'The Unnamed Women' Evensong on 3rd September 2006 at All Saints, Datchworth: Mick Simmons

I’ve been tasked with preaching the last sermon in this series of “Women in the Bible” but unlike the other preachers in this series I’ve been given, not a Judith or a Miriam or an Elizabeth or a Martha – someone with a name - but an un-named woman and I myself have had to decide which un-named woman in the Bible I’m going to preach about.

Generally speaking, the named women in the Bible are known by name because their names were thought to be worth remembering because they each played a more or less significant role in the unfolding story of God’s plan of salvation for his people. They were strong women in leadership roles, like Deborah (or De-bor-ah as Colin has insisted is the correct pronunciation), and Esther; or they were outsiders such as Ruth, who embraced the Jewish faith wholeheartedly and became shining examples both to converts and to people born into the faith, and who were the epitome of love and faithfulness to those around them. Or indeed they were, like Hagar and Sarah, significant figures at the very beginning of the Hebrew nation, both of them bearing children by Abraham the father of the faith. Then again, like Mary Magdalene, they represent the type of the “bad girl turned good” a conversion brought about by a deep love for Jesus and the recognition of who he actually was.

But what to say about un-named women in the Bible? How to choose from the dozens of anonymous women who inhabit the biblical narrative. The problem is there are so many of them that making a choice is a bit difficult. There are wives, mothers, daughters, widows and others who, beyond their status as daughters, nothing can be known or surmised. Some of these women are selfish, like Sisera’s mother who waited for him to come back victorious from battle only so she could benefit from the spoils of war she thought he would bring with him. Little did she know that he had been killed. But we never find out her name. Some have great integrity like Belshazzar’s mother the wife of King Nebuchadnezzar. She preferred to know the truth no matter how painful it might be. The truth led to Balshazzar’s death and the overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom. But we never find out her name. Many other un-named women are just bit-part players and walk on extras in the great biblical drama. But again, we never find out their names.

However, I have to make a choice and so from out of this multitude of anonymous women I’ve chosen not one un-named woman, but two and I’ve chosen them on the basis that they seem to me to represent two different responses to the problem of pain and suffering in the world.

I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the story of Job; how he was a blameless and upright man who feared God and turned away from evil and, as a consequence of his goodness and his faithfulness to God, he was successful in an all round way with great wealth and an enviable family life. However, during a conversation with Satan, God singles out Job as a paragon of virtue but Satan replies that it’s easy for Job to be virtuous and God-fearing when he has everything he could wish for. Satan then suggests that it would be interesting to see how God-fearing Job would be if everything was taken away from him: in fact, Satan argues, if all that Job holds dear was removed, Job would curse God to his face. Astonishingly God agrees to test out Satan’s theory but only on the condition that Job’s life is spared and from then on the story relates the systematic destruction of Job’s entire world. But even after his flocks, his servants and his sons and daughters have been killed, Job doesn’t blame God. Even after his physical degradation and humiliation Job refuses to blame God for the terrible things that are happening to him. At this point in the story we come to our first un-named woman, in the shape of Job’s wife. Brought to the brink of despair by the awful events that have occurred she rounds on Job and wails impatiently: “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” To which Job replies: “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”

Job puts his wife very firmly in her place with this rejoinder. But, in her defence, isn’t Job’s wife’s reaction to these events really a very human and understandable response to a set of horrible circumstances? What we shouldn’t ignore is the fact that Job’s wife was also a victim in this story. Job’s sons and daughters were hers as well; the comfortable and affluent lifestyle was also hers; she too felt the deep loss of everything that had made their lives together so meaningful and enjoyable and contented. She had to witness the systematic degradation and humiliation of her husband. Who of us here this evening, faced with such disasters, wouldn’t feel at least the impulse to hold God to account? Perhaps some of us already have felt that impulse through disappointment or loss.

There’s no denying Job’s patience, his integrity and his faithfulness to God, but isn’t he too passive, too accepting of his fate whether good or ill. He would rather curse the day he was born than blame God for his misfortunes and he seems to possess a somewhat masochistic streak. You feel that you just want to get hold of him and shake some anger into him.

Job’s wife on the other hand runs out of patience; she reaches a “tipping point” to use a current expression and she expresses her impatience in the most forceful of terms: “Curse God and die”. This is a shocking thing to say because she has counselled Job to blaspheme against God, but she’s reached the end of her tether, she’s devoid of hope and the words just come tumbling out. Only isn’t there a difference between shouting at God in anger and cursing him? Even if it was only an act of provocation designed to jolt Job out of his passivity, his wife was urging him to abandon his faith and hope in God and at the same time placing herself and Job beyond the pale by even entertaining the thought of cursing God, a sinful act which would have severed their relationship with God. Even if allowances are made for the human dimension to her reaction, surely this was a foolish thing to do.
 

If we turn our attention to the second of our two un-named women we see that in this narrative it isn’t impatience in the face of suffering that it deals with, but the patient bearing of a long-standing affliction. The woman in question had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years and despite various costly attempts at healing, her condition had grown worse instead of better and she was now worse off financially to boot.

For a woman to have to suffer such an affliction would be unbearable at any time but at that time it was a question also of social and religious stigma and exclusion. Menstruating women were regarded as ritually unclean and therefore unable to participate in public worship. Besides this, anyone who touched a woman in this condition would also become unclean. Imagine the debilitating effect of the continual loss of blood; hysterectomies were unheard of in those days; imagine how it would have felt not to be touched by any person other than a physician for twelve years; to be held to be unclean for that length of time. The sense of isolation would have been unbearable for most people and for this woman the impulse to end it all must have been strong.

Nevertheless, she obviously possessed the hope that one day her affliction would be cured and this hope was what kept her from total despair and gave her the patience to bear the affliction. One can imagine her praying daily to God for relief from her suffering and her return to the normality of everyday life. When she heard about Jesus and his powers of healing it isn’t surprising that she made the effort to join the crowd gathered around him. Her prayers would seem to have been answered. She hesitantly reaches out a trembling hand to touch his clothes, every fibre of her being wishing, hoping, desiring to be cured. Her faith in God’s providence is vindicated when Jesus, aware that his clothes have been touched and conscious of power going from him, asks who it is that has touched him. The woman owns up and confesses to Jesus what her circumstances are and why she touched his garments and, in the process, demonstrates that her faith is greater than that of Jesus’ disciples who don’t yet understand fully who Jesus is: “You see the crowd pressing in on you” they say: “how can you say ‘who touched me?’” Jesus replies to the woman: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

So, two different responses to pain and suffering: one is impatient, angry and devoid of hope and faith in God. The other is patient, prayerful, faithful and willing to take some responsibility in seeking a path to healing.

Also two different images of God: one capricious, remote, unmoved by suffering, like a schoolboy pulling the wings off a fly. The other, close enough to reach out to and touch, aware of the human condition, compassionate and ready to bring healing and life to all who suffer, and to suffer with them.

The problem of why, in a world created by a supposedly good God innocent people suffer has, for two millennia, exercised the minds of theologians and others (perhaps most notably, Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov). Is God distant and cruel and unconcerned by the suffering of human beings; or is he the God of love who comes into the world to share in the suffering but also to bring healing to those who suffer?

The gospels show us that in Jesus God became a human being in order that human beings might be made whole and that all who have faith in him as the good and loving Father will find an end to their suffering.

Amen.