© 2011 Albert Samuel
© 2011 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
As for Jesus’ attitude towards women, it is so unusual, so surprising and even scandalous that the disciples are astonished: “How,” they said to themselves, “can he speak with a woman?” or “How can he let himself be touched by a sinner?”
Indeed, first of all, contrary to ritual prohibitions, Jesus addresses women. He thus considers them as persons in their own right. He confers equality and dignity on them. He calls them by name. Even more extraordinary, Jesus’ interlocutors are frequently foreigners, such as the “Greek of Syro-Phoenician origin” whose daughter he heals. And above all, the Samaritan woman, belonging to this nation “with whom the Jews had no dealings”. The scene of this encounter, recounted at length by John, is significant. Not only does this woman come from a despised people, but she is a woman of ill repute. Jesus does not content himself with conversing with her; he asks her for a drink. And this request reverses the roles: the Master becomes the one who needs his creature. Better still: it is to this woman with six “husbands” that he reveals who he is the Messiah, and that he explains the new worship, “in spirit and in truth”. This trust transforms the Samaritan woman. She “left her pitcher there” and became the first militant proselyte: “A good number of Samaritans believed in Jesus, Savior of the world, on the testimony of this woman.”
Jesus is so close to women that it is with them, like them, that he is moved. In this era of virile values, he is not afraid to show a sensitivity that one would call feminine. Noticing the “daughters of Jerusalem who were beating their breasts and lamenting over him”, he declares: “weep for yourselves”. “Moved with compassion ”by the widow of Nain who had lost her only son, he resurrected him. “Seeing Mary, sister of Lazarus, weeping, ”he experiences an inner shudder and a disturbance. And when he glimpses the misfortunes of the end of the world, it is on the sufferings of women that he takes pity… Is it this pity that drives him to heal women so often? Simon’s mother-in-law, the women who accompanied him, Mary, John, Susan, the hemorrhoid woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years, the daughter of the woman “possessed by an unclean spirit” and, one Sabbath, the crippled woman who had been bent over for eighteen years.
But healing is even more spiritual than medical. A divine miracle worker, Jesus is above all the God who forgives. Sinners, as much if not more than sinners, are his favorites. It is such a woman that he gives as an example to Simon, the Pharisee, because, by anointing her with perfumed oil, “she gave great proofs of love.” And he says to this sinner as to the Samaritan woman: “Your sins are forgiven you … Your faith has saved you, go in peace.” Scandalizing the righteous hypocrites, with malicious clairvoyance, he refers them to their own faults. Let us remember the episode of the adulterous woman. To the questioning scribes his silence and the famous retort respond: “Let he among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” And to the woman: “Neither will I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more.” often finally, it is women that Jesus offers as models to his contemporaries: the Samaritan woman, the sinner with long hair, the “poor widow” and the mite that she took from her necessities; Mary who “chose the better part”, listening to the Lord; the hemorrhoid woman and the Canaanite woman with overflowing faith…
If, therefore, Christianity has long shown a more or less great distrust towards women, if too often it still limits their functions and their influence, such was not the attitude of Christ.
In “Women and Religions”, Les éditions de l’Atelier,
Albert Samuel