The Women's Lectionary

Preaching the Women of the Bible Throughout the Year

Ashley M. Wilcox

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780664266196
• eBook ISBN: 9781646980062
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Focusing on passages about women in the Bible and feminine imagery of God, The Women's Lectionary reimagines the liturgical calendar of preaching for one year. These women are daughters, wives, and mothers. They are also strong leaders, evil queens, and wicked stepmothers. They are disciples, troublemakers, and prophetesses. Ashley Wilcox explores how the feminine descriptions of God in the Bible are similarly varied—how does it change our understanding if God is feminine wisdom, has wings, or is an angry mother bear?

Discover this must-have lectionary, perfect for every female clergyperson or anyone seeking to incorporate more insights from a female perspective into their preaching. From well-known figures like Miriam and Mary to lesser-known women like Huldah and Sapphira to feminine metaphors, this comprehensive resource features more than one hundred commentary essays with an Old Testament and New Testament passage for each Sunday of the year and special holy days in the calendar.

Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany

First Sunday of Advent

GENESIS 38:13–19, 24–27

Tamar

The story of Tamar may be the least familiar of the four women listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1:1–17. Tamar’s story falls in the middle of the Joseph narrative, immediately after Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and before the passage about Potiphar’s wife (another seductive foreign woman). This account is about Joseph’s brother Judah and Judah’s daughter-in-law, Tamar.

Tamar is a woman who has experienced a lot of loss. She loses two husbands and her home, and she is waiting for her husbands’ third brother to be old enough to marry and give her sons. Her first husband, Er, was “wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death” (Gen. 38:7). Her second husband, Onan, pulled out and “spilled his semen on the ground” instead of impregnating Tamar (38:9).¹ This was displeasing to the Lord, so God put him to death as well. According to the law of levirate marriage, Judah should give Tamar his third son, Shelah, to marry (cf. Deut. 25:5–10). But Judah is afraid that Shelah will die too, so he instead sends Tamar back to her father’s house to wait until Shelah grows up.

This text illustrates the failure of patriarchy to protect women who fall outside the patriarchal structure. One of the benefits of a patriarchal system is that everyone knows who the head of the family is: the patriarch (in this case, Judah). In an ideal patriarchal system, a woman has protection throughout her life: first from her father, then her husband, and then her sons. However, Tamar is a woman outside of this protection.² After the deaths of her husbands, she is no longer a virgin, a wife, or a mother. She is a foreigner, making her even more of an outsider. Tamar is stuck in limbo, waiting at her father’s house and unable to marry again or to have children.³

When Tamar discovers that Shelah has grown but Judah has not given her to him in marriage, she takes the law into her own hands. She acts to protect herself and the family line by going to the next closest male relative: Judah. Tamar takes off her widow’s garments and disguises herself in a veil. Thus, Judah thinks that she is a prostitute and solicits her for sex (38:14–15). Tamar negotiates for his signet and cord and his staff in exchange, and Judah “[comes] in to” Tamar and impregnates her (38:18).

When Tamar takes Judah’s signet, cord, and staff, she puts herself in Judah’s role as the head of the tribe and takes on his identity;⁴ the Hebrew word for “staff” also translates as “tribe.” Symbolically, Tamar is now the head of the tribe. Thus, this marginalized woman subverts the patriarchy to do what is right and continue the family line, which leads to David and Jesus. When Tamar later confronts Judah with the signet, cord, and staff, he recognizes what she has done and says, “She is more in the right than I” (38:26). Jewish tradition does not stigmatize Tamar for what she did, but instead praises her.⁵

Because this text probably is unfamiliar to many in the congregation, one way for the preacher to approach it is to retell the story of Tamar, explaining her actions in the context of the law of levirate marriage. Without this context, it may seem like Tamar is engaging in strange or unethical sexual behavior. But with an understanding of why she makes these choices, the congregation can see that, through her courageous acts, Tamar saves the family name. The sermon can also highlight how God works through this seemingly powerless woman, who upends the power structure to save herself, her family, her people, and all of us. Christians should remember her story.

• Have you heard the story of Tamar before? In what context?

• How does the law of levirate marriage protect women?

• How can churches celebrate Tamar and remember her story?

