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Fortune-Telling Slave Girl

I find it intriguing that the voice within the slave girl had something wonderful and profound to say: “These men are the slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” And yet Paul was irritated and commanded the spirit to come out of the girl. My initial thought is to see her as quite the opposite of an irritant and more as a prophet, like John the Baptist, who came before another and declared the truth. Jesus never got irritated with John’s rantings, but then no one ever expects Paul to behave like Jesus.

William Barkley writes in his commentary on The Acts of the Apostles that the slave girl was called a Pytho, a person who could give oracles to guide others about the future. A Pytho was considered mad and was respected by the people who believed that the gods had taken away the mad one’s wits and replaced them with the minds of the gods.

Of course, I write from what I read, and on the surface I see a girl who is saying good things about Paul and the others, and so must be a prophetess to be heeded. But delving deeper and learning about the original Greek, I discover that the word used to describe the girl’s voice is “false prophet”. No matter what good may be said, if it comes from Satan it may be real but it is not good. And Paul’s irritation is not just with an annoying voice that follows him around, again understanding the original Greek, but irritation of anger and sadness, anger at the slave owners and sadness of the girl’s plight.

The beauty of Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter is the depth of learning that the Rev. Lindsay Hardin Freeman has provided for us. We begin with Scripture and a few words spoken by a woman or a girl. We look at the verses surrounding those words and see why the woman is important to the story. We dig deeper, into others’ commentaries to learn more from the original text and centuries of study, and we dig deeper, into our hearts and our personal experiences. We bring each of the women into the 21^st Century to understand why they are all still relevant today.

I give thanks to Lindsay+ for taking me on a journey to meet new friends, 93 extraordinary women who said enough to be included in the Holy Bible. I thank her for giving my imagination the freedom to end the stories as I want to see them ended. The fortune telling slave girl? Why, she came back to hear Paul and Silas speak again and there met Lydia, the seller of purple. The girl was adopted into Lydia’s household and adopted into the Household of Christ.

I give thanks to the Episcopal Church Women for coming along on the journey and for sharing their insights with me and with others, either through this blog or in book study groups. I know the studies will continue, long into the future.

++++ Coming June 26th, 2015 ++++

Breakfast with Lindsay Hardin Freeman

48^th Triennial Meeting – Salt Lake City

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:42:26+00:00May 15th, 2015|

Sapphira and Lydia

Have you ever served on a stewardship or pledge campaign committee? I have. Not only does the committee work to encourage members of the congregation to give and hopefully tithe in support of the church’s programs and operating expenses, the committee works to educate people on the reason to pledge and how to pledge reasonably. Emphasis on the love of God, the love of God’s creation, and the love of God’s people are all elements of good stewardship education. And it doesn’t matter if the church is large or small, with a healthy endowment fund or none at all; there is always a need for everyone to participate and share in the financial wellbeing of the church. As the campaign goes along, the committee is able to gauge its success, and there may be a call for more giving with a supplemental pledge. The needs of the church are emphasized and the campaign pulls not only on the purse strings, but also on the heart strings. However, never is there a call for anyone to put their personal financial situation in jeopardy in order to meet the church’s goals.

Sapphira and her husband, Ananais, remind me of church members who get too caught up in the joy of giving. The stewardship sermon stirs the heart and there is a desire to solve all the problems and meet all the goals that have been brought to the people. These church members make a pledge, one they plan to fulfill, but as the year progresses the payments lag and by the end of the year the pledge is not met. And perhaps the budget income is not met, and the church scrambles to determine what program, what staff member, or what building need will have to take the hit. Ananais and Sapphira said they would sell their land and give all the proceeds to the Christian community. No one asked them to give up everything; it was their pledge to make. But when the time came to tell Peter and the others the sale price for the land, Ananais lied to Peter. When Peter confronted him, not about how much was given, but about the lie, Ananais fell dead. Wow! Peter is some pledge campaign committee chair! At my church we receive reminder letters if we still owe on our pledge; we hold a Catch-Up Sunday in February to give people one last chance to complete their previous year’s pledge. Peter’s style is quite different from the low-key Episcopal way.

