Moses / Jesus / Women: Does the New Testament Offer a Feminist Message?

Cross Currents, Winter, 1999 by Esther Fuchs

Once again the mother is reduced to a passive object acted upon by her husband. She is taken and moved about from one place to another. She is excluded from the privileged context in which Joseph and the divine messenger share divinely transmitted knowledge. It is not known whether Mary is at all aware of the danger to her son's life. Unlike Yocheved in Exodus, she neither knows nor takes action on behalf of her son. The Lucan version of Jesus' birth portrays a more active mother and pays attention to what she does or does not know. Much in the tradition of Hebrew annunciation type-scenes, it is Mary who receives the divine message regarding the birth of a son. The angel Gabriel informs Mary that she is to bear a son and to name him Jesus. This son will be "great," hailed as the "son of the most high," and he will "reign as king over the house of Jacob forever" (Luke 1:32-33). A more faithful woman may not have protested as Mary goes on to do: "But Mary said to the angel: 'How can this be, since I have no re lations with a man?'" (v. 35). Gabriel must resort to repetition, to explication ("the holy spirit will come upon you"), to proof by analogy ("your relative Elizabeth, even in her old age has also conceived a son"), and exhortation ("nothing is impossible for God") before Mary accepts the message she should have welcomed in the first place. Belatedly, Mary seems to accept what the story presents as self evident: "Then Mary said: 'The Lord's handmaid am I! Let it be with me as you say!'" (v. 38).

But it is not until Mary hears Elizabeth's greetings and blessings (Luke 1:39-45) that she breaks into a joyous song, which would have been the appropriate response to Gabriel's announcement. The song attributed to Mary is a generic thanksgiving psalm (Luke 2:46-55), mostly about the vindication of the oppressed. There is little in it that refers to the specific promise delivered by Gabriel. Mary is thus slow to recognize her special status as the mother of the future Messiah, and is not particularly adept at expressing her gratitude.

Mary is mentioned subsequently as Joseph's fiancee "who was pregnant" in Luke 2:5. When she delivers the child she "wrapped him in cloth bands and lay him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the lodge" (v. 7). Mary, however, remains outside the field of privileged knowledge shared by the angel of the Lord and the shepherds guarding the flocks (Luke 2:8-12). The narrator does tell us, however, that "Mary treasured all these things and pondered over them" (v. 19). We are not told exactly what Mary thought about "these things."

Mary is said to be "surprised" by Simeon's blessing of the circumcised baby (Luke 2:33) and "startled" to have found her child among the teachers in Jerusalem: "And his mother said to him: 'Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been terribly worried and have been searching for you'" (Luke 2:49). Mary and Joseph fail to understand Jesus' response. Again we are told that "His mother cherished all these things within her" (v. 51). But the narrator fails to explain what things she cherishes and why. In other words, what is focal to the story is not Mary and her understanding of her son, but the signals transmitted by the narrator to the reader concerning the special child. In fact, by excluding the woman from the privileged field of knowledge a stronger bond emerges between reader and narrator on this account, a bond of tacit consent.