The Thread of Patriarchy: Part IV—The Prophetic Voice of Jesus by Maree Sobolewski

The most persistent issue to emerge from the 2021–2024 Synod on Synodality was the role of women in the church. The Synod’s final document states this unambiguously: “Inequality between men and women is not part of God’s design. . . . We bear witness to the Gospel when we seek to live in relationships that respect the equal dignity and reciprocity between men and women. The widely expressed pain and suffering on the part of many women from every region and continent, both lay and consecrated, during the synodal process, reveal how often we fail to do so” (§50).

The issue of women’s ministry invites continued response from the hearts of the faithful as we enter the “implementation” phase of the synodal process. To this end, we are pleased to present a multipart essay by “committed Catholic” Maree Sobolewski of Australia. Maree originally wrote this essay to share with Synod delegates as they prepared for the second session in October. “The essay I have written is with a sincere heart,” she states by way of introduction. “I wrote it over a three-month period with much prayer and deliberation.” Part I of her essay is available here; Part II is here; and Part III is here—Ed.


In the renewal of theology with regard to women, more emphasis needs to be placed upon the prophetic voice of Jesus for any real change to occur. The egalitarian, nongendered attitudes of Jesus lost momentum after the second century. The traditional church needs to be reawakened to Jesus’s words and actions, together with what he did not say or do, to grasp better the truth of women’s place in the church. As Aída Besançon Spencer comments: “Nowhere does Jesus ever state that only men may serve as leaders in the church, nor does he teach that it is by maintaining traditional male-female roles that we will advance God’s reign. Jesus’ teachings do not focus on the apostles’ ethnicity or sex as a model for Christian leadership.”

The scriptural reality is that women were permitted to be the first witnesses of the resurrection, the greatest event in history. They were also the first called to announce the fulfilled Good News of Jesus’s resurrection to the apostles and disciples, and to advise the men than they were to meet the risen Jesus in Galilee. This was an allusion to where Jesus had first commenced his ministry.

It appears that both men and women (who also were witnesses to Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection—conditions for being an apostle) were called to take the Good News out from Galilee with all its ministerial responsibilities. They would make a fresh start together. The Scripture passage that comes to mind here is “the first shall be last and the last will be first” (Matt 19:30). Jesus has provided women with a knowledge of themselves not derived from the value system of patriarchy, and it is hoped the institutional church will follow his lead.

Further, in choosing to speak first to Mary Magdalene in the resurrection garden before any man, Jesus alludes perhaps to the Eden of Genesis, correcting the condemnation and marginalization of women as the primary source of sin and the “weaker sex.” He knew the attitude of persecution that had preceded him had caused great suffering to women, and he understood that it could do so again.

In the new covenant garden, there was no condemnation of women. Jesus illustrated his perspective on women: not the “temptress” concept emanating from the Garden of Eden, but rather women as the faithful ones who had endured with him, the trustworthy ones who had courageously loved to the end, not leaving him destitute and alone. Jesus appears to be restoring the dignity and equality of women to eliminate the mores of a misogynistic culture. Mary Magdalene will be called by the church an “apostle to the apostles”: a step in alignment with Jesus’s prophetic voice.

Jesus started his church at Pentecost, where the unifying gift of the Holy Spirit, his true witness and representative, was clearly given to both men and women. There are many things that could be said about this event, but what is important to this essay is that the Holy Spirit also equipped women to give witness to Christ. The earlier historical context discriminating against the public witness of women was no longer relevant. Being a witness was not subject to culture. Further, the power of witness resided in the Holy Spirit working in the person. At Pentecost, we can infer there were faithful women who had followed Jesus as his disciples and who had witnessed Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, fully qualified for the authentic teaching of Christ. It would not be wrong to say they were empowered to be apostles, too.

The lack of representation of women apostles in the Bible does not necessarily falsify what is written above. Women wrote not one word of the Bible that was written by men, for men with a patriarchal mindset. Further, Jesus’s ministry was no longer to just the 12 tribes of Israel but to all people and nations of all races, and the necessary number of apostles had grown. He had already moved from 12 apostles to 72, and, as we know, many more unnamed apostles, including the possibility of women. The apostle Junia, mentioned in the Letter to the Romans 16:7, is believed by many theologians to be a woman. Those who would protest against a woman apostle because of a belief in an unbroken line of only male bishops should consider the fact that we do not have all the documentation to support the claim of an unbroken linage of men.

To bring further closure to the impact of patriarchy, the Scriptures that were historically poorly exegeted by the early church fathers and used to discriminate against women need to be ascribed new meanings. These include Genesis 3, Genesis 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:11-15, and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. This would put to rest the contaminated meanings of these texts that have permeated the cloth of our church. Today’s theologians, with updated exegetical tools and historical and archaeological knowledge, are skilled in analysis.

Can we take the controversial texts by Paul literally? In the words of Gertrud Heinzelmann, “Paul was a Jew. His statements to that effect should not be regarded as timeless abstractions.” Alternatively, the texts that seem to marginalize women may relate to a particular incident rather than there being a generic discipline for all time: for example, the verses from Timothy and Corinthians mentioned above that prevented women from speaking in church. It is also possible that Paul’s words might have been incorrectly redacted.

There is evidence that Paul collaborated with women in ministry and regarded them highly. In Romans 16, eight active Christian women are favorably mentioned by Paul, including Priscilla and Junia. Junia is said to be “eminent among the apostles.” There is evidence in the New Testament of women who were deacons (Phoebe), prophets (daughters of Philip), and founders and leaders of churches (Junia, Prisca, Lydia, Chloe)—all leadership and governance positions that Paul supported. Perhaps Paul was on a growing “learning curve” to walk with the values of Christ rather than those acquired from a patriarchal culture, a call to all humankind.

Genesis 3 needs further exegesis for both its patriarchalism and truth. It was Adam who was advised by God not to eat from ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Gen 2:17), with the devil taking advantage of this by tempting Eve, who had presumably received the message secondhand from Adam. In that situation, the man simply stood beside the woman saying nothing, making a scapegoat of the woman, as many men have done since. Genesis 3:16, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you,” could well be read as women calling for a unified, collaborative approach in life, but men will not cooperate. This is often the issue today. We should also remind ourselves this story for how the world became corrupted was told from a male perspective: the Bible texts were written by men with an inherent attitude of male righteousness.

Ephesians 5:23 also needs further analysis: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” This text is used by the church to supplement the argument that only a man can represent Jesus as the bridegroom at the Eucharist. To this, Heinzelmann, referring to the studies of Else Kühler, states, “No man can claim that he has given himself for the Church and done for it what Paul is talking about, [thus] no other man has the right to put himself in the place of Christ.” ♦

Maree Sobolewski is a committed Catholic from Australia. She holds a master of arts in theology and spirituality and is a team member of Catholic Church Reform International. She has worked as an educator, a retreat leader and seminar facilitator, and a school chaplain, and has served as a missionary in Tasmania and the Northwest Territories of Canada. Maree has been actively involved in her parish for most of her adult life. She has served as a board member, prayer group leader, and international event coordinator, among other roles.

Image: Lavinia Fontana, Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, n.d.
 
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