What is in Kelvin's Head?

Leah’s Sad Eyes

01/08/2023
I have a question for those of you who went to Sunday School when you were young.

What’s the least appropriate thing you remember being taught there?

As we’ve been going through the stories from Genesis over the last few weeks, I keep thinking to myself – gosh, I remember learning this story in Sunday School.

I’m not sure that we teach bible stories in Sunday School in quite the same way these days that we used to do. (And that’s not necessarily a bad thing – Sunday Schools of my day were statistically spectacularly bad at retaining people in the faith – I’m the exception, not the rule, so maybe it is worth trying a different tack).

But here I am again on a Sunday morning reading one of the stories from Genesis and remembering doing the story in Sunday School completely uncritically, as though everything that was going on in it was perfectly normal. As though these were models to live by.

But as I read these stories 50 years later, I think that might be a bit of a problem.

The way we read stories matters.

But we’ll come to that in a bit. For the moment, let’s have another go at trying to read the story of Jacob and Laban and Leah and Rachel and see what we find for ourselves. (Genesis 29:15-28)

This is one of the most unlikely stories that you could possibly use to teach children anything about religion.

It isn’t just tricky questions about polygamy that we need to look at though they are interesting.

This is also a story that makes us think about honesty, decency and about relations between individuals, particularly relationships between men and women.

When I was involved in the struggle for marriage equality, I kept hearing from those who were opposed to that, pleading for us to remain with what they called Biblical Marriage – by which they meant one man and one woman married to one another exclusively for life and whose children were born exclusively of that union.

My former colleague Cedric Blakey had a mischievous little question that he used to ask of those putting forward this argument – which was to ask how many people in the bible they could name who fitted that pattern.

It is a question that bears repeating and thinking about.

There aren’t many at all.

(You are welcome to play along and tell me how many you can think of after the service).

This story is one of those I used to use to try to tease out what people were talking about when they referred to Biblical Marriage.

This story is a load of trouble.

It isn’t just that Jacob ends up married to more than one of the women either.

That’s a problem worth wrestling with but the bigger problem is that this is a story that is about women being traded and passed around by men.

And the bible is pretty ambivalent about it. Patriarchy is the dominant norm of the society we read about in Genesis. Even more – these stories are the bedrock upon which the patriarchal assumptions of our own societies are based.

But hear this, and hear it from the pulpit as we read this text today.
- The domination of women by men is a sin. And that should be remembered when we read the story of Leah, Rachel and Zilpah, the much forgotten maid.
- Trafficking women is a sin.
- And the dishonesty of Laban towards Jacob is a sin too.
There’s something I’ve been wanting to say from the pulpit for a while and this story seems the right context to talk about it.

Statistically it is the case that in a congregation this size there will be people present who have survived or perhaps still endure domestic violence. Both victims of such violence and those who perpetrate it are present in churches.

At the last but one Lambeth Conference of bishops of the Anglican Communion there was a session on domestic violence because someone thought it important simply to name an evil. What was less expected was that when the mostly female spouses of the bishops (who were mostly men) started to talk about the topic they started to talk about it from their own experience and started to name and speak about their own experience of being treated badly by their spouses. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge that this is a problem within faith communities. But silence doesn’t make it go away.

There’s one small detail about this story that always makes me think. It is the line about Leah’s eyes. We are told in the translation we read that Leah’s eyes were lovely.

I rather like the notion that thousands of years later, someone’s lovely eyes are still being talked about. However, I also know that this is a tricky line of Hebrew to translate. Perhaps the better translation is that Leah had gentle eyes, which has led some to speculate that what was noticeable about Leah, the less graceful and less beautiful of the sisters, is that she was always crying.

If your eyes are gentle or soft or weary of crying and you are scared of someone you live with then it might help to speak about it. Any of the clergy or the church wardens would be willing to listen and if appropriate to help you to find help – and there are those in this diocese who have worked hard to raise the profile of the problem of domestic violence and who may know how to offer to help.

