Sex Difference and Jesus.

Some time ago I commented on a blog post by a New Testament theologian I really respect. I won’t identify him or the particular subset of theology/New Testament studies he’s in, just to say that he was one of my heroes (still is in some respects).

The blog post was about gender identity. I commented that his discussion left out intersex people. I asked what he thought about their situation and how that fit into his conclusions.

He deleted my comment and did not reply to it. I was quite staggered that my intellectual hero would do this*.

Anyway, in my recent reading and internet searches I stumbled across a book by someone who really has troubled to tease out the issue of intersex in relation to Christian faith.

If you don’t know, intersex people are people whose biological identity does not neatly fit into one category or other - and they are people who often left out of any discussion of gender these days in Christianity - and I really believe that this oversight shows a fundamental blind spot in Christian theology.

The book is called, “Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God”, by Megan K. De Franza, and so far it is a great read.

What is wonderful about the approach she takes is that after looking at the issues she brings it right back to Jesus.

You see, she makes a good case that He didn’t forget about intersex people in His discussions about gender. In fact, she says that when Jesus talks about ‘eunuchs’ in Matthew 19, He is using a category that in the ancient world probably included intersex people.

The context of the discussion of eunuchs in the gospel is directly after the discussion about marriage in Matthew 19, and his discussion of divorce as a concession by Moses to the hard-heartedness of men (in the sense of, males). The disciples cannot quite accept this conclusion:

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matthew 19:10-12

Megan De Franza points out that Jesus is holding up the state of being a ‘eunuch’ as something to emulate.

Some thoughts I had about this: what is interesting to note is that under the Torah (the Jewish law) eunuchs were prohibited from entering the temple because they were considered unclean. Here Jesus widens the compassion of the Jewish Torah to include eunuchs, indeed, he widens the Torah to the point where the excluded become the ideal. The eunuch becomes an ideal, the eunuch for the kingdom of heaven is someone to emulate.

This opens my eyes to a fact I have partially glimpsed beforehand: at every point in Jesus’ ministry He widens the Torah to include the excluded. He heals lepers by touching them - they were ritually unclean and not allowed to be touched. He includes women (second class citizens in Judaism, not allowed to sit with men in the temple) and women in fact were the first witnesses to his resurrection. Prostitutes, tax collectors, outcasts, sinners all were included in the kingdom, because they responded when the respectable and proper did not. Jesus elevated the poor above the rich in the kingdom, and even slaves embodied the ideal for Christian leadership.

Even after Jesus’ resurrection, too, God continues widening the Torah to include everyone, thus the church is born. We gentiles forget that before Jesus we were the outsiders in God's kingdom.

And this is Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God!  - an outrageous kingdom where everyone is welcome, where the poor, the outcast, the sinner is welcomed, and the only ones outside are those who trust in their own righteousness and not in God's outrageous mercy. Truly God is 'Abba, Father' in this kingdom!

I haven’t finished Megan De Franza’s book yet, about a quarter way through, but I can say so far it is really excellent, clear and simple in style, with outstanding Jesus-centred reasoning. I really am looking forward to getting further on, so that I can see whether she deepens her arguments further.

http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6982/sex-difference-in-christian-theology.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Difference-Christian-Theology-Intersex/dp/0802869823