Alfredstreet Presents OTOG W/ Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams | S.3 Ep. 2

[Music] uh [Music] so [Music] hi everyone welcome to another episode of otog your opportunity to study the ot with me and og my name is judy fentress williams and i'm really delighted to be with you all particularly during the month of march women's history month because now we have an opportunity to examine the stories of women in the bible some of these women are folks that you are familiar with stories that you've heard before and my hope is that you will see those familiar women in a new light i also hope this month that we will expose you to some lesser-known women women whose names don't often come up in sunday school but women whose names you should know and so the theme for the month of march is say her name tonight we want to think about the role of daughters in the bible and the reason this matters is because in the old testament world in the ancient world for the most part we are looking at patriarchal family systems and in those systems the father is the head of the household and the sons inherit you see this in genealogies that talk about a man be getting a son and that son be getting a son now we all know that in this day and age when i mean in that day and age when we're looking at family systems that women were needed to serve as wives and mothers to keep the line going to continue the lineage and so in a world where fathers have sons who inherit and women who serve as wives and mothers the question comes to me around what is the role of daughters in these stories or in this culture and that question came into focus at the beginning of the joseph story the joseph story begins in genesis chapter 37 and goes all the way through the end of the book of genesis in chapter 50. but at the end of the first chapter in the joseph story at the end of genesis 37 joseph's brothers have sold him into slavery they take his rope his robe his coat of many colors that his father had given him as a sign of favor and they dipped it into blood and took it back to jacob to deceive him into thinking that his son joseph was dead and so in genesis 37 34 we read these words then jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days all his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him but he refused to be comforted and said no i shall go down to shale to my son morning thus his father bewailed him meanwhile the midianites had sold him in egypt to potiphar one of pharaoh's officials the captain of the guard come back with me to the line all his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him this struck me as curious because if you've been following the story of jacob up until this point what we know is that jacob had 12 sons and one daughter so who are all these daughters that are being referred to here one option is very simple if in fact jacob's some of jacob's sons are grown all his daughters could refer to daughter's in-law that he had a daughter by birth and daughters through marriage and those are all the daughters that are being referred to you could also make the case that this is a poetic line that somehow we want to have the second part of the line referring to daughters balance out the first one all his sons and all his daughters but i'm interested in another possibility and that is that jacob actually had more than one daughter let's think about it jacob had two wives and two co-wives or two sub-wives or concubines four women and there was a lot of activity going on in a certain part of the book of genesis as this nation is built what are the odds that there is only one daughter born to jacob it's possible that dina jacob's daughter who is named in the bible was the only daughter born to one of the primary wives and that the other wives zilpah and bilhah had daughters but because they were lower status wise and daughters have lower status than sons they weren't mentioned but as i thought about this i wondered about the extent to which the only reason we have reference to dina in the bible this daughter is because of what happens to her stay with me here jacob and the patriarchs live in a world that is based on what we call shame and honor culture that meant that if the patriarch is over the household everyone underneath the patriarch is responsible for bringing honor to the name of the father to the patriarch and so is it the case that women are depicted in the bible to the extent that they are fulfilling the role of bringing honor or are they mentioned when they are bringing shame and that those are the two instances in which we see women in the bible they come in for the role of mother and wife um but beyond that we probably won't hear from them unless they do something that they're not supposed to do this is an intriguing question and problem particularly in the story of dina and i think that if we look at the dynamics behind the story it will give us some interesting lenses through which to think about the things that are going on in our world today dina's story comes to us back in genesis chapter 34. i'm going to read i'm going to try to read through without reading the entire chapter so open up your bibles to chapter 34 and let's see how we can do this now dinah the daughter of leah whom she had born to jacob went out to visit the women of the region when shechem son of hemor the hivite prince of the region saw her he seized her and lay with her by force and his soul was drawn to dina daughter of jacob he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her so shechem spoke to his father haymore saying get me this girl to be my wife now jacob heard that shechem had defiled his daughter dina but his sons were with the cattle on the field so jacob held his peace until they came and hamor the father of shechem went out to jacob to speak with him just as the sons of jacob came in from the field when they heard of it the men were indignant and very angry because he had committed an outrage in israel by lying with jacob's daughter for such a thing ought not to be done but hamor spoke with them saying the heart of my son shechem longs for your daughter please give her to him in marriage make marriages with us give your daughters to us take our daughters for yourselves you shall live with us and the land shall be open to you live and trade in it and get property in it shechem also said to her father and to her brothers let me find favor with you and whatever you say to me i will give but the marriage present and the gift as high as you like and i will give you whatever you ask me only give me the girl to be my wife the sons of jacob answered shechem and his father haymore deceitfully because he had defiled their sister dina and they said to they said to them