Here’s the good news. The bible doesn’t teach me how men and women should relate to one another. It is our God given consciences and holy common sense that have to do that.

But the bible does teach me that the tears need to be wiped from every eye. Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And the bible teaches me that God is on the side of the underdog, the overlooked, the undervalued, the less preferred sister, the cheated son in law, the broken, the weary, the sad, the lonely, the abused, the hungry and the oppressed. And that is good news.

And God calls us all to wipe the tears and build a world of justice and joy.

It isn’t entirely clear who the narrator of the story is in Genesis. But someone noticed Leah’s eyes.

Trust me on this. Someone has noticed you too.

God looks on you and whether you are beautiful and graceful or whether your eyes are soft with tears, God looks on you and says.

“You are altogether lovely. And I love you more than anyone you know.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

10 responses to “The Church of England and its Bishops”

Joan H Craig

20/11/2012

You put it well, and I agree with all that you say. In one sense it is a very sad day for priests who are women. In another, parity is crucial 🙁

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Patrick Smith

20/11/2012

I am not a regular C of E communicant now but have been so in my life and I unequivocally support the proper human rights entitlement of women to serve equally as Bishops.I think that the women priests appear to have been too inclined, cap in hand, to compromise that would still have deemed women bishops, as second class.This Vote, according to some of their spokespersons was as far as the talented women priests could get, amongst the conservative antis, in the C of E.

Surely,that in our enlightened world men do not hold a monopoly on either the aspiration to achieve good in their work or to eclipse human goodness in prayer,mission and faith in the ranks of the C of E? The Bishops and Clergy have seen that women are now do one third of active work in the C of E but do not have parity at the top table.

Why is it the case that women are ordained in the US and NZ and have served their communities equally, as men, over 20 years? Whereas, in the C of E at home, the vision of the Laity Synod threatens to derrogate the status of women, as if the clock had been turned back into Victorian times and before the Suffragettes had started their quest for universal suffrage and equality in work for women.

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Duncan MacLaren

20/11/2012

Nigel McCulloch said in the debate, “If you wait for the perfect piece of legislation, you’ll be waiting for ever.”
I can understand the principled position that you don’t want to pass flawed and discriminatory legislation: but I can’t help thinking this would be better than acquiescing for another 5 years in an even more discriminatory status quo.
Had women bishops been voted in, they would have had five years to demonstrate practically to their opponents that they were competent, valuable, indispensable, talented and undeniably called leaders in the church. Instead, we now have the task of creating legislation the opponents will like even less (because it won’t make space for their position), and then trying to get it voted through. And five years of practical experience – perhaps the best argument – wasted.
If there were six lay liberals (the margin of votes) who voted ‘no’ on principle this evening, I wonder how long before they will rue the day? Principle is all very well, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. Had women been granted this possession, we could have spent the next five years chasing down the discriminatory clauses: as it is, we are back to square one. Barren theological argument now prevails over the witness and example of flesh and blood women.

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1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2012
  
  I understand that view, Duncan. I’d agree with it if there was any evidence in the last 20 years of anyone either trying or succeeding to eliminate the flying bishops that were created last time around. It is much, much easier to create good legislation than to repeal, tinker and undo bad legislation.
  
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2. Augur Pearce
  
  21/11/2012
  
  As I see it part of the problem was the large number of Synod members who wanted to see women bishops but thought that unity was more important than principle, and were therefore prepared to compromise. The ideal scenario would not have been rejection of the Measure, but an amendment to get rid of the discriminatory clauses. That wasn’t possible because the ‘unity party’ (for want of a better name) would have allied with the fundamentalists to defeat it. I hope that those who made up this ‘unity party’ will now realise the time for compromise is past and support legislation which, as you say, the opponents will like even less because it wonâ€™t make space for their position. I believe such legislation would pass, but would lead the fundamentalists to dissent from the C of E and form their own conventicles (as many have done before them, for better reasons). There would then be some hope of the General Synod addressing other equality issues, such as marriage…
  
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Tim

20/11/2012

Could it be said that it spent too long cooking?

