Through the years, as I and my church went through Bible books, we came upon some fairly culturally distant passages. Like this one. While the law of Numbers 30 does not give us a law for today, I was (and remain) convinced of the truth of it. And so its value to translate for us today.
Two recent events at that time, the Spring of 2011, then launched this sermon:
First, I attended a lecture given by Eve Ensler. Her play, The Vagina Monologues was all over the news. It was enjoying tremendous success, having been translated into 49 different languages and performed in over 140 different countries.
She asked the question, how will the oppression of women end? Only, she answered, when men cherish women.
The second event transpired about the same time. A prominent outlet gathered together notaries for a panel discussion. This included the new editor of Bon Appetite, who expressed surprise in finding that the vast majority of the magazine’s readership to be women. The food critic of the Village Voice also participated, noticing that women constituted 95% of the NYU food studies program.
The question for the panel was how to move into a post-gender world.
To answer these issues, the Bible does relationship in stark contrast to the way the world does relationship.
In the midst of this cultural swirl, the passage issued a ringing rejoinder on the reality of gender. A law that at first seems unreasonable gets at the crucial issue of marriage: engagement…
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