Jesus and women

Some women were watching from a distance [Jesus’s last breath]. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. (Mark 15: 40-41)

Held back, drawn forward, moving towards

I have been thinking a lot about women and how long they waited for the chance to cross the borders and find belonging; around education, financial freedom, the ability to train and work, to vote, to hold positions of authority in almost all spheres.  In the UK these borders are mostly open, there is now a female leader of the Anglican communion!   

I understand that Jesus crossed over many boundaries towards women; Mary was allowed to sit with the men and listen (Martha protested perhaps because she was afraid for Mary’s reputation), talked to the Samaritan woman (bypassing many social mores of race and gender), he had women friends and followers.  But I am haunted by a question someone asked recently – Why did Jesus not just choose 6 women to be among the closest 12, would this not have clarified our lot – advanced us maybe a few centuries or millennia?  Could he not have?   Perhaps not without burying his ministry in scandal.   But it took a long time to find our belonging!  His example seems not to have resonated with people for a long time. 2000 years and counting!  Virginia Woolf when asked to write a talk on women in fiction (in the early 1900s) explained why there were so few: ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’.   Hardly any woman had this; to be sure I imagine not many men did either!

This year in my church we took a moment in Lent, given the consecutive Sundays of International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, to mention women who have shaped or inspired us.   I thought of my own family and the women who preceded me, and I wondered how they were impacted by these boundaries and how they lived within them.  My mother applied to train for the ministry, using her initials only so they would not know she was female until turning up for the interview (when they would struggle to find a reason to refuse her), my grandmother who went off to China to be a missionary as a single woman sometime before 1914 (she met and married my grandfather in China), my Gran who loved learning but all the money for education was spent on her brother (she went to secretarial college and quickly found a job as someone who spoke French and German).   I don’t know the women who came before these three, but as Virginia Woolf says it has to hurt if you are told that education for women is a waste, that you are weak and not capable.   I wonder if they agreed with this or knew it to be false, I suspect some of both happened.   In common with the rejection and sidelining that Jesus experienced at the hands of political and religious authorities I want to take a moment to honour women’s stories and acknowledge their struggle to be heard (and not shut down) and to find their place of belonging.

God sees those stuck behind borders

Women were not the only ones trapped behind borders. Until 1918 a third of men in the UK could not vote, only a decade behind the 1928 act which secured the vote for all men and women aged 21 and over. 

At the start of Lent I was reading the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and was shocked anew at her story: a trafficked woman, a slave handed to Abraham to produce a child and when she finally thought she may have a vestige of power was beaten then thrown into the desert.  Abraham it seems, heard from God that she would be ok, but I don’t think anyone told Hagar. She despaired and in agony thought she would have to watch her son die.  But God came, and she called him, ‘the one who sees’.   He did see and did save them.   I do believe God sees those stuck behind borders.  It is evident he does not personally always rescue them, but I suspect he expects us to understand his actions, to understand Jesus and act like him.  

Questions

Who do we know stuck behind a border and what is our action meant to be?   If I enjoy my freedom, should I not share it and not hold possessively onto it in case I lose something?

Pray for those stuck behind imposed borders.  This week we remember Jesus' ultimate sacrifice; he did not hold back or hold onto power but relinquished it.  If we follow his example,  will we not look for those so imprisoned and try to break their chains?

Kirsty Hook

Image credit: Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem, Diocese of Tours

Come home to yourself, come home

Leave-taking

The younger of two sons said to his father, “give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living […] But when he came to himself he said […] I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:12-20 (abridged)

Familial, cultural, and religious boundaries were transgressed. Geopolitical borders were crossed. The decision to leave home - perhaps necessary in some inescapable and mysterious way - was made, and freedom given to leave for a distant and unfamiliar country.

The journey is one we will all make; deeply and searingly personal whilst, at the same time universally recognisable. It’s first iteration occurs in Genesis chapter three, where it appears inextricably woven into the fabric of the Creation story. Shaped in God’s own likeness, at home and having stewardship of all that God loves, we find the man and his wife hiding from God’s presence among the trees of the garden. And the consequences are devastating:

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness/ The hardness of the heart, its barricades/ And at the core, the dreadful emptiness/ Of a perverted temple. Malcolm Guite: Palm Sunday

Trespassing and re-orientation

It is to this far off, interior landscape that the trespassing Son of Man comes; exploring edges and reach, climbing over boundaries, and crossing into “the borderlands of ourselves where we may least want to be seen and most need to be touched. Jesus, who is not afraid of borderlands, does not mind meeting us in those places.” Meda Stamper: Working Preacher blog, October 13, 2013.