And then Peter asked Sapphira about the pledge and the price for the land. Sapphira answered “Yes, that was the price.” Sapphira was caught up, too, in the excitement of supporting the fledgling community. She made the pledge, too, and she lied about the land’s proceeds. It is best to make an honest and reasonable pledge that can be met, than to raise expectations for those planning for the new year’s ministry.

Now Lydia is an ideal pledger. She was a businesswoman who also was stirred by the “stewardship” sermon. But she responded by pledging not only a portion of her wealth, but more importantly her heart and soul. She and her household were baptized, making a more important commitment to God than any money can buy. I can almost hear Jesus’ words being said about Lydia that Jesus spoke to Martha about her sister, Mary: “She has chosen the better part.” Lydia stayed committed to the new community by opening her home to those who were spreading the Good News to the people of Philippi. “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” Sapphira was judged to be a liar and died for her lies; Lydia was judged to be faithful in her pledge of time, talent, and treasure.

It is for each of us to look at our own commitments to God. What have you pledged from your stores of time, talent, and treasure? Have you set realistic goals? Is the Holy Spirit your partner in meeting those goals? Is there more that you can do to help spread the Good News of Jesus Christ?

++++ Coming May 15th ++++

Chapter 28

The Fortune-Telling Slave Girl

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:40:43+00:00May 1st, 2015|

Famous Female Episcopalians

This poster feature, “Famous Female Episcopalians,” was created by activist, author, and artist Louie Clay (neé Louie Crew). The poster depicts the images of several well-known Episcopal women throughout history.

Clay, an Alabama native, is an emeritus professor at Rutgers and founder of Integrity USA, a U.S. not-for-profit organization working in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (TEC) for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) members and their allies.

Clay has served as a deputy to six General Conventions from the Diocese of Newark, NJ. He holds honorary doctorates from EDS, GTS, and CDSP. He has published 2,363 of his manuscripts.†

To learn more about Louie Clay and his life’s work, go to http://rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/pubs.html
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Crew.

Episcopal Church Women2020-04-30T14:59:22+00:00April 30th, 2015|

Christine Hedgley Johnson: One Remarkable Woman

Deborah Smith Douglas profiles a distinguished woman.

She is a grandmother, a faithful communicant, and a pillar of the church. She knows the liturgy and most of the hymns by heart and she never misses a service. She taught Sunday school and vacation bible school for years. She served for years as the head of the altar guild and she still keeps an eagle eye on the young acolytes each Sunday and, woe betide the crucifer who puts a foot wrong during communion.

In many ways, she is the institutional memory of the church, as well as the guardian of its traditions and identity.

You might assume that she is a cliché, a hat-wearing convention, a rock-ribbed conservative, pious and prim—the sort of “Church Lady” that Saturday Night Live made fun of, once upon a time. You would be wrong.

Christine Johnson is now nearly eighty years old, and has been passionate about justice since, as a teenager, she watched crosses burn on the lawn of her family’s house in North Carolina.

Her father was a Black Baptist minister, and his involvement in civil rights in the late 1950s, and throughout the turbulent 1960s, made him a target for the Ku Klux Klan. This did nothing to stop him—or his fiery daughter (“I never did have the sense to be nice and quiet,” she admits)—from standing firm in their convictions, rooted and grounded in their faith in God.

When Johnson asked her father if he was afraid of those who hated and opposed him, he answered calmly that his life was in God’s hands; that God had put him there and given him work to do, and that God would call him home whenever He liked. And until then, there was nothing anyone on earth could do to harm him—or, to stop him from doing what he knew was right.

The apple, as they say, doesn’t fall far from the tree. Johnson’s life has been marked by the same sort of fearless commitment to what is right. She has boundless compassion for those who suffer, and bedrock awareness that in life and in death she belongs to God.

FOUND HER WAY TO THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

As the daughter of a cradle-Methodist mother and a Baptist-preacher father, Johnson’s early religious formation was deep and strong. In her 20s, disenchanted with some aspects of the Baptist tradition, she found her way to the Episcopal Church. The riches of the Book of Common Prayer, with its Biblical resonance, prayers for all occasions, and Eucharistic liturgy, attracted her at once. She loved the round of liturgical seasons, and the fact that whatever Episcopal church she attended, worship would follow the same pattern—and she would be welcome. She was confirmed at Holy Trinity Episcopal, in Baltimore, where the Reverend Robert Powell, a prominent Black minister and community activist, was the rector.

Her involvement with civil rights began in her student days in New York City, when she joined Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in protests, marches, sit-ins, and demonstrations of all kinds, both in Harlem and in distant cities to which they traveled by bus. She recalls proudly that she was arrested once…but, she wistfully remembers, she wasn’t sent to jail because the Richmond jails were already full.

When she graduated from nursing school in 1961, she went on to earn a Master’s degree in medical-surgical nursing, specializing in clinical practice and hospital administration. In those days, her career options as a Black woman were limited: she could either work at a segregated Black hospital in the South, or an “integrated” hospital in the North—but only on night shifts “so people wouldn’t know what color I was,” she dryly explains. She could also join one of the U.S. uniformed services.

So she joined the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and began a career as a nurse, administrator, and educator in government hospitals across the United States—from New York’s Staten Island to Baltimore and Detroit and Santa Fe—a career that would last until she retired (as a Colonel) from active duty in 2001. The armed services weren’t ready for women in authority in the 60s, Johnson recalls, much less Black women: the prejudice was more subtle in the North, but just as real. She wore her dress blues, rather than street clothes, when she went out to restaurants, “to make it a little harder for them to refuse to serve me.”

She met David Johnson at Friendship Baptist Church in New York City, while she was in nursing school. They married in 1970 and had two daughters, Deborah and Christel, “named for our Lord, not a chandelier,” says Johnson. David worked as a motorman for the New York transit authority, operating subway trains until the day he died. The couple separated, out of necessity in 1982, when Johnson was sent to the Indian Hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico to be the deputy director of Nursing. There were no motorman jobs in Santa Fe, so despite the initial hope that he would be able to join her and the girls, David remained in New York until his death in 1992.

Deborah and Christel are now grown women with graduate degrees of their own. They are both married with flourishing careers in health care administration in Washington DC and physical therapy in Dallas, respectively. After they came to Santa Fe as children, they spent every summer with their father, so they could stay close to him and be with their cousins, so that they might be part of a larger Black community growing up connected with that part of their heritage (which was never going to happen in Santa Fe, where Blacks even now comprise only about 1% of the population).

This pattern of the girls spending summers in New York was beneficial for the extended family and for their father. The summer pattern also allowed her to take different tours of duty away from the Indian Hospital while the girls were away.

As sensible for everyone as this plan seemed to be, at the end of the day Christine Johnson was still a hard-working single mother in Santa Fe, far from her own family roots. She plunged into church and community life with her whole heart and mind, however, putting down strong new roots that have held fast for decades.

Johnson has done just about every job, and held every office at St. Bede’s, that it is possible to do and hold, (except for church suppers) “I don’t do kitchens” she declares with a grin. She has long been active in the local chapter of the NAACP, she tutors in local schools, and has taught nursing at the community college. She raises money every year for the American Cancer Society. She is a cancer survivor and she has volunteered with at-risk youth at the Santa Fe Mountain Center and served on the board of the local battered women’s shelter. Currently, she helps young people from Santa Fe’s large immigrant population move toward citizenship.

There is a common thread that runs through and unites all that compassionate service. Christine Johnson has a large heart for women, children, young people, for the disenfranchised, and the oppressed. “Whatever I do,” she says, “it’s because it’s important for struggling people to know that other people care about them, and that God loves them.”

Johnson is not a cliché, nor (Heaven knows) a caricature of a gloved-and-hatted-pursed-lipped “church lady.” She is an eagle-eyed and lion-hearted woman who has given her life to God and to the work God has given her to do.

