I
find the portrayal of women in Scripture fascinating. Often, women are nameless, are widowed, poor
and reliant on what Jews call, hesed—the
loving-kindness of God in one another.
The women in today’s lessons are examples of all these things.
For
years I have envisioned the widow in the Gospel as an aged, bent person. Wrinkled and rugged, yet also with a light in
her eyes that expresses hope.
But the shock of losing someone we love, who we have been partners with for any number
of years, takes an emotional toll on our physical selves. When I think back to Jesus’ time the idea of
being a widow carried an even more complex stigma than it does now. If a woman did not have adult children to
care for her or she was not absorbed into her husband’s brother’s family, the
woman would often become destitute. She
would be marginalized, an outcast because she had no way of supporting herself. As an old woman, she would be left to die.
When
I began my research on this text, a piece of art popped up. Imagine my surprise when what I encountered
was a painting of a young, dark skinned mother, carrying her baby on her hip as
she placed her two coins in the pot. I
find it harder now to imagine the widow as an aged person, withered and worn,
left to die. Instead I see a woman
standing tall and straight, carrying a basket on her head. The people around her are watching as she
empties her hand. She is not weak. She is not old. She is a young mother who now must find her
way in this community, knowing the loss of her husband will subject her and her
child to a life of strife and poverty.
[The painting is shown to the congregation. You may find it here: http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48392]
This
piece of art comes from Cameroon, Africa[1]. If you look closely at the man as the scribe you will see he is wearing eye glasses. The community in Cameroon acted out the scene from the Gospel. This painting began as a photograph of the community’s
dramatic interpretation of the Gospel text and was then transcribed to a painting. This painting was done in 1973.
This
portrayal makes me wonder. I wonder when
her husband died. If these were the last
two coins she had, she may have been pregnant when he died. He may not have even known his child. Or…maybe he recently died and she was robbed, because in her grief she was
unable to make good decisions or she accepted help from someone who took
advantage of her. It doesn’t really
matter. In her grief, in her emotional
and spiritual and physical poverty, she gave two small coins, a pittance in
comparison to the men in flowing robes who smugly gave from their abundance and
scoffed at her as she gave, as Jesus observed, “all she had to live on.”
I
wonder why she came to the Temple and gave the coins. Was it out of obligation or duty? Was it to give in order to receive assistance
from the scribes? I wonder if it was
common for women to put coins in the pot or if this was something reserved for men. Was she there out of pride or out of fear? Was there hope in her eyes or desperation?
I
wonder, “Where was her Naomi?”
Naomi
was Ruth’s mother-in-law. The two women
were widowed. Naomi was from Bethlehem
and Ruth was from Moab, where Naomi’s husband had moved during a famine in
Bethlehem. As a widow in a strange land, Naomi chose to return by foot, about
50 miles, to Bethlehem, in hopes of finding remnants of her family who would be
able to take her in and support her through the end of her life. It was a long shot, but better than withering
away in Moab with nothing to hope for.
Ruth accompanied Naomi, willing to give up her Moabite family to support
Naomi on her journey. Ruth famously said
she would not leave Naomi with these words, “Where you go, I will go; where you
lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God…” (Ruth
1:16).
Naomi
was able to find a family member, Boaz, a landowner who would be a good match
for Ruth. The first line from today’s
Older Testament lesson expresses Naomi’s desire to keep Ruth safe, to keep her
alive, in a strange land. She says, "My daughter, I need to seek some
security for you, so that it may be well with you.”
While Naomi’s plan seems a bit suspect, (it
appears she is sending Ruth into a less-than-honorable situation) she creates a
safe harbor for the two of them when Boaz marries Ruth. And when a baby boy is born, the lineage of
Jesus is defined as one that comes from the margins: Ruth was a Moabite, a widow, an immigrant, an
orphan, in short, an outcaste and potential victim.
In her book The Story of Ruth, Catholic Nun,
Sister Joan Chittister teaches about twelve moments in every woman’s life.[2] I was introduced to this book in a Bible Study
years ago and it is a favorite resource of mine. [I pass the book around.] Sister Joan used two moments to describe the
verses we read today. The first she
identified as “Empowerment.” Naomi is an
extremely important teacher for all women.
