Meditation on Epiphany 4 in Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church"

In my church, we are still working our way through Dr. Wilda C. Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church. This Sunday, we'll explore Epiphany 4, with the Gospel from Luke: Luke 3: 21-23, 31-38. It begins with the story of the baptism of Jesus, with God declaring a status of beloved even before Jesus has done much with his ministry.

It ends with a genealogy. In some ways, it's a similar genealogy to others throughout the Bible. It's a way that humans have always categorized: who belongs to who, who might have trained which offspring, what stories are we part of.

If you read a traditional translation of Luke, you'll notice something about this genealogy: it's as if the men have done this birthing of offspring all by themselves. Dr. Gafney has gone through and added back all the females. It's such a simple change, and yet it is also powerful, radical, and revolutionary. The last entry subverts all of this categorizing: "the child of God."

Gafney explains it best: "The Gospel presents this Jesus as a child of earth, woman-born as were we all, while omitting the women of his lineage. It is one of the chief contradictions of the scriptures that their message of a God who loves beyond categories is bound up in categorical language that minimizes, silences, and often excludes women" (p. 53).

Today let us begin to love as God loves, to declare every part of creation "Good" and "Very good," as God did in the first creation story in Genesis. God looks at creation, and just as God looked at Jesus and declared Jesus beloved, God declares all of creation as worthy of love. In our darkest times, let us remember that God is pleased with us all, just the same way that God is well-pleased with Jesus. Let us love similarly.