There are about a bazillion ways to strike up profound conversations, and they all begin with one random question. One such question began one such conversation about a month ago. A light breeze ruffled the branches of the tree overhead as Aaron, an American running The World Race, sat down and asked Monica and me for our opinion on the role of women in the church.I looked down at my mkande (maize and beans) and tried to hide the mischievous gleam that lit across my face. Behind every great man there is a great woman, I thought with an irresistible twinkle escaping through my eyes. I didn’t know Aaron well enough to know if he’d be able to tell I was joking. Well, half-joking. Okay, not joking. It's true. You can argue until you're blue in the face about what women's role is, but in the time it took you to start and finish your theory, incredible women did hundreds of great things.
Monica and I looked at each other. The intensity of our conversation was about to go from 0 to 60 in 0.3 seconds. A memory flashed across my mind of a story I'd heard from a Tanzanian man not that long ago. While giving a sermon one day, he began talking about how his wife left him with his young child to go to a meeting once and he nearly had a stroke, burned down the hut, and ended up eating twigs and grass for dinner. His story prompted uproarious laughter from the congregation as every married woman in the crowd--both foreign and native--nodded her head in understanding. Apparently he wasn't the only man to be lost without his wife in his own hut. And here Aaron's question referred to a long-debated topic of the degree to which women lead, contribute, or forge ahead with or without men.
Monica was the first to jump in. As she spoke, the smirk on my face gave way to a well-known Scripture passage in Isaiah 41 called The Helper of Israel. Many a troubled believer has flipped to this chapter in search of encouragement for the wearying road. In times of great desperation we are greatly desperate for help and strength. In all of Isaiah, this is the only chapter that calls God the helper of
Let me bring you, my friend, to God’s first words about women.
‘elohym‘amar lo’ towb ‘adam hayah bad ‘asah ‘ezer k’neged’
‘ezer k’neged is the Genesis 2:18 translation for the creature that we have come to know as “woman” in the account of creation. Now, actually, these aren’t God’s very first words about the hott topic. His first words are in Genesis 1:26, a sort of Sparknotes version of the creation history, where God declares that He is going to make “man” in His image and give them authority over all animals, birds and fish. We know “man” does not refer to only the male species because Genesis 1:27 declares that God created male and female of “man” in His image. To all those who thought Eve was merely a creative afterthought, this tells you she was intended from the beginning. Genesis 2 retells the creation history with the focus on the creation of life, specifically the creation of man and woman. Man was formed first out of the dust of the ground and the breath of God, and somewhere in between creating Adam and presenting the animals before their lord, God tells us that creation has one last need. Enter ‘ezer k’neged, the three little words that make up the all-too-popular King James Version term “helpmeet.”
For many people who were exposed to or grew up in more traditional churches, it is no secret that the widely-known misnomer “helpmeet” is one of the reasons that the church structured gender roles the way it did during and post-reformation. Also to the credit of “helpmeet,” few people connect the dots from God to Eve when we read the English translation of Eve as the helper of man and God as the helper of
Interestingly, scholars speculate that ‘helpmeet’ arose from Old English, not from the original language of the Old Testament. Many early translators coupled the words ‘ezer k’neged as a single term that indicated God-ordained subservience of women in ideal creation. Translating k’neged or kenegdo as meet, we arrived at the amazingly well-adopted term ‘helpmeet’ so popular for church sermons on Mother’s Day. Fond as I am of Old English, I've got to say that the word clearly carries zero connotation of "the helper of Israel," and is virtually oozing the connotation that women are little more than a Piglet doppleganger from Winnie the Pooh.
In the time it took me to research this and write this blog, women everywhere have done amazing things. I have merely come up with a few resources and tidbits in an attempt to "define" a role that, let's face it, is far bigger than definition. And even if it is define-able, which I am sure smarter, more educated people than I can support, there are certain women who will not be defined. They swing for the fence whether it's in accord with their designated role or not.
Why is this? Hard to say. Depending on the women you know, you may call it stubbornness, or arrogance, or one too many hits from the school of hard knocks. Or is it more than that?
If it's true that a good answers come from good questions, then Aaron may have been asking the wrong question. Perhaps a better question is, "What do women bring to church naturally?" And, "What do we know about what is in female nature to bring?" Given the whole creative design thing, I'm pretty sure God wouldn't take offense to taking a closer look at what He made in answer to what He intended. And that's the point we're digging out, isn't it? What was God's intention?
At this point I have to tell you, I can't answer this in entirety. I have no quips, no smirks dancing across my face, no little glimmer in my eye. So I am going to do what most people do when they are looking for good answers. I'm going to pull a Godfather (to be continued...)
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