The whole Body of Christ, the communion of saints, and the Episcopal Church are strengthened and enriched by her presence among us. †

— Author Deborah Smith Douglas has known Christine Johnson for more than 30 years, since they met as new members at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Author of The Praying Life: Seeking God in All Things, Douglas is a writer, retreat leader, spiritual director, and Benedictine oblate.

Episcopal Church Women2020-04-30T14:46:56+00:00April 30th, 2015|

So, You Are Going to Be a Delegate

By Connie Skidmore

This is the first installment of three articles to help orient each of you to the upcoming 2015 Triennial Meeting adventure in Salt Lake City.

Are you going to be a first-time delegate to the Triennial Meeting in June 2015, or have you previously been a delegate? Whatever you are, the 2015 Triennial Meeting should be an exciting time, so it is important that you learn about what to expect.

First of all, you will be participating in the largest official gathering of Episcopal Church Women (ECW). Held every 3 years, the Triennial Meeting runs concurrently with General Convention. The meeting provides an opportunity to meet with ECW members from all nine provinces within the Episcopal Church, women from within the Anglican Communion, ecumenical guests, as well as a variety of speakers and special visitors.

Secondly, as an elected person from your diocese, you will be an integral part of the entire Triennial Meeting process—from registration, to special meetings and elections, to reporting on these privileged experiences upon returning home. Prior to attending the Triennial Meeting, each diocesan president, or other designated representative, will receive several packets of information to review and respond to as requested. (All mailed materials will also be available on the National ECW website, at www.ecwnational.org.) Included will be a schedule listing the times and locations of each day’s events.

As a delegate, you will be expected to attend the ECW plenary (meeting) sessions and events. Delegates will have the time and opportunity to visit the General Convention Exhibit Hall, as well as attend various General Convention meetings, participate in diocesan group for activities and/or meals during the General Convention/Triennial Meeting “shared time.” (A special bonus this triennium: The opportunity to see and hear the newly-elected Presiding Bishop.)

Upon arrival at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, delegates will register and receive a finalized Triennial Meeting information packet. A delegate welcome/orientation meeting will take place in Plenary Room, where you will hear helpful information to get you started. As a Triennial Meeting delegate, you will be voting on officers, resolutions and motions in plenary sessions. A hearing may be held at a certain time to help you understand a resolution, or issue that will be voted on in a later plenary. In plenary sessions, there will be an opportunity to speak to issues as they are presented. Questions are welcome, although it is expected that all in attendance follow the decorum of parliamentary procedure.

One of the best learning times will be attending the ECW workshops that are offered during Triennial. There are so many good choices it will be difficult to select just a few during the time available. A suggestion is to have each delegate in your diocese attend something different so you can take home a variety of information and experiences to share with those in your diocese.

The goal of the ECW National Board is to make the 2015 Triennial Meeting in Salt Lake City a wonderful and memorable experience for each and every ECW delegate.†

Episcopal Church Women2020-04-30T14:21:57+00:00April 30th, 2015|

National Board Scholarship for Graduate Study

ECW National Board Scholarship for Graduate Study for Ordained Ministry and the Helping Professions Application Deadline March 31, 2015

The Episcopal Church Women National Board Memorial Scholarship Fund was recently established with a gift of $50,000.00 from the Board. Those who wish to engage in graduate study in areas related to church work, special ministries, and helping professions are eligible to apply for scholarship grant awards.

Scholarship applicants may apply for a $3,000 maximum annual award for a period of up to 3 years. Applicants must complete an application form and submit a recommendation from a clergy member of The Episcopal Church. Completed applications are due March 31, 2015. Awards will be announced at the 2015 Triennial Meeting in late June.

Contributions made to the Memorial Scholarship Fund during the 2012 – 2015 Triennium will be specially recognized at the 2015 Triennial Meeting. Contributions should be made payable to DFMS with ECW Scholarship Fund in the Memo Line and mailed to Kathy Mank, ECW National Board Treasurer

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-19T18:09:04+00:00April 15th, 2015|

Mary Magdalene

There is something to be said for the early hours of the morning. The sun is just below the horizon and light is beginning to chase away the dark. The noises of humans – cars, delivery trucks, televisions – have not yet permeated the air, so the calls of birds can be heard, from the little chickadee to the raucous blue jay. It is the time of day to be open to possibilities and receptive to God.