He comes to re-orient us personally (as well as societally and culturally) and like his Father, he is filled with compassion as he runs and puts his arms around us and kisses us.

Lynn Darke

Beaten and Unbeaten

Confident and authoritative border crossing and the solidity of resurrection

Piero della Francesca’s fresco painting, The Resurrection (c.1463-5), situated in the former civic hall in the Tuscan town of Sansepulcro, shows the triumphant Christ arising from his tomb on the third day after his death. This is a solid, monumental and assertive Jesus.

Anchored to the tomb by his left leg and the resurrection flag in his right hand, he appears to be using them both to raise his other leg out of the tomb. In doing so, he flexes the muscles in his abdomen, emphasising the palpable reality of his body. The sleeping soldiers below are complexly intertwined and create a triangle from the top of Christ’s head through to the lower corners of the painting. This, together with the symmetrical layout of the painting, with the horizontal edge of the tomb and trees on either side, serves to further anchor the eye and give weight to the composition.

This Easter image portrays Jesus in peak physical condition, like a prize-winning boxer exiting the ring. As such, it contrasts strongly with the events associated with Holy Week, when Jesus was betrayed, tortured, and humiliated, his body broken …

Protector of identity and boundaries

In addition to being a triumphant depiction of the risen Lord, the fresco itself has a fascinating story of survival. In his essay written in 1925 titled, “The Best Picture” Aldous Huxley described it as “the greatest picture in the world”. The memory of this statement later caused a British artillery officer to decide not to shell the town during World War Two. The painting, and the town, survived. In fact, the painting was discovered after having been covered over with plaster for two centuries (for reasons unknown), yet it remained beautifully intact, beneath.

Indeed, the subject matter – the undefeated Christ arising from his tomb after his death – may be a reference to the successful establishment of the town itself, which was named Sansepulchro after the Holy Sepulcher (the tomb that Christ was buried in). The presence of the large stone in the lower right corner of the fresco supports this, as it may represent the relic of Christ’s burial place reputedly brought by the saints who founded the town.

I am struck by the fresco’s sense of order and control, victorious subject matter and extraordinary survival story. The image is a defiant assertion of the certainty of eternal life after death, at a time when the plague stalked the towns of Tuscany. For the councillors who met in the civic hall for which it was commissioned, Piero’s painting would have been an important symbol of civic identity, and its portrayal of strength and composure may have inspired good governance.

And for the inhabitants during the Second World War, it must have seemed as though their resurrected Christ had literally saved them from destruction, standing sentinel over their settlement and marking its boundary defences.

Jesus: Borders and edges, rounded and vulnerable

Over the centuries, this supreme depiction of the resurrection of Jesus has acted as a powerful cultural marker and protector of identity and boundaries, and as a means of promoting and maintaining prominence, security, order, and certitude. As such, it reflects a highly controlled and ultimately narrow way of seeing Christ: on the contrary, Jesus was a non-dual thinker who emphasised his own humanity, identified with the poor and broken, taught in stories, parables and enigmatic sayings, and operated outside the control and understanding of others*. This makes me wonder:

• What image of Jesus resonates with me this Lent?

• Do I over-localise God’s action in one place, forgetting that he is available everywhere and all the time, straddling the perceived borders of time, space and physicality?

• Am I open to a “Beaten” God?

 Tom Ingrey-Counter

References:

*Paraphrased from “The Naked Now” by Richard Rohr

https://smarthistory.org/piero-della-francesca-resurrection/

Shalom

a communal, embodied, and whole-making endeavour

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. Isaiah 58:9-10

The call to follow Jesus - through the great darkness that rolls in with each News headline and, perhaps more insidiously, that we find rooted in our own lives and actions - is a hard one.

And we lose our way when we do not hear within the divine directive to love God, the equal and inseparable requirement to love our neighbour as ourselves. Jesus’ offer of ‘life in all its fullness’ is a direct challenge to the edges and borders we feel compelled to defend and that must be dismantled if we are all to be made whole.

Re-orientation

The trespassing Son of Man comes to re-orient us societally and culturally (as well as personally) towards dignity, forgiveness, generosity, justice, and sabbath rest; because shalom is a communal, embodied, and whole-making endeavour. There can be no personal or partial shalom. It requires participation from everyone in the community.

“The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom […] Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone. In this way, shalom is everyone’s concern.” Randy Woodley: Shalom and the Community of Creation

Shalom then, is neither a serene disposition nor hope situated in a better future. We are called by Jesus to set about the task of living out shalom now and making it our daily business. He calls us to follow him into the active and persistent effort of shalom at every level, from personal relationships to societal and structural transformation.

Questions

Who or what needs my forgiveness?

Who is not getting enough to eat, and how can I help?

Who can I free to rest?

Who needs me to stand with them?

Lynn Darke

Image credit: Swanson, John August. Festival of Lights, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56546 [retrieved February 25, 2026]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.

Ever expanding diversity

separation and communion

Wherever life occurs borders, boundaries, membranes and “skins” are present. From outer skins (epidermis) to boundaries between organs (endodermis) to cell “walls” to membranes differentiating organelles within cells. Even inanimate objects like water can form a skin through internal cohesion (belonging) and surface tension and “geographical” borders are plentiful on planets and within solar systems and galaxies. What are the functions of these boundaries? Could life processes work in an un-differentiated cosmic broth? Crucially, all biological borders have “gates”, border crossings, where vital exchanges happen with other boundaried entities and with the environment. Many of these crossings are selective, both in what can enter and what can leave. The result is ever expanding diversity.

As it is, boundaries separate what would otherwise blend (by diffusion, if nothing else). Separation then can be seen as life enabling - and, curiously separation occurs in birth also. It feels to me that there is a time for separation and a time for communion (paraphrased from Ecclesiastes 3). Context and outcomes are crucial: where separation brings new life let’s separate, where it brings stagnation or death let’s trespass!

Skin ego

In the 1960s the psychoanalyst Didier Anzieux coined the term “moi peau”, which is normally rendered as “skin ego” in English, although, perhaps “ego skin” would be another, somewhat different notion. This “psychic container”, we are told, is necessary for the healthy development of a growing person. It is said to be “thicker” in narcissistic individuals than in others.

How much skin ego is necessary for healthy interaction between people? What circumstances does it depend on? Where is “trespassing” these boundaries life-enabling and where is it catastrophic (or inconsequential)?

Stephan Helfer

Edges and reach

John 4:1-42 NIV - Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman - Bible Gateway

border spirituality

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”  (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.). The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) John 4:7-9

I love Gus’s idea of Jesus as trespasser. This idea is apt when we look at the John 4 story of the Samaritan woman at the well. 

Jesus crosses Judah’s border with Samaria, taking a less commonly travelled route, to get back to Galilee following undue or untimely attention from the Pharisees (4:1-3). He goes from conflict to conflict entering another dangerous territory, trespassing. The antagonism between Samaritans and Jews cut both ways, exacerbated by Hyrcanus’s conquering of the Samaritan capital city and destroying the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerazim in 128 BCE.  A wall has been constructed between siblings of very similar heritage and beliefs and the Samaritans in particular have to eek out their own monotheistic identity alone.

My son drew my attention to Freud’s ‘narcissism of small or minor differences’ where groups close to each other, bearing it seems similar values and traditions, are more venomous towards each other than against other groups that, on the face of it share very different traits and share little in the way of common ground. Boundary crossing need not involve long distances then, sometimes being close to home!

The scene is a unique historical location, the land Jacob gave to Joseph, specifically Jacob’s well. Would Jesus be welcome?  I suspect not and he would know it. I ask myself whether Jesus respected boundaries, whether his enthusiasm to reach out was paramount? I guess crossing heaven and earth twice in different directions suggests a certain confidence as well as porosity, much as walking through walls (John 20)!

In this account Jesus crosses ritual purity lines (a really big deal), religious lines and gender relationship lines (spouses or family members only speaking please!). Is he acting like a bull in a china shop?  Jesus and the woman share the same ground around the well, the same water, the same utensil too and both do so willingly and knowingly. It's not just Jesus crossing borders but the woman too. She engages and jousts and stays in the conversation. This ultimately results in a stunning and rarely made confession from Jesus ,‘I am the Messiah’ and a village comes to faith.

