Sure enough, sometimes the appropriate behavior is to keep quiet — a better alternative, for example, to spreading gossip. And sometimes those violating the rules by speaking up deserve the scolding that follows.
But, too often women have kept silent when the right thing to do would have been to speak up. Too often they’ve been told to keep silence because their voices would “disrupt the status quo.”
The Canaanite woman surprised those traveling with Jesus. Indeed when he disregarded her pleas for mercy, and then rejected her further urgings, she would not be silenced. She even startled him with her quick mind in making the case for why he should heal her demon-possessed daughter. Taken back by her boldness, he commended her faith, and he answered her appeal.
Rigby, the preacher in the final evening plenary, bemoaned the silence of some women in Scripture, starting with the very first one mentioned, wishing that “Eve had told that serpent to go to Sheol.”
She urged the women to speak up. Not always. And not in a way that is self-serving. But in a way that is “a reflection of our faith.” In a way that, as in the case of the Canaanite women, believes “that God will do wonders among us.”
She urged the women to speak up in a way that reflects the example of Esther or Phoebe or Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who bluntly told Jesus, “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” Jesus proceeded to raise her brother from the dead.
Rigby urged the women to speak up “as women who have been called to be prophets in a world that treats us as ancillary.”
“It is time audaciously to claim our status, as adult heirs to the promise.”
In an apparent acknowledgement of the gains in women’s status in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) through recent decades, she affirmed that “we are the children and we are being seated at the table, and this is one reason why we’ve come. Isn’t that great?” A rousing round of applause followed.
But such gains can’t be taken for granted. “We’ll find ourselves positioned some time again as dogs under the table. And when we find ourselves there, may we continue to exercise our great faith. May God grant us the courage to talk back to those in power, courage to claim our space at the table … restoring our daughters and our sons to wholeness.”
