 |
| Mary and baby Jesus. Image text: "Abstinence 99.99% effective." Image source. |
Thinking abut Mary, and how a big deal is made about how she was a virgin when she became pregnant and gave birth to Jesus. I always thought her virginity was so important because it meant she was "not like other girls." But now I think actually, the important thing is she is like other girls.
One way to read Mary's story is this: She was pregnant and unmarried. And normally, being pregnant and unmarried is BAD. Women who are pregnant and unmarried are BAD and SINFUL. Sex is DIRTY. To bring the Son of God into the world, God needed a good girl who wasn't like those bad girls who have sex. Mary was special and different. She was the good one, so God choose her. Yes, you absolutely should judge women who get pregnant outside of marriage, but in this one special case, she is good and shouldn't be judged.
(Note: I had premarital sex and it was a good decision for me, so please read any statements in this post like "women who have sex outside of marriage are sinful" with a heavy dose of sarcasm.)
And though I never really put it in those words or thought about it explicitly, that's basically what I thought about the virgin birth, back when I was evangelical. I remember reading a blog post that said "the Christmas story is about believing women" and it made no sense to me. "What?" I thought. "It's about how Mary was so good because her circumstance was unique and different from everyone else. This has nothing to do with believing women in general. The exception proves the rule."
But... Thinking about what it was actually like for Mary, back then, being judged by everyone. Yes, for those of us reading the story 2000 years later, we all know that she really was a virgin, that an angel came to her and told her she would be pregnant, that she obeyed God. That she did nothing wrong, according to the "sex is dirty" standard. (Okay I used the phrase "we all know" but obviously this is a religious belief and not something that can actually be known to be true. What I'm getting at is, inside the universe of the story, we readers know these things are canon.)
So we know that she is good and shouldn't be judged. But how does that help her? Her neighbors/ friends/ relatives didn't know anything about that. Do you think she tried to explain herself to them? Or did she just let them judge her, because she figured no one would believe her if she said an angel visited her?
Well, look at Joseph's reaction. He found out she was pregnant, and obviously assumed she had had sex with some guy, and decided to divorce her quietly instead of making a big public scene about it- which was nice of him. The way I read it is, Mary didn't try to tell Joseph the truth. She didn't give him the chance to believe her or not, because the idea of exposing her whole complicated traumatic personal life to him and then not being believed was just too awful. (Fortunately, an angel came to Joseph in a dream to tell him to stay with Mary.)
So, sure, we readers know the details, and we can judge her based on accurate information and conclude that she was indeed a good person and not a sinful women who had sex outside of marriage. But none of that makes any difference in her actual life, because people around her didn't have that information- and probably wouldn't believe it if she told them- so they still saw her as sinful and dirty.
So there's this surface-level stereotype that random people will apply to her, and there's the complicated reality underneath. Her own complicated, emotional, imperfect, incredible path that led her to this point- but the only thing they see is she's unmarried and pregnant, so they assume the worst.
But isn't that how it always is? This isn't a "she's not like other girls" thing, because this is what happens to women all the time.
There are stereotypes about what kind of woman has sex outside of marriage. What kind of woman lives with her boyfriend. What kind of woman gets pregnant outside of marriage. What kind of woman dresses immodestly. What kind of woman has casual sex. What kind of woman uses contraception. What kind of woman is a single mom. What kind of woman has children with different fathers. What kind of women has an abortion. What kind of woman gets raped. What kind of woman accuses a man of rape. What kind of women uses emergency contraception. What kind of woman gets the HPV vaccine. What kind of woman gets divorced. What kind of woman stays with an abusive partner. What kind of woman works as a sex worker.
Just from observing 1 small aspect of a person's life, random strangers will imagine what kind of person she is, and what bad choices she must have made, and why she should be judged and condemned.
And I don't think the solution to this is "explain why your circumstances are special and different so you don't deserve to be judged like that" (ie, believing that Mary was good while all the other unmarried pregnant women are bad because Mary was a virgin with a miraculous pregnancy). If you take that approach, it reinforces the idea that, yes, random strangers should be judging you and making wild assumptions about your personal life and your morals. It reinforces the idea that yes, it is right to judge women who are unmarried and pregnant, yes, most of them are bad, but not Mary! It requires people to open up their personal lives and show everything to random strangers, as the only way to avoid being condemned. To show everyone their emotions and trauma and mistakes, things they've experienced that they don't even know how to process yet- they're required to do this; otherwise random strangers are correct to assume the worst.
That wouldn't have worked for Mary. Even if she told people the truth, would anyone believe her?
So no, this "explain why you're the exception" approach isn't right. Instead, the random strangers should stop judging people's personal lives. People are complicated. They're not one-dimensional stereotypes. Have some compassion.
Mary was a virgin when she was pregnant, but she got the same judgment and condemnation as women who got pregnant from unmarried sex. I used to think it was hugely important that she was different... but it's not. Being unfairly judged by random people based on incorrect assumptions about your personal life is something that women everywhere experience.
---
Related:
It wasn't like that for Mary. Maybe it's never like that.
Merry Christmas From John Piper
Someday Dave Ramsey will have to stand before God and explain why he fired a pregnant woman. Never forget that Dave Ramsey would have fired Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
---
The title of this post was inspired by this: “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion”
No comments:
Post a Comment