Womanly Trouble
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
After my 6-part, 14,000+ word series on gender in the Gospel of John, it’s time to switch gears. Today’s piece is still somewhat related, but will transition us to some more traditional Thesis 96 topics on doing apologetics for the abused. In future posts I will be taking a look at Os Guinness’ book Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion and exploring how Guinness can help Christians advocate persuasively on behalf of abuse survivors. What follows today is an imagined story, told from the perspective of one of Jesus’ female disciples, and will serve as an illustration of subversive communication which we will explore in future posts.
Call it what you will—woman’s intuition; feminine suspicion; an idle gossip’s opinion—I knew there was something off with Judas. Apparently I was alone in this, because he was deemed worthy of trust to the point of holding the treasury. To this day I struggle to understand why no one saw what I saw. I mean, our rabbi is the one who chose to give Judas the money-bag, and now everyone seems to have moved on because Judas apparently was destined to do what he did. But from time to time I’m still troubled that no one listened. No one wanted to see.
I tried telling Peter, but he said I was just causing a scandal and setting my mind on the things of men rather than the things of God. I tried telling John, but he was so caught up with beholding the glory of the rabbi that he didn’t seem to hear what I was saying. After approaching the men with access to our rabbi and getting nowhere, I complained to my husband, Clopas. But he just shrugged his shoulders; what was he supposed to do? “Don’t be troubled so much,” he said, “he was elected as treasurer, surely he can be trusted. If you keep complaining and causing trouble, you will become the one they stop trusting.”
So I tried to let it go, tried to trust that the men knew better. This suspicion kept nagging at me, kept troubling me, but I didn’t want to be a nag or a troublemaker.
I was successful for a while, until one evening when Rabboni had us all gather together for dinner and did the most radical thing ever. As I and the other women were getting ready to wash the men’s feet, he motioned for us to sit down, and began taking off his outer clothes, poured water into the washing bowl, and started washing all of our feet.1 This was shocking, to say the least. I was used to being the least, but here was a man, our teacher, our master, doing slaves’ work, women’s work.2
But that wasn’t the only women’s work he did that night: he did the womanly work of seeing and feeling trouble. None of the other disciples knew what was going on when Rabboni told Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27). Peter tried to get John to figure out who the betrayer was, and even then, they still thought that Rabboni was telling Judas, “‘Buy what we need for the feast,’ or that he should give something to the poor” (John 13:29). But Rabboni knew Judas would betray him. And it troubled him (John 13:21).3 Our rabbi, who just a short-while later said that we should not let our hearts be troubled (John 14:1, 27), was nevertheless troubled. And it comforted me that he was doing a woman’s work: being troubled, knowing when something doesn’t feel right, and letting himself feel it rather than deny or suppress it.
I was troubled that those men didn’t listen to me when I tried to point out the trouble in their midst in Judas. They were too close on the inside to see it. I wasn’t on the inside. I was on the outside, watching. But when I saw that our rabbi was troubled, I was comforted.
To be honest, I’m still a little troubled today, concerned that you’ll think my story is just idle gossip, that I’m just looking for a little fame and recognition. That’s why I asked John to keep my story off the record. I knew it would sound too fantastic to imagine that I, Mary, wife of Clopas, knew all along that Judas was a wolf and a thief, come to steal our money and kill and destroy our rabbi. How did I know, you ask? Did I see him pocket some silver more than once? Sure. But I think others saw that too, and assumed the best. I didn’t. I just knew, you know?
I’ve accepted my fate. I can’t make men believe me. But John asked if he could at least mention my name in his book, and I reluctantly said yes. “At least this way,” he said, “people will know that you were there at the cross, that you didn’t flee from trouble when it came for Rabboni.”
He went on: “I believe you; I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before, but I believe you now. And I won’t make that mistake again. When you read this evangelion I’m writing, you’ll see I’ve taken our Lord’s example to heart. I’ve challenged my fellow male disciples to treat women with more dignity.” And then he gave me a preview of a few things he put in there to show me he really was serious, and not just trying to make me feel better without doing anything about it.
He showed me the story of the woman from Samaria, where he wrote that the men “were shocked to find [Rabboni] talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” (John 4:27, NLT). He showed me the story of another Mary, one of my dear friends—who inspired Jesus’ shocking act of foot-washing that I mentioned above—and how he emphasized Jesus’ rebuke to that wolf Judas when he said “Leave her alone” (John 12:7).
That is the Rabbi Jesus I knew. He saw me. He saw women like me, and women unlike me; all of us. And he listened. And he let himself be troubled by the very things that troubled us.
I wasn’t able to get the men to bring my trouble to Jesus, and I see now it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because Jesus had plan for Judas. But that doesn’t mean he planned for his flock to continually keep letting in wolves and thieves. We don’t need to keep having Judas’ in our midst. So we women will keep being troubled, and we will keep speaking trouble. I have seen and testified that Jesus, too, was troubled, and he never stopped women from doing what they knew to be right, never stopped us from using our intuition and speaking up.
Believe me, or don’t believe me. That’s up to you. But I confess that I am telling the truth and that I have written these things that you might believe.
Luke 17:1 (Douay-Rheims)
And he said to his disciples: ‘It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come.’
Questions for reflection:
What did you feel as you were reading this story? Did it catch you off guard at all? Who do you let trouble you with reports of wrongdoing, and who do you not let trouble you? If no one ever brings trouble to you, why might that be? Can you identify the typical point when you tend to stop listening to trouble? That is, that point when we reach what my wife called the “Sméagol Stop”, ie, when Sméagol (in the theatrical version at least) said to Gollum, “I’m not listening!”
1 I forgot to footnote this before publishing: John’s account of the foot-washing during the last supper leaves open the question of who was present. It’s quite possible that women were there as well. The only characters mentioned in ch. 13 aside from Jesus are Judas, Peter, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” The Beloved Disciple, as he’s traditionally known, is never named in the Fourth Gospel. This is intentional, for many possible reasons. It is noteworthy that the only other characters who are explicit named recipients of Jesus’ love are Martha, Mary, and Lazarus: “Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus” (11:5). And at the beginning of the foot-washing narrative the evangelist writes that Jesus “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1). These observations, plus the central place of women in the Gospel of John, make it possible, likely even, that John wanted his readers, then and now, to imagine (ie see, consider, ponder, not just conjure) women alongside the male disciples in that upper room, having their female feet washed by Jesus.
2 “In the ancient Mediterranean context, foot-washing was closely linked to hospitality, honour and love, but was at the same time an unequivocal signal of hierarchical power relationships. It was a task typically reserved for gentile slaves, or for wives, children and pupils. Foot-washing was considered to be a lowly and demeaning act, as it literally entailed washing off the human and animal waste collected on people’s feet when travelling the city streets in particular.” Nina Müller van Velden, “Feet, Masculinity and Power in John 13:1–11” (Neotestamentica, Volume 53, Number 2 [2019]), 299.
3 John 13:18-21: “I’m not speaking about all of you; I know those I have chosen. But the Scripture must be fulfilled: ‘The one who eats my bread has raised his heel against me**.’** I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am he. Truly I tell you, whoever receives anyone I send receives me, and the one who receives me receives him who sent me.” When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in his spirit and testified, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”