She knew that marriage was the only way a woman would be secure in
society. She wants Ruth, and all women
who come later, to have a better life than Naomi did. Naomi, according to Sister Joan, did “what
she could to make God’s will for her possible.”[3] They had to overcome an age difference,
financial difference, religious difference, racial difference—all things that
go against society’s expectations for Boaz, a wealthy and good Jewish man. Naomi empowered Ruth to take this risk, and
it worked.
Sister Joan identified the second moment as
“Fulfillment.” Through marriage and the
birth of a baby boy, Ruth and Naomi are “home.”
Their fulfillment as women has a ripple effect. Chittister writes, “When men and women can
see one another’s gifts they see other aspects of God’s image, aspects they
themselves cannot reflect. Then, women
and men become collaborators in what it means to be human.”[4] In
her book Bible Women, Reverend Lindsay Hardin Freeman calls Naomi, among other
things, “resourceful, […], purposeful, meddling, [and] shrewd.”[5] It is because of these attributes Naomi and
Ruth are able to find fulfillment.
It is also why I wonder where, in today’s Gospel,
is this widow’s Naomi. Where was her
champion? Where did she find
support? Was she hoping that by
sacrificing her last two coins she would be recognized by the scribes and
elders as someone in need of assistance to simply survive? Did she think she had nothing left to live
for, so to give what she had left was to give up living? Was it in this act she became the poster child
for giving her life to God?
It goes back to her age. These answers are all
affected by knowing her story. Would the
answers be different if she is old than if she is young? If instead of a baby on her hip her body was
broken?
The artwork of the Widow’s Mite excited me. It changed the way I approached this text…it changed me. All week I thought about the painting. My life-long perceptions of this widow as an
old woman defined my comprehension of this story. The simple act of changing the age of the
widow opened new opportunities to explore the possibilities.
It seems strange to me that readjusting the age
of the widow made such an impact on me.
I struggled to push the age and the appearance of the widow out of my process for this
sermon. There had to be another message
I was to share. Even my husband tried to
tell me that her age wasn’t important, that what she looked like didn't matter.
But it kept coming back to me, persistently impacting my understanding
of women’s roles in the Bible and as prophets, martyrs and saints. The age of the woman demanded my attention and
compelled me to talk about it today. The
widow in this story does not have to be old or on death’s doorstep.
Part of this has to do with the texts from the
Hebrew Bible. There were two choices,
the story we read from Ruth and the story from 1 Kings where Elijah is told to
go to a village and ask a woman for food.
The woman, another widow, was just about to make the last of her flour and
oil into a cake to share with her son.
It was to be their last meal before they died. Elijah prays to God and the woman, her
household and Elijah have enough flour and oil for a long time.
I could not deny the strength of the widow in all
of these stories.
Each story defines women as being rewarded
because of their faith. Ruth and Naomi
are blessed with new life, both literally and figuratively, when Ruth and Boaz
marry. The widow in the Elijah story was
chosen by God to receive the blessing of a never emptied flour canister and oil
decanter. Her faith must have been known
to God for God to send Elijah to her home.
Though the widow in the Temple’s fate is unknown, her faith brought her
to the Temple in order to give everything she had left to her religious
community…it could be argued that she gave her whole self to God.
God’s story could not be complete if widows were
not a part of it. If the lowest of
humanity, the widows, the orphans and the immigrants are all brought forth
throughout scripture to illustrate the broadness of God’s love of all, then we
must know that we are also loved by God.
If
you would please open your Book of Common Prayer to page 803 and join with me
in the reading of Psalm 146, beginning with the fourth verse. We’ll read it together. Let us pray.
(Psalm 146:4-9)
4 Happy are they who
have the God of Jacob for their help!*
whose hope is in the LORD their God;
whose hope is in the LORD their God;
5 Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; *
who keeps his promise for ever;
6 Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, *
and food to those who hunger.
7 The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; *
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
8 The LORD loves the righteous;
the LORD cares for the stranger; *
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.
he sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.
9 The LORD shall reign for ever, *
your God, O Zion, throughout all generations.
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Amen.
[1] JESUS MAFA. The Widow's Mite, from Art in
the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity
Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48392 [retrieved
November 6, 2015].
[2] Joan Chittister, The
Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman's Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2007).
[3]
IBID. Page 68.
[4]
IBID. Page 87.
[5] Lindsay Hardin Freeman, Bible
Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter (USA:
Forward Movement, 2014), 148.