We also tend to ignore the embarrassing bits, like when Paul tells Titus, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12 UPDATED NIV).
I’ve never once heard a sermon preached on this passage, and yet, if these words are truly the inerrant and unchanging words of God intended as universal commands for all people in all places at all times, then the Christian community needs to do a better job of mobilizing against the Cretan people, perhaps constructing some “God Hates Cretans” signs, or warning Christian travelers not to get off the ship when they stop at Crete on their Mediterranean cruises, or boycotting movies starring Jennifer Aniston, whose father, I am told, is a lazy, evil, gluttonous Cretan.
My point is, we dishonor the original intent and purpose of the Epistles when we assume they were written in a vacuum for the purpose of filling our calendars and bumper stickers.
Like the rest of the Bible, the Epistles were written for us, but they were not written to us. With the letters of Peter, Paul, James, John, and the other apostles, we are given the priceless gift of seeing how early followers of Jesus applied his teachings to their unique circumstances. While these letters are packed with important and timeless theological truths—“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come,” “Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Philippians 1:27 UPDATED NIV), “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 NASB)—they also include lengthy discussion concerning how first-century house churches should operate, how unprecedented influxes of poor widows should be handled, how slaves should behave toward their masters, whether Christian converts should be circumcised, whether Christians should eat meat sacrificed to idols, how to endure persecution, how not to offend the surrounding culture, and how to follow Christ with conviction while avoiding unwanted attention from the suspicious Roman officials.9
The apostles never meant for their letters to be interpreted and applied as law in the same way that the Torah had been, so careful readers must do the hard work of sorting through which instructions might continue to illuminate and guide the modern church, and which are more specific to the context.
Just as I’ve never heard a sermon against the Cretans, I’ve also never heard a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:8, in which Paul tells Timothy, “I want men everywhere to pray, lifting holy hands without anger or disputing” that included a universal dictum that all men everywhere must raise their hands whenever they pray (UPDATED NIV). But I’ve heard more than I can count on 1 Timothy 2:11, just three verses later, which says, “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission” that have included universal dictums that all women everywhere must submit to male authority in the church.
So what was the context of these words? Were they really meant to be applied universally to all women everywhere?
In keeping with the trend of early Christianity, the first-century churches at Ephesus and Corinth attracted a lot of women, particularly widows. As a result, large portions of the pastoral epistles tackle the mounting logistical challenges of caring for so many unmarried women.
Of particular concern to Paul was a group of young widows who had infiltrated the church and developed a reputation for dressing promiscuously, sleeping around, gossiping, spreading unorthodox ideas, interrupting church services with questions, mooching off the church’s widow fund, and generally making common floozies of themselves (1 Timothy 5). Scholars believe these women may have been influenced by the popular Roman fertility cults of Artemis that encouraged women to flaunt their sexuality and freedom to a degree that scandalized even the Roman establishment, hardly known for its prudish morals.
It seems that enough of these women had joined the church to tarnish its reputation, repelling potential converts and giving the Roman authorities yet another reason to be suspicious of the church, which was the last thing the early Christians needed.
“Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need,” Paul tells the elders at Ephesus. But “younger widows,” he says, are “to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander” (1 Timothy 5:14; emphasis added).
He didn’t want the church, so full of unmarried women, to be seen as just another Roman cult. He also didn’t want pagans unfamiliar with the teachings of Christ and the Jewish culture interrupting services with questions or bossing around other converts. Is it any wonder, then, that he expected some women in Corinth to prophesy, but challenged others to “remain silent,” or that he advised the women at Ephesus not to seize authority over men but to “learn in quietness and full submission”?
“We are thus led to the conclusion that when Paul asks women to be silent . . . he is not talking about ordinary Christian women; rather, he has a specific group of women in mind,” wrote theologian Scot McKnight. “His concern is with some untrained, morally loose, young widows, who, because they are theologically unformed, are teaching unorthodox ideas.”10
So what about women today? Can we really compare Jackie to the promiscuous, first-century Roman widows mooching off the church and spreading idle tales from door to door? Obviously, Paul didn’t have a problem with women teaching in general. In his letters, he honored Priscilla, a teacher to the apostle Apollos, and praised Timothy’s mother and grandmother for teaching Timothy all he knew about faith. In fact, these days, women in the pulpit are more highly educated than their male counterparts. While over three-quarters of female pastors (77 percent) hold seminary degrees, less than two-thirds of male pastors (63 percent) can say the same.11 It continues to amaze me that some evangelicals believe that Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church, who was ordained at seventeen without a seminary degree, is more qualified by virtue of being a man to speak to the Church than someone like Jackie, who received top honors at her seminary, or Catherine Hamlin, who devoted her life to caring for fistula patients in Africa, or Sarah Coakley, who is one of Christianity’s most influential theologians and philosophers, currently working on a four-volume systematic theology.
