In this episode, we revisit the stories of the women from the entire Reading between the Lines series through a series of blessings. Maybe we will see ourselves in these blessings, too.

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In this week’s episode, we are going to be jumping all around the New Testament, pulling in some short stories about some of the women who were vital to how the early Christian Church grew. In this episode, we are going to be learning more about Sapphira, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Euodia & Syntyche, and Junia.

[T]hey are important simply because their names and a portion of their stories were included in the story of the early church. There are other women mentioned who have even less recorded about their stories. And, we know there are even more unnamed and unrecorded women who were vital to passing along this new faith to their children and grandchildren and also helped care for their communities in the ways they could.

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In both of these stories, women encounter Jesus and they are not defined by what their culture says should keep them separate. In both stories, there is no judgment from Jesus to the women; the judgment comes from others in the story - the scribes, the Pharisees, the disciples - those who were trying so hard to be faithful to God and how they understood scripture that they missed the opportunity to extend grace and build relationships where centuries of prejudice and assumption had separated them.

Each of these stories is important because they remind us that God is already on the other side of whatever dividing lines we draw between us and others. And, that God’s grace is not limited by any decision someone must make in order to secure financial security or food for another day. These stories call us to widen the nets of grace and mercy, to look for the places where inequity exists. How can we be part of a solution that brings about wholeness to a group of people who are being excluded because of the rules another group has set up?

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