Mothering Sunday
Posted: Sunday, March 30, 2003 <a href=www.vheadline.com>By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson
4th Sunday in Lent 2003 sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas
In Christianity it has been traditionally thought that God was male. After all, Jesus' prayer "Our Father" and told his followers to think of God as a close and caring father. He never, as far as I know, ever said that God was a caring mother. The God that Jesus worshipped was YHWH, the God of war and creation ... a God that lived in cloud and spoke in thunder.
Such a God would naturally be thought of as male and, as all societies were patriarchal and male dominated and women were not thought intelligent enough to be worth educating, it is not surprising that God came to be thought of as male.
Some Greek and Roman societies considered male children to be so superior to female children that they would put female infants on the hillside to die rather than take them into their families. There are societies today that still practice this family "cleansing." Yet where would any of us be without women in society?
So much were past ages against women, that men who turned to a holy life rejected women altogether, seeing them as a distraction and full of the devilment that they were to live without if they were to come close to God. Christian monks today still have to swear to chastity as one of the three vows though, by all accounts, a good few of them are sodomites and they don't seem to count this as breaking the rule which just goes to show how hypocritical the whole system is.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is tottering on the brink of collapse because of homosexual practices and most of the priests who are not so inclined are likely as not living with their housekeepers. There is a point at which it is both unnatural and downright dangerous to keep the sexes apart and not to regard them as equal.
Equality does not mean that the two sexes have to do the same functions in the family or in the household. There are obvious differences that require men to be fathers and women to be mothers, but both sexes in fact mother and father their children. Understanding the two roles is good for everyone, including the children.
There seems to be no reason why, in all other stages of life, and in every sphere of living and working the two sexes can't work together as equal partners.
Of course there are men who don't like this because they like to think that God has a special and direct line of revelation that will only work through the male species.
I hate to tell them that it isn't true. What is true is that in the past women have been so denied that they did not have the opportunity to participate in the gift of revelation of God's wishes. It does require some learning and study and understanding, otherwise women are relegated to the mysterious and mystic and the mad in order to make an impact on the male world ... to bring in a special revelation of God, and then it doesn't always work, as Joan of Arc found out.
Hilda of Whitby and Mildred of Kent and Hildegarde of Bingham were women who did make a difference to the ecclesiastical scene, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Julian of Norwich, whose book we have been following in the magazine, had to take on a male name in order to be recognized; a trick that was taken up again by female authors in the 19th century as an aid against rejection.
The odd thing is, that weak men often marry strong-minded women who become even stronger as a result. Take the biblical figure of Jezebel as an example. Her husband the king was infatuated with her, and let her bring in her own religion and gods, much to the anger and frustration of Elijah who was still on the side of YHWH. Jezebel came after him, and he escaped to Beersheba, in the southern most part of Judah, and leaving his servant there, goes into the mountains to hide, only to find God whispering his next instruction to him to get off his butt and go and face this woman and her priests. He wins ... which is why it is remembered ... though it is thought that he wins only by trickery, but as Jezebel herself was a woman of trickery and treachery this is considered OK.
The bible likes the men to win, unless they are on the side of YHWH ... and then they are allowed to take part in the action.
Today, we are seeing women in a way that history has always denied them, except for odd instances that have never lasted for long. In the United States, women had to work as hard as men doing difficult physical tasks to establish farms and businesses in this new world. They became a formidable breed that was unlikely to be subdued for long.
Wars in Europe reduced the male population to such levels that women began to play a more active role in almost every sphere of life. Education to girls as well as boys created a whole generation of educated women, who were not content just to sit around looking pretty. They wanted the vote and have a say in the affairs of the world.
When the industrial revolution came, manual workers were wanted by the thousand, and women were the cheapest labor, so they got the jobs and proved that their strength was enough for almost every kind of job.
In the Second World War, women fought side by side with men in some armies, and in other countries they were the ones who built the tanks and guns. When the war was over, there was no going back to the old system. Economics and economies had changed as well as people's perceptions of what women could do.
In spite of the handicap that women throughout history have labored under, a number of them have contributed to the world in ways that we should never forget. Way back at the end of the 3rd century, Hypatia of Alexandria was a scientist who invented the plane astrolabe used to measure the position of the sun and stars. She also invented a hydrometer by which specific gravity can be measured. Her life was cut short by fundamentalist Christian monks who hacked her to death with scallop shells.
In the eleventh century, Trotula of Salerno was a female physician who promoted hygiene, a balanced diet and exercise to promote good health. She wrote a book "Practica Brevis" that was in use for the next seven hundred years. Calculus was devised by Maria Agnesi, in Milan, at the beginning of the 18th century. Bette Nesmith invented "Liquid Paper" because she was a bad typist. When she died in 1980 she left $50 million. Marion Donovan invented the disposable nappy (diaper) and Margaret Knight invented the machine to make the brown paper bag in the mid-1800s. The Russian Ida Rosenthal invented the bra at the turn of the 20th century, and set up the MaidenForm Brassiere Company in 1923. Eleanor Butterick had the bright idea of paper patterns for dresses to be made at home, and a young woman invented the ice cream cone but no one knows her name.
These are just a few of the women who have changed our lives, and the way we live them, but the one woman who has changed us most is the mother who gave us birth and the woman who brought us up till we were at least six or seven. She is, or was, as much of the God of creation as any man though he should be remembered too, for many men are as much our mothers as women. Indeed it is a mixed and happy combination of skills and temperament that makes God into God and us into who and what we are.