"Are there
any women at the table?" At the beginning of Acts we read a description of the early believers who formed the fledgling church. We read "day by day, as they spend much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts" (Acts 2:46). The lives of these early believers was characterised by a daily communion and a sharing of meals - probably part of the same event for them. Acts tells us they gathered at the temple in Jerusalem but we know from the other books of the New Testament that for many believers who were scattered throughout the Roman world these gatherings took place in homes - in house churches. Both practices - the communion and the table fellowship - were grounded in the lifestyle that Jesus had. The gospels are full of stories of him gathering around a table with friends: talking, partying, sharing food and ideas. It's a way we express friendship too. And the communion, as we are told each month, was grounded in the Last Supper Jesus spent before his death. But we probably have quite different images of these two practices. We have not formalised or sacramentalised the table fellowship of Jesus, but over the ages the church has done this with communion, and at times has made it a very exclusive practice. This was brought out clearly for me when I attended an annual conference for NSW and ACT pastors some time ago. In a worship session we were asked to close our eyes for a guided meditation. The words began "imagine you are in an upstairs room one evening with a feast spread out before you.Your feet are dusty from the roads and you are weary from your travels so you are enjoying relaxing in the cool room. Jesus is amongst you and seems strangely tense, as if he is anticipating something that will happen very soon.." The words went on and before too long I realised I was being asked to imagine myself in the upper room where the Last Supper took place. Immediately this realisation came I involuntarily snapped out of the meditation. In all the images of the Last Supper that had been built up for me though my life it was Jesus and his twelve male disciples who were there. How could I, as a woman, be present at that table? There was no room for me. We assume that the early Christians gathered together inclusively, male and female, leaders and lay people, rich and poor, to break bread and share table fellowship. But over the centuries the story of the Last Supper has been passed on in word and image with the message that twelve men only were invited to receive the special blessing of Jesus at the Last Supper. The Eucharist became a central sacrament of Christian and church life, it took over the fellowship meal almost entirely, and in many circles has become a sign of separation and exclusiveness, rather than a mark of love and community between the followers of Christ. In the last few months I have been preaching a series of sermons on women in the bible. I've been aiming to highlight some women that we might never otherwise hear of, to show that there are biblical models for faith for all of us, women and men, to remind us that in the bible and in the church there are women who are leaders and prophets, teachers, people of faith who are called to pass that faith on. I guess I've had in mind particularly the younger women in our congregation, knowing that I went to theological college with very few role models myself, but I'm assuming this series has been an eye-opener in some way for all of us. I have commented before that women are, unfortunately, somewhat elusive in scripture - there are very few sustained narratives about women and therefore little character development. We are not aware of any women authors of the biblical books, though some argue that there may well be women writers behind a few of the books. Often women seem to be there just to act as a foil for the men. Think of Delilah, Bathsheba, Gomer and there are many others. Until recently this has been the pattern for history writing throughout the ages - women have been largely absent from the records but we know they must have been there! As Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza has said: "women are present in every part of history, even when their contributions have not been narrated by historians." Fiorenza has written many important books on the role that women played in the development of the church, and she has a rule of thumb that she applies which says unless women are specifically excluded we must make the assumption that they are there. And we could argue this even applies to the occasion of the Last Supper! I'm aware that while some gospel accounts speak of Jesus being with his disciples at the last Supper, Mark refers to "the Twelve" being with Jesus in the upper room. But by the time the gospels were written this term (the Twelve) had become a formulaic description of Jesus' disciples - a significant number because it represented the followers as the New Israel, replacing the twelve tribes of Jacob. Twelve is also the product of three by four, three being the number of the Trinity and four the number of material elements that make up the world, so twelve as the sum of three times four can be seen as a mystical combination of spirit and matter, where the 12 disciples represented the church proclaiming the truths of the faith to the world. In reality the names of the Twelve in the gospels vary, and the gospels as well as Paul's letters tell us that women were amongst the disciples and apostles. (Just as an amusing aside - this image of the Twelve is so integrated into popular cultural understandings of the bible that in the early 1990s a snail bait was advertised by the image of twelve snails gathered around a larger snail enjoying their "last supper"!! There must have been some complaints because the promotion didn't last for long.) Knowing what we do about Passover meals it would have been highly unusual for a group of men to have celebrated alone - and particularly insulting to the mother of Jesus not to include her. But while we may never know (this side of heaven) who was actually present with Jesus, we do know that his words ought to apply to all believers: he shared his bread and wine and continues to share his life with "all of them". "all of us." Wonderful art works like the one I shared with the children can help us all of us imagine ourselves in the picture. Romans 16 The passage we read from Romans is another reminder that women were present and active in the life of the early church. It is one passage where women are specifically mentioned, but even so their contribution has been often minimised by commentators as we'll see. As we read through the names in this last chapter of Romans it is notable that one-third of the names belong to women. Some of these names are only known to us because of Paul's greeting - for someone looking for role models there is a frustrating lack of information about their lives, their motivations, the things that they did. But we know they were significant in the early church because Paul refers to them as co-workers, apostles, people who, like him, have "toiled diligently in the Lord". There we find women like Phoebe, Diakonos of the churches in Cenchreae, benefactor (prostatis) of many including Paul. At face value the description of her tells us she was a minister in the church and a patron of Paul and others. Paul calls her "our sister" - not defined in relation to any man but as part of the Christian family. Paul speaks of her with the same titles that he uses for Timothy, yet over the centuries she has been relegated to a much less exalted role - some translations call her a deaconess and listen to the Living Bible: "Phoebe, a dear Christian woman form the town of Cenchreae who has worked hard in the church there." There is Prisca and her partner Aquila (v 3) - possibly a missionary couple who together have exercised some measure of authority and leadership. They are also mentioned in Acts where we are told both ministered and preached to Apollos (18:24-26). Junia (v 7) has caused particular problems by being referred to as Apostolos - those translators who couldn't accept a woman apostle simply changed the text and created a male version of the name (Junias, see NIV for example). But all reputable translations accept now that Junia was a woman and an apostle - clearly a significant leader in the early church. These are just a few of the women mentioned. Some commentaries completely ignore this last chapter of Romans - it is seen as a puzzling add-on chapter after the great theological treatise of Paul's that simply sends personal greetings. It gives us a few clues to the early Christian community, but does it say anything of theological importance? Those of you who heard Keith Dyer speak at our recent forum might remember that he referred to this chapter, and in his assessment it is one of the most important chapters in the book of Romans. He suggested that Romans is a book that should be read backwards - if we understand the community Paul was writing to we'd have a better understanding of why he wrote what he did. The different names in Romans 16 indicate that there were lots of different groups represented there - from different cultural backgrounds, people who were economically diverse, and groups gathered in at least five different house churches. They were by no means a unified community, and yet Paul expected them to live out the call to be one body in Christ. They were groups held together in tension but called to live out the theology of the earlier chapters. In the early church all Christians understood themselves as called to service, to witness. The theology that shaped their identity still shapes us as a church today.
See: A Place at the Table: Women at the Last Supper. Ed by Judi Fisher and Janet Wood JBCE,1993 J.M.
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