After reading The Acts of Paul and Thecla for five different religion classes at our undergrad institution, a good friend told me she hated Thecla so much that she was going to turn Thecla into a swear, “Oh dear Thecla, it’s freezing cold outside.” Thecla evokes strong reactions from those who have heard her story. Perhaps having read the story less than five times, Tertullian wrote, “But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul’s name, claim Thecla’s example as a license for women’s teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing…was removed from office.”
Tertullian echoes the prohibitions of the author of 1 Timothy—“let a woman learn in silence and in entire submission”— He uses the voice of Pauline authority to limit women’s autonomy, reacting to women like Thecla who were taking Paul’s letters to instead authorize their ministry.
Thecla was and is a problem. To our modern ears, Thecla’s story seems a little too wild. There are flashes of lightening, wild seals, fantastic escape after miraculous escape. In the passage we just read, not only is Thecla saved from wild beasts, but the beasts are pitted in an epic male versus female struggle—with the female lioness coming out on top. She then baptizes herself—in a pool filled with deadly seals who are miraculously killed moments before she hits the water. This is not the story we expect to find in the traditional New Testament canon.
But does that mean that there is nothing of spiritual worth in this text? Absolutely not. While the story of Thecla may have been used to authorize women’s leadership, the story was also popular enough to circulate—and Thecla came to have shrines and cults devoted to her. She is officially a Saint. For many early Christians, Thecla and her story had spiritual value.
Thecla, the first female martyr with a radical faith in God, drew people to her story. Thecla gives up everything: her fiancé, her mother, her home, her security—in order to follow Paul and his teachings about chastity, Jesus, and God. She faces adversity and seems to be abandoned by Paul—her teacher—yet she persists in her following of God. And she survives and is finally authorized to teach God’s word.
Though Thecla’s image is inspiring, it is profoundly difficult to preach on this text. God’s activity is fairly clear within the story—Thecla professes her belief and her desire to teach—and God acts to save her so that she can finally achieve this end. What can this story teach us? How can we faithfully read this text when God’s action rarely seems so active or miraculously obvious in our lives?
We don’t live in a world like Thecla’s—where to publicly proclaim the Gospel as an unmarried woman was a dangerous and radical action; but we do live in a world filled with vast inequalities and oppression.
As in Thecla’s story, in order to make our voices heard, many of us have to clothe ourselves in the “fashion of men”—or whatever majority we may not be a part of:
Though women’s rights have improved tremendously in the past fifty years—and though women’s preaching and teaching is no longer forbidden—men still hold more leadership positions, dictate most societal norms, and make more money than women. Some churches still refuse to ordain women—even churches in denominations that legitimate this practice.
Though we no longer live in a society that allows for legal segregation, we live in a world still divided by race, where judgments—whether for a job or who to search at an airport—are made solely based upon the color of one’s skin.
And even though homosexuality is no longer an illegal practice in the U.S., we live in a world where LGBTQ people are still mistreated, looked down upon, and told our relationships cannot legally be recognized. Many of us still clothe our identities from others in order to pass as straight.
We live in a world where people live in the aftermath of tremendous disaster—disaster which strikes hardest in areas inhabited by the most desperately poor.
To all of us, Thecla’s words send a message of hope:
“To the storm-tossed [God] is a refuge, to the oppressed relief, to the despairing shelter, in a word, whoever does not believe in him shall not live but die forever.”
Thecla, a woman marginalized by her gender, her faith, and her desire for independence, believed that God was especially with her at the margins. And though God’s action is rarely miraculously apparent in our lives, we too believe that God stands for and with voices long clothed or silenced. We tell Thecla’s story for the same reason that early Christian women told it for generations: because it represents our faith and our hope that God does and will always act in our world to relieve and comfort the oppressed.
We proclaim Thecla’s story for the same reason that we pass on the stories of faithful women who have come before and after her: Mary, Joan of Arc, Sojourner Truth, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks. They stand for us as models of women who stood against oppression and proclaim God’s radical love. They remind us that even those who may seem powerless in society can wield much power when they stand and proclaim their radical faith. Through them and their stories, we come to recognize and believe that God can and does work radically through Her faithful people. And we learn to proclaim their message, Thecla’s message—that God is a refuge to the storm-tossed, is shelter to the despairing, and offers relief to the oppressed—as we continue their work to build a more equal and just world. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment