A PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE SOCIETY OF VINEYARD SCHOLARS

FOR The Kingdom And Ecclesiology: Learning From, Learning With, Learning As The Church 2012 Annual Conference

BY Elizabeth Chapin Adjunct Faculty, George Fox Evangelical Seminary

Jesus and Gender in the Gospel of John: Community over Conformity

Equality is about the freedom to choose options that best suit a persons character, talents and interests; the freedom to choose a career or choose to raise a family or both, for example. It's the freedom for both women and men to choose roles in their professional and personal lives that they are most comfortable in and qualified for without artificial societal restraints. Equality is also about compensation, accessibility, and respect based on a person's qualifications and talents, not gender. It is about valuing characteristics that are considered feminine as highly as those considered masculine and realizing that we need both. That is how Dr. Hazel Morrow-Jones, Director of The Womens Place at The Ohio State University defined equality on Womens Equality Day 2011. Since the proclamation of the first Womens Equality Day in 1971 commemorating the day when women were given the right to vote in 1920, we continue to see movement toward gender equality in the surrounding culture, but what about the church? Is there freedom for both women and men to choose roles in the church without artificial societal restraints? Or, are there restraints that transcend society and are designed by God to shape and form Kingdom societies and Church communities that we must conform to if we are to call ourselves Christians? How do we determine whether a societal gender construct is in alignment with the Kingdom of God or in opposition to the establishment of Gods rule and reign here on earth as it is in heaven? The issues of gender hierarchy are complex and expansive and while the issue is settled for many, it remains a divisive issue for the church. Some argue that the issue of gender relations is a non-essential issue for the church but our experience tells us otherwise. While the Vineyard movement has proposed an egalitarian position on

women in ministry, diversity on this issue is permitted in the movement and some churches have left the movement over this. In the Seattle region, the issue is front-andcenter because a popular church leader is very vocal about his views of what constitutes acceptable expressions of masculinity for Christian men, including Jesus. In his view, Jesus wears combat boots and participates in Ultimate Fighting Clubs! What does an imposition of such gender ideals onto Jesus and the Kingdom do to our community life? Are we to conform to such gender ideals for the sake of the Kingdom or does the reality of the in-breaking Kingdom call us toward something else? In this paper, I will explore gender roles of first-century Palestine, the context into which Jesus chose to inaugurate the Kingdom, and survey the Gospel of John in relation to the gender constructs of his time. When talking about gender roles, I define sex as referring to biological differences, sex organs and other physical factors while gender refers to the characteristics that a culture connects with masculine or feminine. A persons sex as male or female is a biological fact that varies little across time and cultures, but what that sex means in terms of gender roles as a 'man' or a 'woman' in society differs across cultures and across time. Understanding how Jesus may have interacted with gender roles might help us better imagine how the Church should interact with the prevailing societal constructs of gender and gender roles in our time, both inside and outside of the Church. When thinking about gender roles, some look to the Bible to help define, separate and differentiate women from men and they will find expressions of differentiation as the Bible describes the cultural gender constructs prevalent in the times in which it was written. Others find the Bible leading us toward a unified humanity

 a community of cooperative friends of Jesus who are more alike than different regardless of our gender identity. Through surveying the Gospel of John and firstcentury gender roles, I argue that Jesus uses the understanding of gender roles of his day to communicate and legitimize his message, but he also confronts gender stereotypes that are in opposition to the Kingdom vision of a united community of cooperative friends of Jesus living lives of creative goodness in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of others. When gender constructs promote disunity among humanity, Jesus does not legitimize such gender norms and neither should we. Rather, Jesus invites us all, women and men alike, into cooperative friendship, which includes full participation of both men and women in the Kingdom of God. Traditionally, gender roles have been locally defined within specific cultures. We find variation across time and locations. Even in first-century Palestine we find differences among the gender stereotypes of the Greco-Roman world and the world of Judaism. 1 There was not then nor is there today a universal definition of male roles and female roles that we should adopt for all times. Just as in the modern world, the ancient world did not share a common gender construct defining gender specific roles, tasks, tools and places. As we seek to interpret Jesus interaction with gender roles it is helpful to understand the social constructs of gender roles in first-century Palestine, as imposition of our modern view and modern gender constructs on the text does violence to the intent and meaning of the text and its application for the Kingdom and ecclesiology.

Jerome H. Neyrey, Jesus, Gender, and the Gospel of Matthew. In: Stephen D. Moore & Janice Capel Anderson (eds). New Testament Masculinities. (Semeia Studies 45.). (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). pp 43-66. http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/GenderJesus.htm (accessed December 17, 2010).

