Neither Male Nor Female: All One in Christ

Christ confirmed a new view of women even in the very beginning of his ministry.

Going to Galilee from Jerusalem, He passed through the lands of the Samaritans. One sultry midday, exhausted from His travels, Jesus sat down to rest by an old well, from which the locals had drawn water from time immemorial. The disciples, taking leave of Him, headed off to gather food.

While they were gone, a Samaritan woman came up to the spring with a pitcher on her head. She was quite amazed when the Foreigner asked to drink his fill. After all, the Jews, like the current Old Believers, considered it unacceptable to share a vessel with others not of their faith. In answer, the Stranger said that He could give her "living water," and if she drank it, she would never again experience thirst.

The simple women understood these words literally.

"Sir," she said, "give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

"Go, call your husband, and come here."

"I have no husband."

"You are right in saying, 'I have no husband;' for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband;  this you said truly."

The Samaritan woman understood that the sad story of her life was known to the Man with whom she spoke. Just then it occurred to her to ask Him a question about an old argument between the Samaritans and Jews.

"Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

"Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

"I know that Messiah is coming," she answered, "when He comes, He will show us all things."

"I Who speak to you am He," said Jesus.

At that moment, the disciples came to the well. They were stunned to see that the Teacher was having a discussion with a Samaritan woman. She, most anxious, hurried into the city to tell her compatriots of her meeting.

"Rabbi, eat," proposed the disciples.

"I have food to eat of which you do not know."

They looked around. Who could have fed Him in this inhospitable place? But they were even more amazed when they discovered that He had first spoken directly of Himself as the Messiah not to them, but to this simple woman, a harlot and a heretic, and that He had initiated her into the essence of the eternal religion of the Spirit...

For Socrates, a woman was simply an obtuse, importunate being, and Buddha did not even allow his followers to look at women.  In the pre-Christian world, women most often remained silent slaves, whose lives were limited by exhausting work and domestic chores. It is no accident that in one Jewish prayer were the words, "I thank you, God, that you did not make me a woman. . . "

Christ returned to women that human dignity which had been taken from them, as well as the right to have spiritual needs. Henceforth, their place was not only in the family circle. Thus among the closest disciples of Christ we see more than a few women, predominantly Galilean.

The Gospels retained the names of some of them: there was Mary the Magdalene, whom the Lord healed from "seven demons;"   Salome, the mother of John and James; Mary, Cleo's daughter and sister of the Virgin Mary; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Antipas' house warden. Those of them with the most means provided support to the small community.

However, Christ did not want their role to be limited to that,

During His visit to Jerusalem, He became close to the family of a certain Eleazar, or Lazarus, who lived near the city in the town Bethany with his sisters Martha and Mary. The Teacher loved their home; under their roof He not infrequently found rest. Once, when He came to them, Martha became quite distracted with the demands of hospitality, while Mary sat at the Teacher's feet, in order to hear His words. Seeing this, the older sister turned to Him:

"Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me."

"Martha, Martha," answered Jesus, "you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her."

It is instructive to observe that even Jesus' opponents, although they saw Him surrounded by women, did not dare to slander Him.  This is one of the most stunning elements in the Gospel. "He Who had subdued the wind and the sea," wrote Francois Mauriac, "had the power to enthrone great peace in people's hearts. He stilled the nascent storms of the hearts, for otherwise people would have worshiped Him not as the Son of God, but as a man among men."

As a result, when the hour of trial came, the first female Christians did not desert the Lord, as did other disciples. They were on Golgotha at the moment of His death, took the Teacher's body to the place of burial, and the Paschal mystery was first revealed to them....

The Gospel broke down the walls which had separated people from long ago. The Gospel revealed to everyone the path to Christ's Kingdom, to those who kept the observances of the Law and those who did not know them, to Jews and foreigners, to men and women. In that kingdom, nations, social classes, gender, and age became of secondary importance.

Considering this miracle, the apostle Paul exclaimed,

"Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all."

―Son of Man, pp. 72–74