2024.06.16 | Leadership from the Margins
“Leadership from the Margins”
Rev. Brenda Loreman
Designated Term Associate Minister
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost,
June 16, 2024
1 Samuel 28:3-25
When I was a kid reading the stories in my Golden Press Children’s Bible—you know, the one from the 60s with the super Scandinavian Jesus—I usually translated myself into the male characters of the Bible. In my imagination, I identified with young Samuel hearing the call of God. Or as young David going up against the very scary Philistine warrior Goliath, with nothing but his slingshot. I don’t remember seeing myself in the lives of the women characters much, and this is probably because those women’s stories were more on the margins of the story, not front and center like Samuel and David.
Another reason is that I didn’t often hear the stories of the women preached from the pulpit or studied in Sunday School when I was growing up. It wasn’t until I was an adult and began to study the Bible more seriously that I found that the Bible— especially the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible—was FULL of wonderful, robust stories about women: Sarah and Rebekkah and Rachel and Leah; Miriam, Abigail, Ruth, Naomi, Deborah and Jael and Esther—the heroines and queens of ancient Israel.
Throughout the summer, we are exploring the theme of leadership as it’s expressed in the stories of the kings and prophets of ancient Israel. This month, we’re reading stories from the Book of 1 Samuel and the tales of Israel’s first king, Saul, and his rival and second king, David. Two weeks ago, we heard the story of God calling Samuel and pondered how God calls each of us and how we must each take up and live into that calling. Last week, we heard the story of how the Israelite people clamored for a King. The prophet Samuel told them it was a bad idea, that a king would conscript all their young people and take all their best livestock and crops in taxes, but they refused to listen to good advice, and Saul was anointed as the first King of Israel.
Because I’m a bit rebellious, today I’m doing a little off-roading and taking a detour from the lectionary text assigned for this week. This week, instead of exploring leadership from the perspective of a male figure at the center of patriarchal society, I wanted to take a look at a female figure from the edges of that patriarchal society and see what leadership can look like from the margins.
Today’s scripture comes near the end of the 1 Samuel, almost at the end of Saul’s reign as king. Between Chapter 8, when he was anointed king, and Chapter 28, when he visits the medium, his reign has been fraught with many battles against Israel’s enemies, his disobedience toward God, his rivalry with God’s chosen ruler, David, and, finally, his abandonment by God and by Samuel. After Samuel’s death, Saul loses contact with the voice of God. God is just simply not speaking to Saul anymore. As today’s text begins, Saul and his army are once again fighting with the Philistines, and Saul is deeply afraid. Since the usual form of divination isn’t working for him, he decides to try another method—something he himself had recently outlawed. Saul is definitely a “Do as I say, not as I do” sort of guy.
A word about divination here. Divination, or using certain practices to speak with the divine or call up the dead, is usually seen as suspicious and is often banned in the scriptures, both in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. But the use of divination was widespread in the ancient world. Most ancient cultures had methods of divination, and ancient Israel was no exception. Passages in the Hebrew Bible mention “inquiring of the Lord” using methods of divination, and the high priests of Israel themselves practiced divination. The medium of Endor is obviously a skilled practitioner of the art of divination and necromancy, and it is interesting to note that the text does not condemn her or call her evil because of her gift.
In fact, this truth—that the text does not judge the medium of Endor—is one of the remarkable gifts that I have received through studying this story. In my reading about this particular text, I discovered the work of the feminist Hebrew Bible scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky, who, until her death in 2006, was the professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Frymer-Kensky wondered why the Hebrew Bible, a “clearly androcentric text from a patriarchal society [had] so many stories that revolve around women.” (1) She began to interrogate the these stories and analyze them from the perspective of gender questions, and discovered to her surprise that:
The Hebrew Bible, unlike other ancient literature, does not present any ideas about woman as the “Other.” The role of women is clearly subordinate, but the Hebrew Bible does not explain or justify this subordination by portraying women as different or inferior. The stories do not reflect any differences in goals and desires between men and women. Nor do they point out any strategies or methods used by women that are different from those used by men who are not in positions of authority. There are no personality traits or psychological characteristics that are unique to women, and the familiar Western notions of “feminine wiles,” “the battle between the sexes,” “sisterly solidarity,” and “sex as a weapon” are all absent, as are any discussions of the nature of women. There are also no negative statements and stereotypes about women, no gynophobic (“woman fearing”) discourse. The only misogynist statement in the Bible comes very late in biblical development, in the book of Ecclesiastes, and shows the introduction of the classical Greek denigration of women into Israel.
The Bible's lack of ideas about female otherness does not make it a feminist paradise any more than the presence of memorable women does. Women were still socially disadvantaged and excluded from public power. But the Bible does not add insult to this disadvantage, does not claim that women need to be controlled because they are wild, or need to be led because they are foolish, or need to be directed because they are passive, or any of the other justifications for male domination that have been prevalent in Western culture. (2)
Most feminist scholars approach biblical literature with a hermeneutic—a lens—of suspicion; but Frymer-Kensky also suggests approaching the Hebrew Bible with a hermeneutic of grace. Perhaps, she suggests, we can conclude that “even though the Bible failed to eradicate or even notice patriarchy, it created a vision of humanity that is gender neutral.”
Notice how this gender neutrality plays out in this story of the medium of Endor. She practices a forbidden profession, but the medium is never described as evil or wayward. In fact, she proves herself to be wise and cautious, brave and determined, and humble and generous—all leadership qualities that are significantly absent in King Saul.
The medium is cautious as the disguised Saul approaches her and asks her to call up Samuel from the dead. She wisely understands that plying her trade may get her killed. She suspects that Saul is setting a trap for her. When she is assured that no harm will come to her, she bravely does as she’s asked, even when she discovers that it is the king doing the asking, and that he has lied to her.
Finally, the medium is both humble and generous. She offers Saul hospitality, humbly imploring him to break his fast and restore his strength. And in this act of offering Saul food—unleavened bread she bakes herself and her own fatted calf she slaughters—she becomes, as Tikva Frymer-Kensky notes, “the very model of Israelite hospitality,” (3) similar to the way that Abraham offers hospitality to the strangers who come to him in Chapter 18 of Genesis.
The book of 1 Samuel begins with a woman on the margin. Hannah, who had been childless for years, prayed fervently to God for a son, and promised God that she would dedicate his life to service. When God fulfilled her prayer, Hannah fulfilled her promise, and her son became the prophet Samuel. Hannah sets an example of faithfulness and dedication to the will of God. And here at the end of 1 Samuel we have another marginalized woman whose actions offer an example of thoughtful hospitality.
1 Samuel is full of men in battle and the exploits of kings and warriors and prophets, but all those stories are bookended by women taking center stage, leading from their place at the margins of society and offering examples of the true gifts of leadership: faithfulness, dedication, courage, determination, humility, generosity. They prove that even people who are far from the center of power can have a profound influence on the life of their community. May their stories give us courage and hope. May we, too, lead by example, even from the margins. Amen.
(1) Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (New York: Random House 2002), xv.
(2) Ibid., xv-xvi.
(3) Ibid., xvi