OVERVIEW OF GENDER NORMS IN JESUS TIME Common to both Greco-Roman gender roles and Jewish gender roles is the distinction between public and private spaces and the predominance of men in public, open air spaces and women in private, covered spaces. Their respective tasks are gender-divided as well: males work at "open-air occupations" such as plowing, sowing, grazing, etc. and females at "indoor occupations," such as child rearing, food preparation and clothing production. The home was the primary realm of a womans influence, but this did not exclude her from appearing in the public realm. We have images of classical Greek women kept in seclusion, but by the first century, Roman women gradually attained more power and influence in the public realm.2 Jewish women in the first century had not yet attained the freedoms of the New Roman Women,3 as they were not permitted to appear in court and were exempt from certain religious rituals. We see the division of gender space in the Jewish realm exemplified in the arrangement of the Temple courts - the inner courts were reserved for men and women were only permitted in the outer courts. In most patriarchal societies, women were considered subjects of their father or husband, and we find this to be true in the Greco-Roman world as well as in the Jewish traditions of first-century Palestine.4 A wife was a form of property, as were

Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3 ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), pg. 78. 3 Steve Robbins, 1 Timothy 2:8-15: Paul and the New Roman Women at Ephesus, Vineyard Columbus, (September, 2009). http://vineyardcolumbus.org/_media/uploads/files/VLI/resources/Paul_and_the_New_Roman_Women_at _Ephesus_by_Steve_Robbins.pdf (accessed December 17, 2010). 4 Howard Clark Kee, The Changing Role of Women in the Early Christian World , Theology Today 49 (1992-3), pp. 225-38. http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1992/v49-2-article7.htm (accessed December 17, 2010).

children, in the ancient world.5 Kinship was an important factor in gender relations, and it was commonly understood that females should not speak to unrelated males, especially in public space.6 In this sense, private space was imposed on the public space in that women should only interact with men in public whom they were related to through the realm of private space. In Judaism as well as the Greco-Roman world we see gender roles defined in the social structure of the family. The father had authority over the wife and children and honoring the father was of prime importance. Women and children could act on behalf of, in the name of, or as a representative authority of the male patriarch, but apart from the father, they had little or no authority. The eldest male in the family was typically given many responsibilities over the family, including providing and caring for the mother once widowed. GOSPEL SURVEY From the beginning of Jesus public ministry we see that he often operated within the gender norms of his time, taking his place as a man in the public realm. But, he did not conform to the gender norms in one significant way - he was unmarried and in some ways may have neglected his role as the patriarch in his family. In the story of the miracle at Cana we see Jesus was likely invited to the wedding independently of his mother, Mary (John 2:2) who according to church tradition was likely widowed. In other instances we see him interacting with his family members, alternately traveling with them or not (John 2:12; 7:10), but in the synoptics we read of Jesus redefining
5

L. William Countryman, Dirt Greed and Sex (Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1988), pg. 149. 6 Jerome Neyrey, Whats Wrong With This Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space, Biblical Theology Bulletin 24 (1994), pp. 77-91. http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/picture.html (accessed December 17, 2010).

traditional family roles, placing himself as the patriarch of all people (Matthew 12:46-49). Many have used the argument of Jesus maleness and his choice of male apostles to celebrate masculinity and uphold patriarchal views. As Rich Nathan wrote in a Vineyard position paper on Women in Ministry, Some people argue that Jesus choice of twelve men as apostles demonstrates an eternal privileged position for men in the church. I believe Jesus choice of twelve men was a symbolic act. Jesus was creating a new Israel, the true Israel, centered on his person. He was not demonstrating an eternal principle of male leadership in the church. He was reconstituting Israel by selecting twelve male leaders, which was reminiscent of the original twelve patriarchs. 7 Additionally, Jesus experience in the midst of a male dominated patriarchal society was as one who did not conform to one of the most significant traditional masculine gender roles - that of being a husband and father. Admittedly, there was freedom for men to remain unmarried, and to marry and divorce at will, but the ideal masculine gender norm was for men to marry and produce offspring and be responsible for their family and household. In this sense, Jesus was not a real man conforming to the ideal masculine gender role. Jesus and at least some of his followers had left their households, their responsibilities as men, their male places in society as upholders of traditions, family loyalties and access to power. In terms of sexuality and male social roles and power they had left their male place.8 One of the most commonly used interactions of Jesus to illustrate his rejection of traditional gender roles is the story of the Woman at the Well (John 4). In this story,
7

Rich Nathan, Women in Leadership: How to Decide What the Bible Teaches, (2006), http://vineyardwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/position_paper_Women-In-MinistryRich_Nathan.pdf (accessed January 16, 2012). 8 Halvor Moxnes, Jesus in Gender Trouble, Tidsskrift for kjnnsforskning 3 (2005), http://eng.kilden.forskningsradet.no/c17264/artikkel/vis.html?tid=53199 (accessed December 17, 2010).

Jesus not only went against the social norm that men do not speak to unrelated women in public, but also crossed the boundaries of cultural norms that Jews do not associate with Samaritans. As Jesus brings up the question of her position in society by asking about her husband, he highlights that in some sense this woman could have been considered a slave - according to traditional gender roles, she had no place in society apart from being married unless she was a rich and privileged woman. The societal gender constructs and her dependent position forced her to continue to enslave herself to men, one after another, for survival purposes. In this one story, Jesus illustrated Pauls ideal that There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28) Jesus treated the Samaritan woman as one who was worthy of hearing the good news of new life offered through him, and the radical nature of Jesus message prompted her to overcome social gender norms and announce in the public realm the good news of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus uses the social constructs of gender norms to advance his message in the area of his relationship with Father God. In both Greco-Roman and Jewish societies, authority was passed down through fathers and honoring fathers was of utmost importance. The Patriarchs were hallowed in the Jewish realm and being a Son of Abraham was part of their social identity. Jesus replaced this idea of the supremacy of being a Son of Abraham with the idea of being a child of God and through his witness as Son of God, moved the head of patriarchy from an earthly father figure confined by social constructs of gender norms, to the ultimate patriarchy of Father God, who is head over all and is not confined by contemporary ideas of gender and sex.

Jesus communicated consistently that he was sent from the Father, acted on behalf of the Father, did whatever the Father told him, and existed to bring honor and glory to the Father and invited his followers to do the same, replacing the normal social structure of patriarchy with a higher social order of relationship with God (John 3:31-36, 5:17-47, 6:25-65, 7:14-30, 8:16-59, 10:14-39, 11:41-42, 12:26-50, 13:1-3, 14:6-31, 15-17, 20:1721). This message clearly exploited Patriarchal gender norms for Kingdom purposes and was perhaps one of the most controversial messages of Jesus, leading to his crucifixion. Looking at Jesus discourses on divorce, we may wonder if they were an attempt to set right the inequality of men alone having the right of divorce. Laws were being developed in the Roman world giving women more freedom in the realm of marriage and divorce, but this was not the case in the Jewish realm. Jewish Law afforded men alone the right to write a certificate of divorce. In the synoptic gospels we hear Jesus speaking to this issue, reminding the people of the unity of man and woman - both were created in the image of God and of one flesh (Mark 10:1-12, Matthew 19:112). This idea of being created in the image of God and united in one flesh could be interpreted as a celebration of the humanity of both male and female, and that separating the two - differentiating them according to societal gender constructs - was not Gods intention. In Johns gospel, this issue is exemplified in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). While this text is not found in the earliest manuscripts, it is considered a legitimate Jesus tradition. Augustine argues that it may have been taken out of some early manuscripts for fear that it would send a message condoning

adultery.9 In this story, a group of Scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, testing him on this issue and making an object lesson of her experience. That only the woman was brought to Jesus after she was caught in the act is evidence of the strong gender stereotype that women are at fault when it comes to adultery. Jesus words and actions in this instance confront the stereotype as he reminded those bringing her before him of their own sin and fallen humanity that was as one with her. Jesus refused to condemn the woman and sent her to go and sin no more. John portrays Jesus teaching in the temple on a number of occasions, as well as teaching in open-air settings - the public spaces where men move freely. Rarely do any of the gospel writers portray Jesus in the private space with his family, though John alludes to it on occasion (John 2:12; 7:10). Jesus is portrayed as having close relationships with his disciples, the closest of which were men as would be common according to the gender norms of the day. John also portrays Jesus in close relationship with Mary and Martha of Bethany, as well as their brother Lazarus. While these were not named among the chosen 12, they were followers of Jesus as they called him teacher (John 11:28). But, it appears they were closer than mere friends or followers, as Lazarus is mentioned as being a part of the household of Mary and Martha of Bethany, indicating a prior relationship and it is noted that Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus (Jn 11:5). As a single man, Jesus intimate relationship with Mary and Martha could be considered scandalous, so here again we see Jesus refusing to conform to gender norms that would limit access for anyone to be in relationship with him.
9

Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin. Augustine, De Adulterinis Conjugiis 2:67. Cited in Wieland Willker, A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels, Vol. 4b, p. 10.

At Jesus death and resurrection, we see women prominently featured both at the cross and at the grave. At the cross we see Jesus awareness of his role as patriarch of his family and responsibility to care for his mother as he transfers that responsibility to the male disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:26-27). At the empty tomb we see Mary Magdalene arriving first and taking the message of the resurrection to the men (John 20:1-18). This scenario is often used to defend the position many take on Jesus sanctioning women in leadership. It is also used to refute male hegemony. While these arguments are valid and useful, Jesus preference for women or men in one particular role or another cannot be concluded from the gospel accounts. Jesus affirmed both men and women as followers and sent ones, and he loved both men and women deeply. Jesus was born as a male in a world where gender roles were defined by the social worlds around him - both the Greco-Roman world, but more influentially the Jewish world - in first-century Palestine. Does the fact that Jesus was born a male legitimize masculine gender ideals set forth at the time of his birth? Does Jesus maleness legitimize masculine gender ideals of today? While we do see Jesus using the understanding of gender roles of his day to communicate and legitimize his message, he also confronts gender stereotypes that promote disunity among humanity. Jesus emphasizes again and again his desire for a united humanity, a community loving one another as the Father loves the Son and as the Son loves the Father. This desire for community and one-ness is not exclusive to men, as we see Jesus including women as recipients of the good news as well as heralds of it. We see Jesus recognizing the biological differences between men and women, but he treats all as valuable humans

invited into intimate and unifying relationship with God and others regardless of societal gender constructs. As we seek to make room for the in-breaking Kingdom of God and express Kingdom realities in our church communities, how will we imagine the social realities and gender constructs of the not yet Kingdom of God? Will we look to the past to define gender relationships? Will we look to the world around us? Or will we imagine things that do not yet exist and find new ways to express the hope of heaven that brings us closer to what it means to be fully human, defined not by our sex or by artificial societal restraints, but rather defined by our relationship to God as cooperative friends of Jesus living lives of creative goodness in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of others? Equality in the church is about freedom to choose and be chosen for roles according to calling and gifting regardless of sex and without artificial societal restraints. Its about accepting and respecting men who exhibit feminine characteristics and women who exhibit masculine characteristics as equally human as those who more closely conform to current societal gender norms. Equality grants access to feminine ways as well as masculine ways of thinking and being and makes room for the fullness of humanity to be expressed through valuing both masculine and feminine characteristics in both males and females, and realizing we need both in our communities to fully reflect the image of God as bearers of the good news of the Kingdom.

Bibliography Countryman, L. William. Dirt Greed and Sex. Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1988. Edersheim, Alfred. Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Pub Co, 1976. Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 3 ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003. Kee, Howard Clark. The Changing Role of Women in the Early Christian World, Theology Today 49 (1992-3), pp. 225-38. http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1992/v49-2-article7.htm (accessed December 17, 2010). Loader, William. Jesus and the Fundamentalism of His Day. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. Malina, Bruce J., and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN.: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1998. Moxnes, Halvor. Jesus in Gender Trouble. Tidsskrift for kjnnsforskning 3 (2005). http://eng.kilden.forskningsradet.no/c17264/artikkel/vis.html?tid=53199 (accessed December 17, 2010). Neyrey, Jerome H. Whats Wrong With This Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space, Biblical Theology Bulletin 24 (1994), pp. 77-91. http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/picture.html (accessed December 17, 2010). . Jesus, Gender, and the Gospel of Matthew. In: Stephen D. Moore & Janice Capel Anderson (eds). New Testament Masculinities. (Semeia Studies 45), (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), pp 43-66. http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/GenderJesus.htm (accessed December 17, 2010). Robbins, Steve. 1 Timothy 2:8-15: Paul and the New Roman Women at Ephesus, Vineyard Columbus, (September, 2009). http://vineyardcolumbus.org/_media/uploads/files/VLI/resources/Paul_and_the_N ew_Roman_Women_at_Ephesus_by_Steve_Robbins.pdf (accessed December 17, 2010) Szesnat, Holger. Human Sexuality, History, and Culture. Scriptura 62 (1997): 335-61. http://www.scribd.com/doc/28940265/Szesnat-Holger-1997-Human-SexualityHistory-and-Culture-Some-Methodological-Problems-of-Studying-Sexuality-inthe-New-Testament-and-its-World?in_collection=2684181 (accessed December 17, 2010).