228 - Jesus and the Uterus Image

Jesus and the Uterus Image
By Rachel Conrad Wahlberg

"A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts you sucked!' But he said, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!' --Luke 11:27-28 (RSV).

HERE is a story, more or less ignored for centuries, which has importance today in relation to the women's movement. The women's movement is saying: Let's look beyond the body-function of women to the person.

In Jesus' day as well as ours a woman was honored because of her biology-she could have babies and nourish them. In this story, a woman comes up and cries out, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps which thou hast sucked." That's the King James version. New English has it: "Happy the womb that carried you and the breasts that suckled you!"

In modern terms the woman might have said: "You're a great man, Jesus, but let's give credit to the uterus and breasts that got you started. Let's bless Mary's reproductive system without which you wouldn't be here." Jesus puts down this concept. "Yea, rather is the person blessed who hears God's will and does it. " Jesus is not content with the usual stereotyping of a woman in Jewish society of the first century. Rather than uterus/breasts, he sees the whole person-a woman who has a mind, spirit, and will. To get a balanced perspective of such body-praise, imagine someone coming up to a man who had an outstanding son and saying, "Blessed is the semen which fertilized your wife's egg." Or, "Blessed is the male organ that participated in the act which led to conception." Is this any more ridiculous than praising Mary's breasts and uterus?

Subsequent centuries have been so accepting of the stereotyped woman that they have not noticed what Jesus said. Religious interpreters have not known what to do with this radical rejection by Jesus of

Rachel Conrad Wahlberg is a free-lance writer, living in Austin, Texas. She has authored over a hundred articles for various church publications. Fortress Press published her book, Leave a Little Dust (1971). An article of hers in The Christian Century won an Associated Church Press award. This past year she taught a course on "The Changing Image of Woman in Church and Society" at Texas Lutheran College. "I keep finding," she writes, "that women see messages in a passage that others have not noticed." This was perhaps in her mind when she wrote for A.D. (May, 1974) on "Jesus and the Adulterous Men."

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the uterus image. Does he mean to put down the idea of woman as child bearer? Is he demeaning her function as fetus-carrier and babysuckler? Remember that only if a woman had children, and preferably boys, was she honored. If she were "barren" she was regarded as one to be pitied. Actually her status in that society was based on the uterus image. Her worth was in her procreativeness. It is mind-blowing to realize that Jesus was actually rejecting this commonly accepted justification for the existence of woman. If not a child-bearer, what was woman? Jesus is saying she is one who can hear the will of God and do it.

Until recent years people have not noticed very much that woman has been treated as if her pregnancy/birth/child-care abilities were her justification for being. Men, obviously, are not justified by their participation in procreation. Their participation is regarded as almost incidental. Men have individual purposes in life apart from fatherhood. But most women have been primarily regarded as birth vessels.

Harriet Taylor Mill wrote over a hundred years ago: "To say that women must be excluded from active life because maternity disqualifies them for it is in fact to say that every other career should be forbidden them in order that maternity may be their only resource" (Essays on Sex Equality, by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, edited by Alice S. Rossi, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970, p. 104).

The major writers of Christendom have accepted the stereotyped woman. Said Martin Luther, "What if women should die in childbirth? That is what they are here for, to have children." Mary has been especially looked at in this limited way. Mary obviously is not the model of normal, sexually-relating womanhood. Rather, she has been a model for motherhood. She was projected to Christians as skipping from virginity to motherhood with no sex in between. What do women hear? That to be virtuous is to be a virgin-and a mother. Sex is not even in the picture. The Catholic tradition has taught that Mary and Joseph lived as brother and sister and had no other children. Scripture references to Jesus' brothers and sisters really meant "cousins." Although Protestant churches have taught that Mary and Joseph did have children, they have not stressed the normal married relationship between Mary and Joseph. (It is interesting to note that Jesus never refers in Scripture to his parents as other than normal parents, nor does he ever refer to a virgin birth).

To first-century people, to look upon a woman as child-bearer was so common that it was not at all surprising for a woman to come up to Jesus and praise his mother's breasts and uterus. She may have expected him to be pleased. What was surprising was that Jesus differed with her. Note that the woman doesn't say, "Blessed be the sex act which brought you into the world." No, in the mystique of the day it was the sex act itself which had to be omitted, put down, in order to make Mary a "holy" person. To the first century mind, with its cultural emphasis on spirituality versus carnality, woman and sex

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were often associated with sin. Manichaeism emphasized the dual nature of human beings-a higher nature devoted to the spiritual life, and the lower nature which included one's sexual desires.

Thus for Mary to be "pure" she must be regarded as a virgin whose pregnancy was of God, not caused by intercourse with a man. Today we can understand the emphasis on her virginity, breasts, and uterus as due to the cultural conditioning of the times. It is this labeling that Jesus rejects. He is saying for all who can hear-and notice-that a woman as well as a man can hear the word of God and do it. An absolutely stunning declaration. Jesus did not want women to be put in a slot because of their biology. He saw all persons as individuals who are to hear the word and do it. Yet our sexist blinders have prevented our seeing this affirmation of personhood for women.

The message is exciting for women today who have felt that their only worth was in bearing children. With the emphasis on overpopulation, and the consequent down-swing in population, with more emphasis on use of birth control and planning one's family, women realize they have other functions in life-and they are free to choose other options. Jesus is saying, you have a meaning, a focus to your life, other than the traditional one of child-bearing.

I don't think Jesus wanted to demean the family or the part both men and women have in reproduction. He spoke too kindly of children and of home life for that to be implied. Rather, he is emphasizing that having children is not all of life, and that hearing and doing God's will is the chief goal for both sexes. Today's woman, with a 78-year life expectancy, is learning that in her long life she has room for both family concerns as well as other options.

"Yea, rather is the person blessed who hears God's will and does it." While being a parent may be God's will for woman and man, it does not limit either male or female for carrying out God's will in many other ways.