It is a tragic and agonizing irony that instructions once delivered for the purpose of avoiding needless offense are now invoked in ways that needlessly offend, that words once meant to help draw people to the gospel now repel them. Research shows that the overall number of women attending church has dropped by 11 percent in the last twenty years.12 When female executives, entrepreneurs, academics, and creatives are told that they have to check their gifts at the church door, many turn away for good. And while our sisters around the world continue to suffer from trafficking, exploitation, violence, neglect, maternal mortality, and discrimination, those of us who are perhaps most equipped to respond with prophetic words and actions—women of faith—are being systematically silenced in our own faith communities.
McKnight wisely asks: “Do you think Paul would have put women ‘behind the pulpit’ if it would have been advantageous ‘for the sake of the gospel’?”13
The answer to that question should be a lot simpler than it has become.
There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.
—HOLY RULE OF ST. BENEDICT
5:40 a.m.—Rise
6:00 a.m.—Matins & Lauds (Morning Prayer)
7:15 a.m.—Breakfast, in silence
11:55 a.m.—Sext (Midday Prayer)
12:10 p.m.—Lunch
5:00 p.m.—Mass
5:30 pm.—Vespers (Evening Prayer)
6:00 p.m.—Supper (Night Prayer)
7:00 p.m.—Compline
This was not my normal schedule, particularly the 5:40 a.m. part, but for the three days I spent practicing silence at St. Bernard Abbey, it served as a sort of corrective guide, holy bumpers meant to keep my bowling ball of an inner voice from veering into the gutters.
Cullman, Alabama, is not the first place you’d expect to find a monastery. I drove past three farm supply stores and twenty-one Baptist churches on my way into town via Highway 278 West, and that wa
s after I started counting. Summer tends to overstay its welcome down South, but a morning shower had made the afternoon air unseasonably clean and cool, so I rolled down my window, cranked up my Patty Griffin CD, and breathed in the earthy smell of Alabama.
Finally I arrived at St. Bernard, an austere Benedictine monastery hidden inside 180 acres of wooded land.
Built in 1891 by a group of German monks whose community dated back to the 700s, the monastery is now home to around twenty
monks, a Catholic prep school, a hospitality center, and the famous Ave Maria Grotto—a garden of folk art–style miniatures designed by Brother Joseph, who lived at St. Bernard in the 1920s and 1930s.
A palpable silence welcomed me the moment I slipped through the back door of the monastery and stepped into the long, cavernous hallway between the monks’ residence and the church. It was about three in the afternoon, so all the monks were out working, and the place seemed so quiet and still, I feared a single breath might knock something over.
There were plenty of things to knock over, too: porcelain statues of the Virgin, glass tables lined with votive candles, fine vases filled with faux flowers, and a bunch of other Catholicy-looking things that triggered my longstanding fear of accidentally desecrating something I didn’t know was considered holy in a Catholic church. I found my room assignment on the bulletin board in the entryway, and as I crept toward Room 113, my duffel bag and laptop case over my arm, I realized that I’d already made a big mistake.
Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. The sound of my heels against the linoleum floor reverberated off the walls like shots from a gun.
(Ladies, if you ever find yourself temporarily living in a convent, do remember to bring flats. I might as well have brought a bullhorn with which to shout, “Hey monks! I’m here!” )
St. Benedict was big on hospitality, and wrote that “all who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ” (even those with loud heels I presume), so the monks at St. Bernard have a nice arrangement for guests. My room was simple, but comfortable, with two narrow beds, a bed stand, a desk, a lamp, a plush chair, and an adjoining bathroom. A giant crucifix hung on the wall so that I could see it from just about every angle in the room. It made me kind of nervous to glance in the bathroom mirror and see Jesus watching me brush my teeth. Though the room was located in the monastery, it was outside the cloister area upstairs, so I wouldn’t be bumping into any holy men in their underwear in the middle of the night. I noticed from the guest list that a couple—Greg and Susan—was staying next door.
“Monastery guests take their meals with the monks at the guest table in the refectory,” the guest book said. “Breakfast is eaten in silence, lunch is an informal buffet, and the supper meal is a formal monastic meal with public reading while the community eats in silence . . . Monastery guests are welcomed to pray the Hours of the Divine Office and celebrate mass with the monks in the Abbey Church.”
The next event on the schedule was Mass, which didn’t happen for another two hours, so I was confronted with my first expanse of solitude with which to mediate and pray. Instead I used the time to check to see if the place had Wi-Fi (it didn’t), call Dan, fret over my shoes, and wander around the grounds a bit before arriving at the Abbey Church early and clop-clop-clopping my way down the nave.
The place was completely empty, and I began to wonder if anyone actually lived in this monastery. I sat down in the back pew and, as any good sacred space should inspire one to do, I looked up. Afternoon light poured in through the clerestory and lit up the sandstone columns, walls, and parabolic arches, so that they glowed with a golden haze. The ceiling was made of stained pine, giving the massive, seven-hundred-person-capacity sanctuary a surprisingly intimate feel. Ten imposing limestone statues, about twelve feet tall, were carved into each of the supporting columns of the church. I tried to identify them, but the only one I recognized right away was John the Baptist, with his long scraggly beard, giant staff, and overall dubious appearance.
