Jesus did not want the bent-over woman (nor us) to remain bent over.

March 29, 2013

Standing tall
Spiritual director Janet Davis, on her Women, Wisdom, and the Word blog at the Patheos website, shares her thoughts on the story of Jesus’ healing of the woman who was bent over for 18 years. She had been unable to stand tall until she was touched by Jesus. Davis writes: “Jesus thought a woman’s freedom to stand tall was so important that he broke the law and healed this woman on the Sabbath. I hear in his actions a holy impatience: Not one more day did Jesus want this woman to live bent over.”  Davis then shows various ways we women today can still be symbolically “bent over” because we acquiesce to our culture’s gender expectations that often keep us from standing tall.  Look over her list of ways we do this.  Might we not need some healing, too?

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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