LUKE 1:26–38

The Call of Mary

This text begins with “In the sixth month” (Luke 1:26), which refers to the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.⁶ Thus the story of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy is bookended by Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy. There are other parallels between the two stories. For example, the conversation between Mary and the angel Gabriel echoes and contrasts with the conversation that Zechariah had with Gabriel. Zechariah’s story may be more of what people might expect: an announcement to a priest in a temple (1:8).⁷ Instead, this announcement is to a young woman in a small, rural village in Galilee.⁸

The angel says to Mary, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” (1:28). From this point on, the angel’s conversation with Mary follows the prophetic call narrative. Traditionally, a prophet’s call includes a divine confrontation, an introductory word, a commission, an objection, reassurance, and a sign; a classic version of this type of call occurs in Exodus, when God called Moses from the burning bush (Exod. 3:2–12). These parts of a prophetic call are present in Mary’s story. There is a divine confrontation when the angel comes to Mary (Luke 1:26–27). The introductory word occurs when the angel says to Mary that she is “favored” and that the Lord is with her (1:28). Then there is a commission: “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (1:31). Like Moses questioning God, Mary also objects: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (1:34). And God gives her a sign: Elizabeth’s pregnancy. The angel says, “And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren” (1:36). Finally, Mary accepts this call: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (1:38).

Some commentators say that this is not a fully prophetic call.⁹ They argue that it falls short of a full prophetic call because Mary is merely called to womanly things like childbirth and raising a child. However, there are many examples of God calling prophets to use their bodies as signs. Examples include God calling Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot for three years as a sign (Isa. 20:2–4), Ezekiel lying bound on the ground in ropes (Ezek. 4:4–8), and Jeremiah burying a waist sash and then digging it up to show that he could not wear it (Jer. 13:1–7). These are called sign acts, and they have two parts: (1) a nonverbal act followed by (2) a prophetic word. Both Mary and Elizabeth have a nonverbal act followed by a prophetic word. Their nonverbal acts are in their miraculous pregnancies, and then the Holy Spirit calls them to prophetic speech. When Mary goes to Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and cries out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Luke 1:42). And Mary responds with the Magnificat (1:46–55).

This is such a familiar story, one that is often taken out of context. By using the prophetic call narratives and the story of Elizabeth, preachers can place this story back into the context of the biblical narrative and the book of Luke. The angel appearing to Mary, while miraculous, is not unique in the Bible. Mary is one of a long line of people whom God has called to speak and act prophetically, and she immediately joins another prophetess when she visits her relative Elizabeth.

• How is Mary’s interaction with the angel similar to the story of Zechariah and the angel? Why do they each respond differently to the angel’s announcement?

• How is this text like prophetic call stories in the Hebrew Scriptures?

• Does it change your perspective on Mary and Elizabeth to see them as prophetesses?

Second Sunday of Advent

JOSHUA 2:1–21

Rahab

Rahab, the Canaanite woman at the center of this story, is the second woman listed in Matthew’s genealogy leading to Jesus (Matt. 1:5). Some have characterized this passage as Rahab outsmarting the spies,¹ but really, Rahab outsmarts everyone. First, she outmaneuvers her own king and army. When the king of Jericho sends orders to her to bring out the men (Josh. 2:3), she tells just enough of the truth for it to be believable. Undaunted by the king’s power, she says that the men were there, but she did not bother to learn where they were from, and they left before dark (2:4). Then she gives the king’s men specific instructions on where to pursue them (2:5), making sure the gate shuts behind them (2:7).

Next, Rahab outsmarts the spies. She takes them up to her roof (2:6), where they are both hidden and visible. The flax that Rahab has drying on the roof hides them, but the roof is out in the open and potentially visible to others.² While she has them there, she negotiates with them for her family’s life (2:12–13). The spies, who must be in a hurry to get away from the city, respond heartily with “Our life for yours!” (2:14). It is only after Rahab has secured their promise that she lowers them down by a rope, and then she gives them similarly specific instructions on which way to go to avoid their pursuers (2:15–16). The spies’ response seems notably cooler once they have climbed down from the roof—repeatedly characterizing their promise as “this oath that you made us swear to you” (2:17, 20). They also add some requirements: that she have all her family in the house (2:18–19) and that she put a crimson cord in the window. Perhaps they regret agreeing to her terms so quickly.

Notably, Rahab does not just secure a promise to save herself. In fact, she mentions her family members specifically: “Spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death” (2:13). She puts her family members and “all who belong to them” before herself. Rahab is not a solitary woman who is estranged from her family: she is close to them and makes sure that they will be spared. For the preacher, there is room in this message to include not just Rahab’s biological family, but also her chosen family.

One could even argue that Rahab outsmarts God. Deuteronomy 7:2 explicitly says that when the Israelites conquer the land, they mus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Notes of Care and Caution
• The Lectionary Chart
• Sermon Series
• The Commentaries
• Notes
• Index of Lectionary Passages
• Excerpt from Preaching the Women of the Old Testament, by Lynn Japinga