By the author: "When I read that John’s mother, Elizabeth, felt a deep sense of shame for being childless, and later for being an older mother, it was the moment that woke me up to how women were being treated by their religion. I knew women faced hardship in religious circles, but immersing myself in Luke's account finally made it personal. It was also because I was writing to connect my lived experience with those in the Bible. The question I kept coming back to was, "What's really going on here?” 

Needing to understand the oppression some people face, and trying to feel what that was like, is a place of privilege, yet it deepened my appreciation for the need to offer people a liberating faith. Women and men both deserve to be freed from closed and authoritarian systems of religion, often led by men, which define the nature of God and personhood under exclusive terms. I also began to see this as the very origin of Jesus’ sense of call. His mother, Mary, essentially a single parent, directly informed how he came to know and experience God. While Joseph shows up early, he quickly disappears from the narrative, and because of this, Mary’s faith in God became a significant source of influence on Jesus. This may be why he felt disconnected from the male-dominated religious establishment of his day. Yet, following his father, he also never fully recanted his faith. That is a hard space to occupy: the middle ground between a desire to let go and the duty to remain. I lived this tension in Luke's narrative. 

Sometimes I want to leave church behind when there is institutional pressure to conform, but then I remember the people there and how much these relationships supersede the formalities of any religion. I also appreciate how Jesus’s ministry unfolded as he encountered the different needs of people in the places he went. He did not arrive talking about a fully formed systematic theology, but simply let God’s revelation become known in and through him. He created the conditions for people to ask questions and became a liberating presence for those who had been marginalised and treated poorly by the system. He didn't leave his religion but remained as a prophetic voice within the community, a fly in the ointment. This is something I have grown to appreciate: the importance of not standing apart from others to justify throwing stones, but remaining in fellowship with even those I may not always agree with. In fact, Jesus was more than willing to socialise with those who had become ostracised due to the strictness of their religion, such as the Pharisees (separated ones). I imagine these men to be lonely and appreciative of Jesus’ willingness to dine with them. 

While staying in fellowship with people I fundamentally disagree with is hard, it is necessary if I am to commit to being like Jesus. It is also a way for us to hear each other’s stories and find healing together through them."

Published: May 6, 2025