The Women's Gospel

The Second chapter of Luke has been listened to, glanced at, referred to by and even read by millions of people during the last few days. It is, as many know, THE Christmas Story. It’s about Roman taxes, a stable, a child in a manger and some shepherds visited by angels.
But it’s also the beginning of the only (if you count Luke and Acts as one book) book in the entire Jewish and Christian Bible written by a non-Jew. In the introduction to the book, the author makes it clear that he has interviewed eyewitnesses and is putting down their story.
Very much as a consequence of its Gentile flavor, the book could also be called “The Ladies Gospel”. Even though Luke was a friend of the Pharisee-trained Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), he was not in sympathy with the standard morning prayer of the Pharisee’s—“Thank you, oh God, that you did not make me a woman.”
After all, when a nervous Israeli commander begs a prophetess to go with him for good luck, she warns him that her presence will rob him of his glory (Judges 4) and that the enemy general will be killed by a mere female. It works out just that way.
The Greek author, Luke, of this most complete gospel has nothing of such an attitude, even if his patient and colleague, St. Paul, does. Luke begins with the story of a man—who is so doubtful of what an angelic visitor tells him that he is struck dumb for the duration of his wife’s miraculous pregnancy. He only gets his voice back when he finally does exactly what Gabriel told him.
The rest of the chapter is about his wife, Elizabeth, and her cousin Mary. Both women are mysteriously pregnant (Matthew’s Gospel tells us that Mary’s fiancé was ready to dump her), and the reaction of both is quoted at length as John the Baptizer is born.
Second chapter moves right on with the birth of Mary’s son, Jeshua (Joshua in English, Jesus in Greek), and emphasizes HER reactions to the shepherds’ story, the blessings in the temple, and the twelve year old who stayed behind to challenge the wisest teachers of his day.
Tempting to suggest she’s just being a good Jewish mama—until chapter eight comes. The rest of the Jewish-written gospels (Matthew, Mark and John) sort of leave us to guess how Jesus made a living as he led a peripatetic school through the byways of ancient Palestine, always with at least twelve followers to feed.
How? With what money? An inheritance? Highway robbery (very common in the area)? Luke the Gentile tells us right out—he lists several wealthy women “and many more” who paid his way out of THEIR resources.
A rabbi who allowed, let alone admitted, that he let women support him! This was a long, long way from Judges 4! Mama isn’t listed here—these women weren’t family. (John 19:23-24) points out that his clothes were top quality.
Luke 10, v.41, quotes Christ as saying that the woman who chose to listen and educate herself had actually made a better choice than the one who stayed in the kitchen to serve dinner—a notion that was still radical long after the American Declaration of Independence!
Luke 24 points out that it was the women who noted where Christ’s grave was—and who actually discovered the tomb was empty. When they told the male disciples they were not believed. Finally one of the fellows decided he at least ought to check it out.
In the past half century, I’ve heard a lot of women denigrate Christianity for its treatment of women—there is no doubt we could have done better. For all of its deficiencies, which American woman would really want to live among the Muslims or Hindus?
I have quoted Rhett Butler (“Gone With The Wind”) to more than one class when talking about Christianity and women. As Rhett and Scarlet were trying to escape burning, rioting Atlanta, she becomes impatient with the retreating Confederate Army.
“Don’t be in any hurry to see them go,” advises Butler, “with them goes the last law and order in Atlanta”.
I believe that of Christianity—especially as it declines. If I were a modern, free-spirited American women, I might reflect on it. And on Luke, where so much of her freedom began.