Advent Devotion: December 6, 2024
A Woman's Place
~Shelley Donaldson
Scripture – Luke 1:24-25
Afterward, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant. She kept to herself for five months,saying, “This is the Lord’s doing. He has shown his favor to me by removing my disgrace among other people.”
Reflection
Where is a woman’s place? There are a lot of different arguments about a woman’s place in our scriptures. But one thing that we can be clear about is that in biblical times, a woman’s sense of place and her connection to others in her community primarily resided with her ability to be married and conceive children. Read: to provide male heirs for her family to pass money and property through and eventually care for her once her husband passed, and daughters that could eventually become wives and mothers themselves.
If a woman was barren, it was believed that they weren’t favored by God. And to view them as unfavored by God was an injustice towards women like Elizabeth, because even as a devoted and loving wife, she was still prevented from claiming her place in society as a woman, connected to others, as long as she remained childless. Now we have science which has taught us that it’s not always easy to conceive a baby and carry it to term for many women and that it’s also that many men are unable to father children biologically, which wasn’t even a plausible theory for people back then. But they didn’t have this knowledge and so it was the woman’s place to bear the sadness, shame and disgrace of believing they were unfavored by God. Elizabeth’s soon-to-be role as a potential mother meant that she was going to be a woman able to assume her expected place. Something that had been denied to her for so long was most likely the reason for keeping silent about her pregnancy for those first 5 months, lest her baby not make it and give legitimacy to the belief that God still did not offer her favor.
With this baby, she would no longer be the shame-bearer between her and her husband. She would no longer be disgraced in her community. And while we now know that it is unfair and unjust to hold a woman to such a standard as to place her worth around birthing healthy children, we can’t change the past. So, what does Luke’s passage ask of us in the here and now about a woman’s sense of place and the injustices that come with assuming what her place should or should not look like?
The first correct and universal answer is that a woman’s place is anywhere she darn well chooses, and the justice that she is entitled to is allowing her the freedom to make that decision for herself without the entitlement and judgement of the rest of us. The second correct answer is that it is no one’s place to determine a woman’s place other than herself and supporting women in their sense of connection to whatever their chosen place might be is how we offer justice to them.
In light of recent events in our country, it would seem as though many expect a woman’s place to be more in line with author Margaret Atwood’s dystopian story, A Handmaid’s Tale, where women are seen as nothing more than child-bearers and those meant to prop up the idea that positions of decision-making and authority are only places for men. But we know this is not the world Jesus believed in for women. Who were the first ones to see and report on the risen Jesus? Women (Matt. 28:5-8, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-8 & John 20). Who gave life to Jesus and John the Baptist? Women. (Luke 1-2). Who is lifted up as the ultimate example of piety and giving in the gospels? A woman (Luke 21:1-4 & Mark 12:41-44). I could go on, but you get the point. While they may have held a secondary place in society during his time, women are not secondary in Jesus’ gospel. They were front and center. If we’re looking to Jesus’ gospel message for our guidance in the here and now, then any place a woman feels called and feels connection is exactly where she should be.
A Woman's Place
~Shelley Donaldson
Scripture – Luke 1:24-25
Afterward, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant. She kept to herself for five months,saying, “This is the Lord’s doing. He has shown his favor to me by removing my disgrace among other people.”
Reflection
Where is a woman’s place? There are a lot of different arguments about a woman’s place in our scriptures. But one thing that we can be clear about is that in biblical times, a woman’s sense of place and her connection to others in her community primarily resided with her ability to be married and conceive children. Read: to provide male heirs for her family to pass money and property through and eventually care for her once her husband passed, and daughters that could eventually become wives and mothers themselves.
If a woman was barren, it was believed that they weren’t favored by God. And to view them as unfavored by God was an injustice towards women like Elizabeth, because even as a devoted and loving wife, she was still prevented from claiming her place in society as a woman, connected to others, as long as she remained childless. Now we have science which has taught us that it’s not always easy to conceive a baby and carry it to term for many women and that it’s also that many men are unable to father children biologically, which wasn’t even a plausible theory for people back then. But they didn’t have this knowledge and so it was the woman’s place to bear the sadness, shame and disgrace of believing they were unfavored by God. Elizabeth’s soon-to-be role as a potential mother meant that she was going to be a woman able to assume her expected place. Something that had been denied to her for so long was most likely the reason for keeping silent about her pregnancy for those first 5 months, lest her baby not make it and give legitimacy to the belief that God still did not offer her favor.
With this baby, she would no longer be the shame-bearer between her and her husband. She would no longer be disgraced in her community. And while we now know that it is unfair and unjust to hold a woman to such a standard as to place her worth around birthing healthy children, we can’t change the past. So, what does Luke’s passage ask of us in the here and now about a woman’s sense of place and the injustices that come with assuming what her place should or should not look like?
The first correct and universal answer is that a woman’s place is anywhere she darn well chooses, and the justice that she is entitled to is allowing her the freedom to make that decision for herself without the entitlement and judgement of the rest of us. The second correct answer is that it is no one’s place to determine a woman’s place other than herself and supporting women in their sense of connection to whatever their chosen place might be is how we offer justice to them.
In light of recent events in our country, it would seem as though many expect a woman’s place to be more in line with author Margaret Atwood’s dystopian story, A Handmaid’s Tale, where women are seen as nothing more than child-bearers and those meant to prop up the idea that positions of decision-making and authority are only places for men. But we know this is not the world Jesus believed in for women. Who were the first ones to see and report on the risen Jesus? Women (Matt. 28:5-8, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-8 & John 20). Who gave life to Jesus and John the Baptist? Women. (Luke 1-2). Who is lifted up as the ultimate example of piety and giving in the gospels? A woman (Luke 21:1-4 & Mark 12:41-44). I could go on, but you get the point. While they may have held a secondary place in society during his time, women are not secondary in Jesus’ gospel. They were front and center. If we’re looking to Jesus’ gospel message for our guidance in the here and now, then any place a woman feels called and feels connection is exactly where she should be.
