Women in Sacred Scripture

In recent months I've prepared a number of study guides for our parish's Bible Study program. The goal -- other than to keep me busy during these long months of semi-confinement at home -- is to encourage our nearly 100 participants to continue reading their Bibles until we can get together again in our weekly sessions. I receive occasional positive comments from our participants, and to date no one has panned my little guides, so I suppose that's good. I hope these small efforts have been beneficial.

Anyway, my recent studies include an updated guide for the Book of Ruth and a new guide for the Book of Judith. Currently I'm working on a guide for the Book of Esther, a task that's taking me a bit longer than I had envisioned. Esther, one of the more complex books of Sacred Scripture, is consequently more difficult to present in my usual fairly brief format. I hope to complete it this week, but other life-demands seem to interrupt me whenever I sit down to work. 

Although I didn't intend to focus on Biblical books centered on women, it seems to have worked out that way. In these books we encounter truly remarkable women who, despite numerous social, economic, and even religious barriers, achieved great things. Although they certainly set an example of personal courage and fortitude for women of every age, they were primarily women of tremendous faith. It was their faith and their trust in God that enabled them to overcome many seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. In every instance, the efforts of these women might have led to far better personal situations, but ultimately the end they sought was the greater glory of God. And in this they set the best example for all of us, women and men alike.

Every Christmas, at the Mass during the Night (what we used to call "Midnight Mass") we proclaim the genealogy found in the opening verses of the Gospel according to Matthew [Mt 1:1-17]. If I'm called to preach at that Mass, I like to draw attention to the women whom Matthew includes in the genealogy of Jesus. 

With the sole exception of Mary, the women mentioned by Matthew are all Gentiles: Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, Bathsheba was a Hittite. Jesus' family tree, then, wasn't so purely Jewish, was it? Those Gentiles among His ancestors highlight the fact that He came from all of us and for all of us. 

And He came especially for sinners.  Again, consider those women. With the exception of Ruth, they, like the men who fill the pages of Scripture, were rather public sinners. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to fool her father-in-law, Judah, and ended up giving birth to his twin sons. Rahab actually was a prostitute, and yet a faithful woman. And Bathsheba? From the roof of his house King David watched her bathing, invited her in, seduced her, and had her husband killed, so he could marry her. Solomon, their son, started right with God, but eventually joined his many wives in worshipping idols.

Yes, indeed, God's plan of salvation is universal. Humanity, and that includes every one of us, saints and sinners, men and women -- we're all called into the Family of God.

Recently Diane and I were reminded of one of these women mentioned by Matthew. We escaped for a brief vacation and spent several days in the hills of north Georgia. Visiting the town square of Clarkesville, Georgia, we bought a few items from a shop that supports a mission called "Rahab's Rope" dedicated to empowering women and children in the fight against human trafficking. The name of the mission comes from chapter two of the Book of Joshua in which Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho, and an ancestor of Our Lord, helped the Israelite spies escape:

Then she let them down through the window with a rope, for she lived in a house built into the city wall [Jos 2:15].

Rahab, inspired by the Holy Spirit, acted courageously, and helped bring about the Israelite victory. The result: 

Because Rahab the prostitute had hidden the messengers whom Joshua had sent to reconnoiter Jericho, Joshua let her live, along with her father's house and all her family, who dwell in the midst of Israel to this day [Jos 6:25].

But human trafficking isn't something restricted to the third world. It's right here in the U.S.A. and is growing thanks to our now almost wide-open border. The drug cartels have discovered they can make additional millions from the unholy trafficking of women and children whom they essentially sell into slavery. While so many today seem focused on the slavery of our distant past, they ignore the very real, very vicious form of slavery that's right here, right now.