For Such a Time as This

The Bible records a meeting of the disciples of Jesus after his resurrection and ascension. The first order of business was the election of someone to take the place of Judas who had betrayed Christ and was dead. The role of apostle had one major requirement: it had to be held by a witness to the resurrection. Two men were qualified for the post and a vote was taken. However, there was another person in the room that was even more qualified for the office. Mary Magdalene was chosen by Jesus to be the first person to see Him, and He sent her to tell the others. So much for women being quiet in church. It is evident she had been an important part of His entourage and a close friend to Him. She would have been the natural choice, but she was a woman and therefore not even considered.

I know that women in that day were subservient to men in every area of their lives, but if there ever was a moment in time when a simple choice would change the course of history it was that moment. If the Christian faith had accepted women as equals at its very birth, we would live in a totally different world today.

That thought hit my brain a few days ago and my imagination has been running wild playing “what if” ever since.

As the church moved from a movement of followers with individual relationships with their God to a structure designed to control how the followers thought, believed, and behaved I can’t believe the women in leadership would ever agree with priest and nuns being celibate.

If an equal number of men and women had been on the committee to decide what writings should be in the Bible, do we really think that every word there would be written by men? Are women incapable of being divinely inspired? Mary Magdalene wrote a gospel that did not make the cut.

I have had a ball thinking though history and wondering what a difference women could have made.

Would women allow them to write “That all MEN are created equal?”

What would the constitution look like as co-written by men and women?

How many wars would have never happened if there were other voices besides men playing macho games of chicken?

The subjugation of women has cost us at least fifty percent of our intelligence. Who can begin to count all the poets who had no pens, singers never heard, leaders who spent their lives as chore girls scrubbing floors.

Even today every nation that subjugates women lives in darkness and abstract poverty. We live in a world of what might have been.

Then my “What if” settled on a wonderful thought. One of the most memorable and beautiful things I ever saw was the millions of women in the streets the day after the inauguration of President Trump. The thrill did not come because they were protesting a president but simply because they were there and the potential they represented. What if they did more than just make speeches and encourage more women to run for office. What if that could be the beginning of a woman’s movement where women of all faiths and political parties would shout “It is our time. We are here for such a time as this.” And they would organize, set up Pacs, raise funds to support the rise of women to power in every area of life. Men have had it long enough and proven over and over that all we know how to do well is war and guns.

That sounds like a dream but if women don’t do it who will? That bunch of toy soldiers who tried take the government by force? A deadlocked government that lives to be re-elected? A church that has become a force of division instead of peacemaking? Who can save us? A movement of women directed by God seems to me about the best and maybe the only hope.

I hope and pray that we will see a mighty army of women moving to make change and bring peace. How powerful do I want women to become? How about a female Pope?