This was the time of day when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to be near Jesus. He was dead, yes, but to be at the place where his body was laid was to be as close to him as she could, or so she thought. We do the same, don’t we? We visit the gravesite or columbarium of a loved one and we plan to just sit for awhile, to listen to the birds, to notice what little flowers are growing around the marker, to simply be in the presence once again of one who is now gone. It is a place and time that is open for remembering, and it becomes a place for more than that, a place that is open to possibilities. Mary arrived at the tomb and found it open. Her first reaction was to run and get the men. She broke the spell of the morning and ran from the possibilities found in the quiet. Peter and John arrived, discovered for themselves the empty tomb, and left again. Once more Mary was left in the quiet of the morning, in a place to remember and reflect. Just as one needs the quiet to hear the songs of the smallest birds, Mary needed the quiet to hear the angels of God. Now she was open to see and hear the angels say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” She was open to see and hear the gardener say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She heard the smallest of sounds, like the call of a bird that will be drowned out during the hustle and bustle of the day but can be heard in the early morning hours. She heard the voice of her friend and teacher. She turned to him and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” I hope she stayed awhile, to be in Jesus’ presence, to have a quiet and reassuring conversation with him, before she ran off to tell the others as Jesus instructed her to do.

Mornings are my time to be open to the possibilities of the day. It is early morning now as I write this, a time when I am open to hear the voice of God and to be stirred to do what God calls me to do. Mornings are the time of day to watch the darkness fade and the light appear. In the darkness of our lives, it is Jesus who brings the light to our day and drives away the fears. It is Jesus who gives us a song to hear and creation to appreciate and hope to be reborn. I hope you allow yourself a time in the day to be still and to be open to hear God speak to you.

There is a legend about Mary of Magdala that is depicted in our illustration and in many icons. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene gained an invitation to a banquet held by Emperor Tiberius Caesar. She held up a white egg in front of him and declared “Jesus is risen.” He laughed and said, “that is as possible as your egg turning to red”, and before he could complete his sentence, the egg had indeed turned to red. Mary declared again, “Jesus is risen.” On that day many people in attendance became followers of Christ.

This little story may be hard to believe, and it is relegated to legend, not gospel. But consider the power of God in your life when you are open to hear and believe. As we so often say, with God all things are possible.

++++ Coming May 1st ++++

Chapter 28

Sapphira and Lydia

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:38:17+00:00April 15th, 2015|

Women at the Tomb

I recently attended my parish women’s retreat. I led Saturday meditations, guiding the women to BE in the Spirit and not just DO ministry. The women were divided into small groups of four and asked to share with each other, easily and non-threatening at first, deeper and deeper as we progressed through the day. It was all quite congenial and I was pleased to see everyone participating as both sharers and listeners. A deacon’s ministry is to stir things up, to raise awareness of the needs of the world, and to prod people to do the work God calls us to do. And so, deviating from the theme to Be, I, the deacon, asked the women to look at a time and talent assessment form and share how they might expand themselves in ministry at our church. After the women reconvened from their small groups, the youngest woman at the retreat, in her mid-thirties, said quite honestly that she found this exercise disturbing. Family, work, long commute, and volunteer ministries for which she was already committed were taking a toll on her. To ask for more, just a little more, was too much. It took me back to the time when I had all those aspects in my life, too. I was approached to become active with my church’s ECW and I burst into tears. I had to say no. And it was so hard. We women hate to disappoint. Here we were, on a spiritual retreat, and for a few moments the multiple needs of others forced its way into our being. Some women talked about how they struggle to keep balance in their lives and others talked how they have accomplished that balance. Loving support was given to those who are just now learning how to say no when no is the necessary response. The moments passed and we returned to talking and sharing how we can Be ourselves and Be present with God, no matter what or what not we are able to Do.