we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised for that would be a disgrace to us only on this condition will we consent to you that you will become as we are and every male among you be circumcised all right so let's just stop for a minute to talk about what has happened the chapter opens by telling us that dina jacob and leah's daughter went out she went out to visit the women of the region while she was out this young man this prince saw her the bible says seized her and lay with her by force then the next verse says his soul was drawn to her now he decides he wants to marry her and says to his father get me this girl. and then the negotiations begin hamor goes to jacob to try to figure out how they can right this wrong and there is a negotiation that occurs that will require all of the adult men to be circumcised there's a lot to unpack in this story and we don't have enough time to talk about everything that happens but i do want to name a couple of things the first thing we want to say is that the bible says this man saw her and took her and lay with her by force and scholars have had a series of debates about exactly what happened in that encounter the majority of scholars would make the case that dina was in fact raped which is why many of your bibles will have the heading the rape of dina some people will argue based on how you understand the last two verbs and how they relate to each other that the wrong that is occurred is not that he took her and lay with her but that he is not the right kind of person so let's think about those options in a modern day context the offense could very well be that dino was raped another way of reading this passage is to suggest that the offense is that someone of the wrong race or ethnicity slept with jacob's daughter another piece of this conversation that we need to talk about is that that this young man um shechem when shechem took dina and seized her and lay with her that we are talking about something that took place in what we describe as rape culture i want us to think about a world in which there are laws that say things like when a man takes a woman and sleeps with her he must marry her it doesn't say if a man takes a woman and lays with her against her will that that's a problem so understand that this is a culture or context where there are places where men literally take women physically take women and thereby make them their wives the other thing we want to hold up in this story is that as we go back and forth to debate what it is that happens to dina the one voice we don't hear in the story is the voice of dina we wouldn't have to ask these questions about what happened if dina's voice were represented in the narrative but what we have in this difficult story is a series of actions around people who are connected to dina but dina is not autonomous the one moment she seems to exercise autonomy by going out does not result in a good ending when shechem's father comes to jacob and talks to jacob and jacob's brothers about how to resolve this realize they are bartering for this woman they are arguing around a bride price to make things right again does dina have a voice in this does dina have autonomy in this unfortunately no once the men decide on an agreement on how to make this thing right then in verse 25 we read these words on the third day when they were still in pain two of the sons of jacob simeon and levi dina's brothers took their swords and came against the city unawares and killed all the males they killed haymore and his son check him with the sword and took deena out of shechem's house and went away and the other sons of jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because their sister had been defiled they took their flocks and their herds their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field all their wealth all their little ones and their wives all that was in their um houses they captured and made their prey then jacob said to simeon and levi you have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land the canaanites and the perizzites my numbers are few and if they gather themselves against me and attack me i shall be destroyed both i and my household but they said should our sister be treated by be treated like a are you feeling uncomfortable yet this story is difficult on so many levels dina goes out and is taken by this man the men then get together and decide how to negotiate for dina because this man cares for her an agreement is made which requires all of the men of that town to be circumcised which means they would be made like um the people of jacob and then after all of that happened simeon and levi go in and slaughter the men and take those wives and children's the bible says as their prey it's hard to to unpack this story and not just be stunned by the levels of abuse and disregard for human life we will never know dina's story from her own mouth and we hear as a side note that those men's little ones and wives were captured and taken as someone else's prey but i want you to be aware that this story takes place in a structure where the hierarchy means that these lives matter more than these lives that these people are more important than these people and that the people down here have to um our pawns in the honor or shame of the people at the top simeon and levi made a rash impulsive decision based on how they felt about their sister's reputation which is really another way of saying they were concerned about how it reflected on them and went in and massacred all of these people and jacob's response is only to talk about how difficult this is going to be for him what happened to dina in this story where does she go what options does she have if a woman's role is to be a wife or daughter she was a daughter and became a wife under less than ideal circumstances but now what does she become where does she go and even worse is it the case that we only hear the story of dina or know that jacob had a daughter because of this this story in chapter 34. i want to put this story aside for a second we're going to come back to it and now i want to look at another story this is in the book of judges the judges are people that we call charismatic leaders people that were called upon or that god called upon at certain moments in time to lead the israelites out of a difficult situation now jephthah was a colorful character he was a warrior and i will introduce him in judges 11 jephthah the gileadite the son of a prostitute was a mighty warrior gilead was the father of jephthah gilead's wife also bore him sons and when his wife's sons grew up they drove jephthah away saying to him you shall not inherit anything in our father's house for you are the son of another woman then jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in land of toe now listen to jephthah's origin stories again the women in this story are included to show where jephthah shows up on the shame or honor scale the text wants us to know his mother was a prostitute and because of his mother's origins his family drives him out it is the same jephthah that is called by the lord to serve as a judge look at 29. chapter 11 29 then the spirit of the lord came upon jephthah he passed through gilead and manasseh he passed on to mizpah of gilead and from mizpah of gilead he passed on to the ammonites and jephthah made a vow to the lord and said if you will give the ammonites into my hand then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when i return victorious from the ammonite shall be the lord's to be offered up as a burnt offering so jephthah crossed over to the ammonites to fight against them and the lord gave them into his hand he inflicted massive defeat on them from error to the neighborhood of minith 20 towns and as far as abel karim so the ammonites were subdued before the people of israel then jephthah came to his home at mizpah and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing she was his only child he had no son or daughter except her when he saw her he tore his clothes and said alas my daughter you have brought me very low you have become the cause of great trouble to me for i have opened my mouth to the lord and i cannot take back my vow she said to him my father if you have opened your mouth to the lord do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth now that the lord has given you vengeance against your enemies the ammonites and she said to her father let this thing be done for me grant me two months so that i may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity my companions and i so he said and sent her away for two months she departed she and her companions and bewailed her virginity on the mountains at the end of two months she returned to her father who did with her according to the vow he had made she had never slept with a man so there arose an israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of israel would go out to lament the daughter of jephthah the gileadite are we uncomfortable now so in this story jephthah makes a rash vow and when his daughter comes out he tells her that she has brought him very low you know when i read these stories one of the things that it just affirms for me is the bible's commitment to tell the truth of human experience that people who are called by god and people who love god people who are trying to do the right thing might find themselves in systems and structures that will cause severe damage yea threaten the lives of people who live in them and that we cannot read a story about jephthah's daughter or about jacob's daughter and not ask ourselves what are these stories calling us to do the daughter of jephthah the daughter of jacob exists in a world where some lives matter more than others where the rights of one community to be right is more important than the rights of the most vulnerable of us it's hard for me to read these stories and not think of brianna taylor another woman who was caught in the crosshairs of one hierarchy trying to assert itself and to be right we know that police raids or police are given latitude in raids that allow them to enter the houses of people and anyone in that house is considered fair game so here's a woman who is unarmed in her own house and killed and we don't have the kind of justice that we want dina and jephthah's daughter and brianna taylor are women whose lives remind us of the broken systems in our world and during women's history month i want us to consider whether it is simply enough to remember them what is it that the text is calling us to do in the story of jephthah's daughter we hear that jephthah's daughter said okay i'm going to do this thing but give me some time to go and mourn and before i go any further i want to pause here because kimberly russo who is a professor of old testament causes us to ask the question of how is it that sacrificing children is okay after the binding of isaac in genesis 22. in genesis 22 we have a story of abraham answering a test but god stops it and in the judges story we have a daughter who comes out of the door not knowing about the rash valve that her father made and no one comes to her aid and so i wonder if in these stories our call is not simply to say their names but to come to the aid of our briannas and our dinas and jephthah's daughters what is it that we are called to do when we hear these stories how do we like uh the the friends of jephthah's daughter who um not only went with her when she mourned but remembered and ritualized her loss i want us to think then simply about the kinds of ways we might act ritualize remember and change challenge systems that do not honor the full humanity of all women of all people this is a difficult moment for me because usually i like to end anything in scripture with a word of hope sometimes i believe scripture wants us to be discomfited sometimes i think scripture wants to challenge us to feel so uncomfortable that we feel forced compelled to do something i think it's really good that we are saying the name of brianna taylor remembering her and having shirts and images of her and i also think we all know that since the time of her tragic death there have still continued to be police raids and so tonight for otog i want to end with the question that comes from the bible at the end of another terrible story about violence to women this is the question that scripture asks us has such a thing ever happened since the day that the israelites came up from the land of egypt until this day consider it take counsel and speak out when we encounter something terrible consider it take counsel and speak out tonight we remember the name of brianna taylor and all the daughters who have suffered and died because of systems that did not honor their full humanity we mourn the loss of boys and girls and men and women who have died because of someone else's sense of honor at stake or someone else's right to be right we ask god to forgive us for the ways in which we have been complicit in these systems and we ask that god would help us to fight to make a better world that's our study for tonight thank you lord for the opportunity to study and learn and yea be made uncomfortable don't let us rest god until we do all that is in our power to protect our daughters and our sons our wives and our husbands in jesus name we pray amen we'll see you all next week

Channel: Alfred Street Baptist Church

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Length: 29min 41sec (1781 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021