Settled in 1736

If the Shoe Fits…

Date: May 8, 2005 [Mother's Day]

Scripture: Exodus 15.19-21; Numbers 12.1-5, 10-11

I begin today with a question. A question which has perplexed humanity well back into the mists of time. Some attribute this question to Lao-Tse, the Chinese sage.

And that question is:

If a man speaks in the forest,
and there is no woman there to hear him,
is he still wrong?

Well, that depends. If the man is speaking about fishing or golf, if the man is speaking about drywall or power tools, if the man happens to be offering an opinion on wide-screen TVs or the comedic possibilities of a whiffle ball striking the groin area, he could possibly be right.

However, if he is speaking about women, the odds that he is right fall off precipitously. In fact, he will, almost certainly, be wrong.

Men: we know this to be true. In our heart of hearts, we know that women are a complete mystery to us. That the power to give life, which God has shared with women, astounds us. That the most primal bond humanity shares is not between friends, not between lovers, but between mother and child.

In that sense, while today is Mother's Day, it is more. It is a day to celebrate all women. It is no coincidence that Mother's Day arrives right when spring is most visible. When the miracle of new birth is all around us. There is one thing that all of us share here: we are not simply children of God; we are also someone's child. A woman's child. We all came into being through the womb of a woman. God shared the power of life with this woman.

And I don't think men have ever completely come to grips with this.

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Certainly not in Scripture.

Scripture is almost no help for good Mother's Day material. Most of the “good” passages are very obscure – like the reading from Proverbs last week about Lady Wisdom. Problem is, nobody is familiar with these passages. I was a guest speaker at a class at B.U.'s School of Theology this past week, and I mentioned this passage in another context. All I got was blank stares. No one was even remotely familiar with it. And this was from graduating Master of Divinity students.

As I left the class that day, I had two thoughts:

First, I was yet again thankful for Mary Ann Violette – a B.U. grad in Master of Sacred Theology – for actually paying attention and knowing this stuff cold.

And second, I realized that if I went off on a long tangent about a re-interpretation of the Adam and Eve story that I would, for the second time this week, be staring at a sea of blank faces.

That's when I thought of … Olive Deering.

Olive Deering who played Miriam in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Miriam was the sister of Moses, Charlton Heston. Now, everyone has to have seen at least a little bit of The Ten Commandments. It's on every Easter. So we have a frame of reference here, I hope. It is Miriam who goes down to the Nile , with her mother, and places the baby Moses in the little basket in the bulrushes and gives him the push on to his destiny.

It is Miriam who greets Moses at the door of his true home after he discovers his true identity.

It is Miriam who is right beside Moses when the Israelites cross the Red Sea .

Miriam, we learn, is also a prophet. There is only one other woman, with a substantive role, in all of the Hebrew Bible accorded the title of prophet. And that is Deborah, in the book of Judges.

Miriam is a woman of substance. She does many things well.

But what I like best about Miriam is this: she sings and dances. She ecstatically praises God. It doesn't say what the men were doing after escaping the Egyptians. But the women danced ecstatically.

Miriam must have had a lot of spiritual power. Courage. Intellect. She is capable of many things. And this is only my intuition here, but this is her downfall.

In a patriarchal society, women with power were rare. And there's a simple explanation: they were a threat to the existing order. And we all know what happens to threats to the existing order. Like Jesus, for example. I don't imagine, in ancient Israel , that Mother's Day was a big holiday. Mothers were for producing sons. Sons to fight for land, sons to till the land. And yet that primal bond must still have been there. It just didn't have an outlet.

So it shouldn't be surprising when we get to today's second reading to see what happens to Miriam. Moses and Aaron – who is Moses' brother – and Miriam are arguing like three children. God calls the three of them on the carpet: “Come out here, you three, to the tent of the meeting.”

Oh-oh. This is the ultimate being-called-to-the-principal's office moment. So the three of them slink into the tent of the meeting, and a cloud descends.

