
Imagine an old woman, in about the year 1007 BCE, living alone in the Jezreel Valley, with only a hillside burrow for a home. Some call her a witch. Others use the world medium; others a necromancer. King Saul has said…
“I did something no mother should ever have to do: I sat with the dead bodies of my beloved sons for five months. Oh, that the soldiers would have killed me instead of them! But it was not to be.…
One of my great-grandmothers was named Achsah Jane Curry. I don’t know much more about her than this: she was Scotch-Irish, blind, and smoked a corn cob pipe (or so it says on the back of an old family picture).…
Many women in the Bible suffer, caught in the midst of unimaginably harsh choices and pain. Think of the woman in Judges 19, whom we’ll look at today. Most Christians do not know her story, and are surprised to find it…
Let’s be real. Everyone knows the story of Abraham, but how about the comparable story of the widow of Zarephath? Both were about sacrifice and beloved sons. Abraham delivered his son Isaac to the funeral pyre—and would have killed the…
She had freckles on her face. She kept standing up to tug her short-shorts down; they pinched her, she said. She told me her name was “Josi,” without an “e.” And that she was eleven, in middle school, and that her…
Where do mothers find the strength to let their children go? One of the more dynamic women in scripture shows up this Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary: Hannah. Known for her great bargain with God, her story is full of…
Ah, Sapphira…Sapphira…your story causes me grief, even after all these years. It’s all about telling the truth. Your husband lied. But you didn’t have to. You could have spoken up, done the right thing–and lived. Sometimes Bible stories are harsh, and…
A well-beloved ambassador arrives in many churches throughout the country this Sunday via the RCL (Track #1) lectionary: Esther. The inspiration for the Jewish feast of Purim, she is one of only a handful of biblical women who regularly crosses the…