As I prepared to write about the Women at the Tomb, I was surprised at one of Lindsay’s reflection questions: “Many women are responsible for seeing tasks through in their faith communities and have reached a certain level of fatigue because of it. How do you keep your spiritual life balanced while attending to the many details of your personal and/or professional life?” When I think of the women at the tomb, I don’t think first of fatigue. My goodness, these are strong women who keep on keepin’ on. I think of the courage of staying through the crucifixion, the sadness at seeing the young man’s tragic death, the devoutness of going to make final preparations for the body, and the shock of hearing the angel as he stood before the opened tomb. I don’t think of these women’s exhaustion at yet one more ministry to Jesus. Perhaps it was Mary Magdalene, the youngest of the three women, who showed the most exhaustion. Perhaps she told the disciples’ mothers that it was getting to be too much. And perhaps those older women shared with her how they keep balance in their lives, while caring for their sons, while caring for all the disciples, I think, but also while caring for our Lord.

There is another emotion that comes to mind when I think of the women at the tomb, and that is Joy. There is egotistical joy in seeing a task to its end and receiving accolades for sheer doggedness. The greater joy is simply Being in the moment and seeing Jesus here, with us, drawing us near. As Easter approaches we must first spend those final days and hours with Jesus and walk the way of the cross. It is emotionally exhausting. But we know the Happy Ending, and that gives us strength to say Alleluia, and to say yes to all we are called to do.

++++ Coming April 15th ++++

Chapter 27

Mary Magdalene

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:36:26+00:00April 1st, 2015|

Maid of Raguel, Sarah, and Edna

Prayer is a mystical thing, I think. Prayer in my childhood home was by rote. We were taught the Lord’s Prayer and we recited dinner graces found in The Book of Common Prayer. What to pray in any given circumstance was found in the Prayer Book. From somewhere deep inside of me, I discovered personal prayer in conversation with God. In the Book of Tobit, his son, Tobias travels to Media to claim family money left there for safekeeping; the angel Raphael, posing as Tobias’ travel companion, leads him to the home of a wealthy man, Raguel. Raguel and Edna have one daughter, Sarah. What a perfect match for Tobias. Tobias has been raised to treat others fairly and kindly and he is about to bring back wealth to his family. He will find with Sarah a woman of the same faith, class, and concern for others. There is just one little catch: Sarah is possessed by the wicked demon, Asmodeus, who has killed the first seven bridegrooms of Sarah. Is Tobias to be the eighth? Enter the maid of Raguel’s household. As Lindsay+ has written in her reflections, this is the maid most likely to have prepared Sarah for the seven wedding celebrations. With each wedding, the joy dissipates. I think of Juliet Capulet’s nurse, who was first wet nurse to Juliet and then her closest confidante. It could have been true of Raguel’s maid, who may have loved Sarah as her own. The maid lashes out at Sarah. “You are the one who kills your husbands!” And Sarah wept. Could it be that this maid was like a mother to her? The pain seems like more than just harsh words from the hired help. It is too bad that the maid did not turn to prayer to help the two of them in such a horrendous situation.

But Sarah prayed. She prayed to God with a deep, personal plea. She wanted to kill herself, yet the thought of the grief she would bring to her father was too much. She conversed with God and shared all that had happened, finally asking God to end her life, “but if it is not pleasing to you, O Lord, to take my life, hear me in my disgrace.” At that very moment her prayers, and the earlier recorded prayers of Tobit, “were heard in the glorious presence of God.” Oh, that we can believe that our prayers are heard in the glorious presence of God!

Edna was a devoted wife and mother. Raguel told her to prepare the room for Sarah and her eighth bridegroom, and she did. She brought her daughter there and, wiping tears from her eyes, she said her own prayer: “Take courage, my daughter; the Lord of heaven grant you joy in place of your sorrow. Take courage, my daughter.” In the bridal chamber another prayer was said. Tobias told God that he was taking Sarah with sincerity and asked for mercy “that we may grow old together.” And they both said, “Amen, Amen.”