In the Hebrew Bible, when a cloud descends, it's either very good or very bad. In this case, for Miriam, very bad. For arguing with Moses, she ends up with leprosy. She who danced and sang the Lord's praises is turned into a leper. For arguing. Aaron, meanwhile, gets off scot-free. Now, if this were an isolated incident, it would be bad enough. But Aaron's already got one big strike against him. Let's return to The Ten Commandments. Remember the Golden Calf scene? Moses has been up on the mountain for forty days, and the Israelites are having a party-hearty time of it. Who is the host at this party?

Aaron.

Who gives the go-ahead for the golden calf?

Aaron.

Who broke Babe Ruth's record for home runs?

Aaron, Hank – but that's another story.

Here's the point:

In a patriarchal society, women with power were a threat. And dealt with accordingly.

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We live in a time of crumbling patriarchy. That is a good thing. For women and men. It gives women the opportunities to be themselves and, quite frankly, it takes a lot of pressure off us men. The most violent societies on the planet today are patriarchal societies. Without question.

Mother's Day is not a holiday in the Islamic world. The repression of women and the externalization of violence, the outward manifestations of violence, go hand in hand.

We have been fortunate, in this country, to be living in a time when the patriarchal structure is crumbling all around us. What is it crumbling under the weight of?

Well, sociologists have posed several theories for this. They have to. As professors they have to get tenure somehow and writing theoretical books is generally the easiest way.

Some attribute the collapse of patriarchy to the introduction of the birth control pill in the early 60s.

Others point to the rise of the dual-income family.

I'm sure they've both played a part. But there's something else. A force which, collectively, has such weight that nothing can escape its gravitational pull. Women have the power over this force. They exercise it daily. And daily it grows stronger and stronger. They get together in groups and go in search of this power. They talk about it endlessly.

Men do not understand it. In fact, men appear to be incapable of understanding it.

But they see it. I've talked with my male friends, and they're experiencing the same thing.

Our shirts are pressed together. Our suits are being strangled. And our pants have no room to breath.

Here is what is causing patriarchy to crumble:

(Bring our shoe boxes)

The shoe box. Piled high on closet shelves. Stored on closet floors. Creeping, creeping ever closer to the precious few feet of closet space that we men still have.

They are unstoppable. They will bring the entire system down.

You know what I'm talking about, don't you guys. Remember when you could open the closet door and actually find something?

This apparently has something to do with a store called DSW.

Now in preparation for today's sermon, Kerry was kind enough to give me a little tutorial.

Women, please bear with me while I enlighten my brothers.

Since there are only two kinds of shoes to us, black and brown, this may be a little hard to follow.

This, gentlemen, is the flat – or sometimes called the slide. This is used for running errands, picking up the kids, scooting around town. And can be worn, I am told, with Capri pants. That would be valuable information, I suppose, if I actually knew what Capri pants were.

his is the beach sandal. It appears to be made of shingling, but is allegedly used for relaxing..

The sneaker. Okay, we recognize these, don't we guys? But don't be fooled. Women use these differently than we do. While no self-respecting male would be caught dead changing into sneakers at the office in order to hurry to the train, women do this all time.

I should also point out this has none of the same olfactory properties as a male sneaker.

Now, so far so good.

Here's where it gets tricky.

Guys: what is the difference between these two shoes? Red and black, right?

Wrong. Oh, you fashion challenged fools!

This is a business shoe. You would wear this, for example, in a presentation. This, however, is a formal shoe – a dancing shoe, if you will.

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When Miriam danced, she was most likely barefoot.

Which brings to mind the expression: barefoot and pregnant. Thank God, we have come a long way from that.

We say that men wear many hats. Well, women wear many shoes. Please don't ask me the name of all of them. If Miriam had lived today, she would have had a closet full of shoes.

She would have had her prophet shoes, her military shoes, her sister shoes, her daughter shoes, her working shoes, her mother shoes and … let's not forget, her dancing shoes.

Yes, men, women are a great mystery to us. And that is what we honor today. Let us return to the first Genesis account of creation. Genesis 1.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

There's no rib story in the first account of creation. No subordination. No Eve supposedly tricking Adam into sin.

No. After God creates male and female, it says:

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.

And then God said: “Could I see that in an 8 ½?”