The impression I get is that the SEC was quite decisive in dealing with the Covenant earlier.
What I’ve seen with the CoE looks like internalized via-media meeting a half-open door – and no wonder some people use the word “irrelevant”. As such, I’m wondering if it shouldn’t have simply been “women bishops, yes or no?” a while ago and then there wouldn’t have been such clumsy inaccuracy of reporting, at least…

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Ritualist Robert

21/11/2012

I have to say, regretfully, that I am relieved it didn’t pass because, imho, it allowed for far too many ‘provisions’ for so-called traditionalists. Their arguments seem to be based on one of the most vile theological concepts ever invented – ‘taint’ – though, of course, nobody admits to it. I understand the Evangelicals’ objections (though I disagree with them), but I am flummoxed by things like the ‘traditionalist’ catholics’ demand for ‘flying bishops’ (a concept which fails any test for catholicity) and attacks the very basis of Anglican Church structure and order – that of a bishop acting as the Ordinary in his/her diocese. Choosing one’s bishop based on whether one likes their theological outlook is quite a novelty, but it’s one that the so-called traditionalists insist on being allowed. Moreover, to claim to be catholic surely means to support the Church. When the Church of England ordained women for the first time surely it was up to those catholics who disagreed to either (a) conform their minds to the mind of the Church – surely the duty of anyone who calls themselves catholic – or (b) to have enough integrity to part with the Church and find another spiritual home.

Instead we have so-called traditionalists promoting what are essentially congregationalist novelties whilst claiming – falsely, I believe – to be catholics, all the while arguing for a distinctly non-catholic version of the Church.

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Justin Reynolds

22/11/2012

If politics is ‘the art of the possible’ then surely all liberals should have backed the measure, whatever its flaws. The notion that one day we will all be marching hand in hand towards the sunlit progressive uplands is somewhat fantastic, I think.

Everyone who joins the C of E, or indeed the SEC, knows what kind of church it is: essentially progressive (as witnessed by the Synod vote) but with significant minorities opposed to change. And it isn’t like a political party where arguments are conducted in the field of political philosophy and politics with a realistic hope that the mind of the party might change decisively over time in one direction or other. In the case of the church disputes are necessarily more intransigent, concerned with the interpretation of revelation and long standing traditions. These disagreements take decades, indeed centuries, to resolve, in so far as they can be resolved at all.

Perhaps those who can’t live with compromise, be they conservative or liberal, should consider whether they are actually in the right denomination at all, rather than hoping that one day – sooner rather than later – everyone will agree with them. It’s often noted that conservatives can go Orthodox or Roman Catholic, as indeed some have. It’s less often suggested that liberals might consider Unitarianism or Quakerism. I say that as a liberal who has at various times wavered between those two – and others – and Episcopalianism. I’ve ended up as an Episcopalian, but I did so knowing full well the intractable nature of the disagreements besetting the denomination, and that I had to live with them or simply go elsewhere. It seems to me that Christians are far too sentimental and attached to particular denominations.

Also, with respect Rowan Williams’ tenure can hardly be seen as an ‘abject failure’. Everyone knew he believed in conciliation and compromise when he was selected. His liberalism on a number of issues only formed a component of his theology. And his intellectual contribution over the past decade to British national life has been significant, particularly in regard to political and economic issues. His archepiscopate has gone some way towards restoring Anglicanism’s intellectual credibility: witness the tributes from secular as well as religious quarters on news of his retirement.

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Seph

22/11/2012

Apparently Diana Johnson MP (Lab., Hull North) is planning to bring a ten-minute rule bill in the new year which will include a clause calling for women bishops. Parliament could succeed here where General Synod failed.

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Rosie Bates

02/12/2012

Check out Bristol Diocese action re Vote of No Confidence in Synod! How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him who brings Good News! Hope the rest take note and follow a fine example. Hope in this Advent message. Bishop Mike was an Area Bishop in Oxford Diocese and likely to be very clued up to certain of their Synod Reps games which cannot be stopped before July without reform or, at the very least, tough love.

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