Barrenness does not define us – God’s truth whispers healing into the places where shame once took root.
Abraham’s wife Sarah was barren.
Isaac’s wife Rebekah was barren.
Jacob’s wife Rachel was barren.
Sit here and read those facts with me. Written to us by my favorite bible study leader, culturalist, Kristi McLelland from her study The Gospel on the Ground. Let them sink in.
She adds, “When we read Genesis, the living God kept choosing barren women to be the wives of patriarchs! Whaaaaaaat?”
I had to do a double take parked there and ask the same question, “Whaaaaaat?” with equal a’s to follow. It blew my mind. Put that way.
“For woman in antiquity,” she adds, “barrenness was considered a type of curse. It was shameful to be unable to bring forth children into the world, to add to the family, the clan, and the tribe. As a woman in antiquity, you would rather be anything but barren. Being barren was figuratively considered bottom of the barrel. We would expect the living God to choose fertile women, with babies popping out here, there, and everywhere.”
The first question that popped into my head, “Kristi, what church do you belong to?” And, “I wish that is where I was led when I was a brand new believer.” Ahh, the pain it would have saved.
Antiquity: Oxford dictionary definition: the ancient past, especially the period before the Middle Ages.
Ruminate with me on a world where biblical womanhood and the hierarchy of her ability to conceive equated to her worth being in the ancient past.
Kristi continues, “In the ancient world of patriarchy, males with strength and numbers ruled from the top. Men with lots of children were prized, honored, exalted, and valued. Impotence and barrenness were both considered curses.”
The sting of what could have been of my spiritual journey had it not been led to present day patriarchy. My worth not predicated on the absence of quivers I wanted desperately, but could not produce.
Old Testament patriarchal culture is a living reality for many in what is almost the year 2025. Thousands of years after God chose barren Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel to be chosen conduits of His will and God-sized purposes for mankind. Shiny Happy People Netflix docu is a wakeup call this has been a massive movement dating back fifty years as a religious counter cultural response to Roe v Wade and the feminist movement on this side of the globe. The politicization of our Jesus faith. With recent Supreme Court victories sending Roe v Wade to the states, you’d think the patriarchy would be doing victory laps in the streets. War over. But that’s not how Power works.
Some of us can read Kristi’s description of ancient patriarchy and know too well this sounds like today. The verse most associated with the ‘benevolent spin’, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.” Psalm 127:5
Let’s dissect. Court this verse’s foundation and purpose. Legal – legalism. Inside and out. Hence, all the Jesus Plus theologies fed us the last fifty years over the Culture Wars. Politicization of our faith filled with so many strings attached the true Gospel is lost. Jesus not to be found. Jesus warned us He did not come for political war. Legalism. Back then it was Rome. Jesus Plus Nothing is the True Gospel for which He died and rose for us. The remedy of shame other than Jesus is pride. In antiquity and now. Man’s desire to be prized, honored, exalted, and valued, Jesus came to flip all this upside down. And, God flipped it first by choosing the least fitting of patriarchal society – impotent, humbled men.
The tangents I could go on, but let’s stay on message. Instead of dancing in the streets winning the political war that’s marked the last five decades, the patriarchy now have their sights on women’s wombs trying to be fruitful and multiply ~ now IVF the big, bad seed of Eve. Power, money, greed too intoxicating to stop at abortion. Now the patriarchy fights another day for control over these women sitting in their pews weeping and begging for God to grow the fruit of their wombs with the help of fertility technology and doctors. Patriarchy now killing women’s dreams to have children with their newfound Project 2025 quest for power. Jolting. Mind blowing. Unless you begin to question the root of this politicization to be greed, pride, winning and power than Jesus and babies lives. God, we need you. Restore Yourself to our faith.
Just this weekend I heard from a friend my age whose adult daughter in a different state miscarried and she was turned away from two hospitals because they didn’t want the liability to treat her bleeding and scared. This is wrong.
For many, patriarchy is very much real and oppressively present dictating their lives.
Where do we go from here?
Jesus. The answer is always Jesus.
Follow me to Part Two.
Love,
Raya
The Gentle Rise 