Jesus and the woman hold and stay in this deepening evolving space, exploring edges and reach. Perhaps Richard Rohr’s term ‘border spirituality’ applies here.  I hear Jesus saying “Let’s explore this line you’ve drawn”.  This passage is the longest recorded conversation of Jesus with anyone in the gospels and includes the first occurrence of Jesus’s ‘I am’ statements. The overt nature of this disclosure and to this recipient is a singularly bold, clear and important message from Jesus to any who would follow him.  Let’s cross, trespass borders that define rigid belongings and describe and enter another way of life, on radically different terms*.

a spirit birth into a new family

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me. John 4:34

What, I keep asking myself, motivated Jesus? What compelled him to cross the many tangible, conscious barriers even before we get on to the subconscious and intangible barriers? Curiosity, sure.  Compassion, yes. This passage however suggests it's obedience or harmony with his father and that some energy or propulsion is connected with this. It is perhaps simply  what Jesus sees in His Father and what we, with the words ‘Follow me’ ringing in our ears, may discern in Jesus too.  An additional motivation may derive from the conviction that a spirit birth into a new family is what is needed and advocated (see too the John 4 story of Nicodemus, Jennifer Garcia Bashaw).

I hadn't thought I'd be reflecting on obedience and the will of God. I think Jesus realises the supreme drive or desire of the father to give, to reach out, to care, to joust and play.  It's indigenous, needs no second thought or guessing.  There is little in the way of cost benefit calculation or risk assessment. It's simple and clean. I belong to everyone.

St Bonaventure‘s line “God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” bears repeating here and is well illustrated in this story, especially because it seems to capture Jesus motivation, being one with the Father in outlook, intent and action.

Andrew Hook

* Strong echoes of Pauls writing in Galatians 3:28 ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’.

Boundaries, borders, transgression: a Lent enquiry

the son of man has no place to lay his head

Lent, traditionally understood as a time for relinquishment, spiritual enquiry, repentance and preparation for the great corporate movement of soul which is Easter is marked - if at all - too often in a somewhat tokenistic way: abstinence from chocolate, or social media or alcohol for the duration leading to the observances of holy week, again engaged with to varying degrees or not at all. And yet it remains, unquestionably, one of the great passages of the liturgical year.

In light of the theme for the Coracle reflections this Lent ('Borders and Belonging') I'm prompted to wonder what Jesus himself would have made of all this. The duration of the season of Lent mirrors his time of fasting in the desert so there is a sense of identification with the self-denial of Christ himself. So, if we engage with this period abstinence and reflection, are we attempting to conform ourselves more deeply to an image we hold of who Christ was or is or expects us to be? And how would he critique that image of himself with which we are trying to align ourselves? How would he have related to the theme 'Borders and Belonging'? To whom, or where, did he belong?  After all he said: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Jesus as transgressor

In inviting us to reflect on this theme, Andrew suggested we might consider "some of the interfaces and edges that Jesus poked at, crossed, trod, lived and blurred geographically, politically, physically, theologically, socially". Where this invitation took me was to consider Jesus as transgressor. And before you send for the Inquisition, stick with me for a moment. Here are some of the root meanings of the word 'transgress':

Transgress (verb)

1 to violate a command or law : to sin

2 to go beyond a boundary or limit

3 to go beyond limits set or prescribed by : to violate divine law

Etymologically, it derives from the Latin verb 'transgredi' meaning 'to step across, step over, climb over, pass, go beyond'.

It strikes me that by any reading of the Gospel accounts (and the so-called gnostic gospels enrich this picture immeasurably), Jesus spent much of his ministry transgressing. He constantly 'stepped across' what were deeply rooted religious, cultural or social rules, values convictions or conventions, irritating or infuriating those who thought they knew better. He was often accused of breaking the law (for example by healing on the Sabbath) but perhaps in doing so, in his numerous movements of 'transgression', he was pointing us all towards a deeper truth about love and mercy over external rules and edicts, over dualistic - and often performative - conformity. His abhorrence of hypocrisy and moral grandstanding led to a whole array of confrontations with those who considered they were in authority and in constellating the circumstance of these confrontations he points us again and again towards deeper truths.

Challenging dogmas

Richard Rohr has often taught on the need for rules in the first half of life but that we must move beyond rigid legalism toward a deeper, internally discovered and arguably more spiritual understanding of what the law points us towards. The Dalai Lama is widely attributed as having said "Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively". 

So I'm sensing that this Lent, I'll be spending time pondering Jesus' role as transgressor: what implications that has for me in maturing in my faith as well as the role of the church which has so often positioned itself as some sort of moral arbiter, a role which Jesus himself took a very different approach to by challenging and transgressing the dogmas and shibboleths of the dominant cultures - political and religious - that he lived amongst.

Gus MacLeod