A final prayer was made that night. Raguel roused the servants and sent the maid to see if the bridegroom was dead or alive. The maid returned and reported that the bridegroom was indeed alive and that nothing was wrong. “So they blessed the God of heaven” and gave thanks to God for all God’s blessings, especially for God’s compassion on Tobias and Sarah. It was most certainly a spontaneous prayer, filled with surprise at the outcome of the wedding night, and with petitions for the children’s future lives together. Can you see Raguel and the maid in prayer together? I can. The maid, the long-suffering servant in the family, the one expected to tend to Sarah through seven, and now eight, weddings and frustrated to the point of hurtful accusations towards the young woman, can finally pray, can finally share her thankfulness and her petitions for the newly married couple. What a blessing for the maid, and for all of us who discover prayer as our personal connection to God.

++++ Coming March 31^st ++++

Chapter 25

Women at the Tomb

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:33:49+00:00March 15th, 2015|

Anna

It is difficult to appreciate Anna, I think, without reading the entire Book of Tobit. It is a relatively short book, filled with the righteous and the unrighteous, with a magical fish, a companion dog, a demon, and the Angel Raphael posing as a common man. The families in the story are financially well off, but they still suffer from great physical and emotional challenges. In the midst of this is Tobit’s wife, Anna, a minor role but essential to the story. If I were casting Anna in a movie, I might consider a lesser known actress like Joan Plowright or Melissa Leo. But who I really would want to play the part of Anna is Anne Bancroft. In even the smallest of roles, Ms. Bancroft could command the screen. She could suffer like a stereotypical Jewish woman, speak her mind, and still show how a beaten down woman can accomplish all that is put in front of her.

Anna’s husband, Tobit, is the main character of this story, written in the first person. He tells the story and he decides what is important to relay. He tells us about his struggles to be a righteous man, how he opened his home to others to share in an abundant meal, how he took risks to bury the dead. He tells in great detail how he became completely blind. For two years after his blindness his nephew Ahikar took care of him. And, oh by the way, “my wife Anna earned money at women’s work.”

The women of the Bible are just like you and me. What has changed over the past thousands of years? When financial hardship hits a family, it is often the wife who steps up to make ends meet. Ego strikes and the former breadwinner can’t stoop to a lesser job. Illness strikes and the other must earn a living. Tobit’s blindness must have affected the family’s finances, because Tobit makes a point to mention that his wife earns money for them as a weaver, right after he mentions that all his kindred feel sorry for him. Not only does Anna earn full wages for the work she does, she also earns a bonus in the form of a goat. She must be very talented at the art of weaving, “women’s work”. And what are the thanks she gets? Tobit accuses her of stealing the goat! It is as if he can’t imagine that his wife could be as successful as he had been in taking care of the family. And Anna says (imagine Anne Bancroft here), “Where are your acts of charity? Where are your righteous deeds? These things are known about you!” I see a woman with lots of hand gestures letting go of a lot of suppressed anger and frustration. I can see perhaps a dish flying through the air, maybe with a nice goat stew on it. Tobit’s reaction is not to say he is sorry, not to thank her for all she is doing to help the family. No, his reaction is to cry. Does he want us to feel sorry for him, too, that his shrewish wife brought tears to his poor, blind eyes? Tobit, she’s doing the best she can and you need to appreciate that she is doing it well enough to receive more than full wages.

All in all, I would like to read the Book of Anna and to read the story in her first person. Perhaps she cries, too. Perhaps she wishes that she is the one blinded. She could bear it better than he does. But that is not how the Bible goes. So we read, we study, we grasp at the few words spoken by women, and we reflect on our own lives to realize that this is the way of women throughout history, right down to us. We may be fortunate to marry a spouse who has the potential to care for us for the rest of our lives. We may be fortunate to be self-sufficient with a great career of our own. But when adversity strikes, we take our skills, or learn new ones, and we step up to keep our families whole.

There is so much more to this story. In a couple of weeks, let’s take a look at the other women who speak in the Book of Tobit.

++++ Coming March 15th ++++

Chapter 19

Maid of Raguel, Sarah, and Edna

Content provided by Author Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Illustration: Claire Elam

Episcopal Church Women2020-05-22T18:32:03+00:00March 1st, 2015|

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