women do not deserve to have their feet bound.
How is your bias barometer? Any bias against women, men, a particular race, political party, a part of town, a school?
Sources: The Sins of Scritpture, Bishop (Anglican) John Shelby Spong; Catholic Encyclopedia on line.
Audio on vacation this week & next, sorry.
Picture 1: Mass with Kevin & Noah helping
Picture 2: Kevin & Noah
Picture 3: Birthdays & Anniversaries, Sue Tomas, Rick & Jackie, Sandra & Chuck Pratt
Picture 4: Birthdays & Anniversaries, Nina Waldron, Barb & Warren Wittek