At the front of the church, an ornate, gold-trimmed cross hung over the stone altar, as if floating in space. On one side was painted the crucified Christ in blacks, browns, and reds. Later, when I joined the monks for prayer in the choir, I noticed that on the other side was painted the victorious Christ, in blues and purples and golds. A forty-four-rank pipe organ took up the east end of the building in front of me, and a stained glass window the west end behind me. Stationed along the sides of the church were little alcoves, each one different from the last, with places to light candles, kneel before icons, or simply sit in a wooden pew beside a stained glass window. I felt my spirit settling down a bit as it slowly dawned on me that my only assignment for the next forty-eight hours was to be in this sacred space.
People began to trickle in for mass. Monday, I take it, is not a big day for going to church, because only about fifteen people showed up, mostly teachers and students from the prep school and old people. We all sat in separate pews, spaced out like pieces at the end of a chess game. Finally, just before the service began, I caught my first glimpse of the monks with whom I’d be eating and praying for the next two days. They wore black robes and walked down the nave with their heads bowed. When they started to chant, their deep, harmonized voices echoed off the walls. It was as if the sanctuary suddenly woke up.
I fumbled my way through mass, keeping my eye on the bald guy in front of me for cues for when to kneel, bow, cross myself, and sit still. Afterwards, the monks gathered in the choir for Vespers, and I sat alone in the sanctuary, listening to them chant through the Psalms until the light began to fade and shadows crept through the nave.
I wasn’t sure what to do with myself when Vespers concluded, but thankfully, a thin, middle-aged monk broke the line of monks filing out of the sanctuary, approached me, and whispered, “Are you a guest?”
“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Rachel.”
“I’m Brother Brendan, the guestmaster,” he answered, turning also to a middle-aged couple that I suddenly realized had been sitting behind me. Must be Greg and Susan, my neighbors.
The time between Vespers and supper is a sacred one for Benedictines, usually observed in complete silence. So the three of us followed Brother Brendan out of the church, down my favorite echo chamber of a hallway, and to the refectory for dinner, without saying a word to one another. I took to walking on my tiptoes to minimize the clopping, and resolved to wear my tennis shoes to the next service regardless of how stupid they looked with my long, black skirt. On the way, Brother Brenden paused in front of my room, where for some reason I’d left the door wide open.
“Oh,” I whispered, blushing. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
I closed the door, feeling all awkward and scandalous. Susan, a tall, graying woman with a lace head covering pinned to her hair, took the opportunity to smile warmly at me, issuing a gentle Nice to meet you with her eyes that set me at ease.
The dining hall was small but well equipped with a buffet not unlike what you might see in a small college cafeteria. A few tables had been set aside for guests, so Greg, Susan, and I, along with a splattering of other folks who weren’t wearing black robes, sat there with Brother Brendan. It was a little strange going through the buffet line and eating without saying a word to the people around me, but I confess I rather enjoyed escaping what would have been thirty minutes of awkward small talk. Instead, an older monk read aloud selections from Thomas à Kempis, and a biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
After dinner we joined the monks back in the church for Compline, the final office in the Liturgy of the Hours, and many people’s favorite. The Liturgy of the Hours is a collection of daily prayers, gathered mostly from the Psalms but including other traditional hymns, prayers, and chants, recited together by the monks at fixed points in each day.
The main sanctuary was enshrouded in darkness now. We faced one another in the illuminated choir section and proceeded to chant our way through the lectionary and Psalter, at one moment sitting, another st
anding, another bowing, another kneeling, another leaning forward in prayer. I felt a little like I was back in middle school, trying to keep up with the cheerleaders as they performed the Macarena, and the plaintive, monotone back-and-forth between the officiant and the choir proved a bit distracting. At one point I dropped my lectionary, and from the sound of it hitting the floor, you would have thought an earthquake had hit. I was so worried about not making any noise, I almost forgot to listen to the poetry issuing from our lips:
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High abides under the shadow of the Almighty. He shall say to the Lord, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust . . .”
Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. For you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth. Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of your eye. Hide us under the shadow of your wings . . .
The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end . . .
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be—world without end. Amen.
After Compline, the monks observe the Grand Silence, which means no talking until after breakfast the next morning, so I retreated to my room, where I began reading through Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich:
I saw that [God] is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good . . .14
Wrapped in that love as if in a blanket, I finally stopped worrying so much about disturbing the silence of the monastery and instead allowed myself to nestle into it.
That night I dreamed I’d left my door opened again and that the Virgin Mary herself walked by, surrounded by a hazy white glow. In my dream she turned and smiled, and I noticed she wore a bright red pair of high heels that, miraculously, didn’t make a sound.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood Page 27