Families blog – Seven women change makers

We all get stuck in our ways. It’s safer to stay that way. Change involves a risk and it’s only natural to want to protect ourselves. Don’t forget that the phrase ‘don’t be afraid’, or something similar, occurs 365 times in the Bible. Once for every day of the year. The message is clear. Getting to know God means getting past our fears.

Scripture is a long story of change. In fact, the only figure that doesn’t change is God. Every other character is on a journey, often one they resist. We know that Abraham left his country on a promise from God, that Moses went against his yearning for a quiet life to lead his people to freedom, that David had to eat humble pie and own up to his own dark side before he could become a leader with integrity.

Sometimes though we forget about the women of the Bible. Here are seven important changemakers.

1. Sarah (Gen 17) was 90 years old and disappointed. She had been promised she would have a child and missing out led her to cynicism. When her baby arrived, she called him Isaac which means ‘laughter.’ She had to change her heart accept the strangeness of God.
2. Tamar (Gen 38) was a victim of injustice committed by men who would not allow her to have her rightful place in the community. In a colourful story, she outsmarted those who wanted her pushed to the margins and took an important role in salvation history. She would not accept exclusion. She is remembered in Matthew 1:3 as one of those whose life paved the way for Jesus.
3. Mary (Luke 1) is the greatest change maker in human history. She had a choice. She said yes, the most important yes any person ever said. In her prayer, the Magnificat, Mary says that she is just one of many people that God has raised from humble places. The most important changes don’t come from the powerful.
4. We never discover the name of the Syrophoenician woman who confronts Jesus in Mark 7. Jesus seems to be in a bad mood. He is tired and has come to the coast for a break; he even refers to her people as ‘dogs.’ The woman stands her ground and answers back and thus helps to widen even the vision of Jesus.
5. Mary of Magdala gets her name from the word for tower. Jesus liked joking about people’s names and clearly saw her as a tower of strength. She has threatened people to such an extent that they have invented stories about her. Scripture says that she brought news of the resurrection to Jesus’ friends. That news changed their lives, and ours as well.
6. Phoebe (Rom 16) doesn’t get a lot of attention. She was the deacon to whom St Paul entrusted the Letter to the Romans to be delivered, surely one of the most world changing pieces of literature in history, to be delivered. Perhaps she was chosen because of the large number of women in leadership positions in the church in Rome, which Paul had not yet visited.
7. Anna (Luke 2), a widow, was 84 years of age and spent her life in prayer, never leaving the temple. This did not mean that her faith had reached its final destination. Far from it. She recognised the baby Jesus and told everyone about him. Her eyes were fresh enough to change the way people saw the world.

Michael McGirr is the Mission facilitator at Caritas Australia. He is the author of many books, including Ideas to Save Your Life and Books that Saved My Life (both Text), and Finding God’s Traces (Jesuit Communications).