The Christian church must unlearn some lies to see women as called by God to ministry, according to Barbara Lavarin, who addressed Baptist Women in Ministry Nov. 6.
Lavarin, director of supporting women in ministry for BWIM, preached the opening sermon at BWIM’s annual gathering at Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta. Her message from Genesis 3 was titled, “The Miseducation of Eve.”
“It’s about time we unlearned the lie that women were created to be inferior,” she said.
To the women gathered for worship, she declared: “The lie is you are not enough. But the truth is you already are.”
Genesis 3 tells a story of Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden after being tempted by the serpent. According to this account, the serpent says to Eve, “Did God really say … ” and twists the words of God.
Traditional evangelical teaching of this passage assigns more blame to Eve than to Adam, as expressed in a 1984 Southern Baptist Convention resolution saying women must be subservient to men because the woman was “first in the Edenic fall.”
Although she didn’t address that specific resolution, Lavarin said preachers need to do a better job of interpreting and explaining Genesis 3.
“We’ve been told lies like we can tithe but we can’t talk.”
For too long, churchgoers have been “sold a bad bill of goods,” she said. “We’ve been told lies like we can tithe but we can’t talk. We’ve been told lies like we can pray but we can’t preach. We’ve been told lies that we can sing, but we can’t sit on the board. We’ve been told lies that we can deal with all the other problems, but we can’t deal with any of the power. The best thing we can do is sit pretty and be quiet, but not too pretty because that would be distracting.”
Contrary to what some believe, the Genesis story does not teach God cursed either Adam or Eve, she continued. God cursed the serpent and the ground, but “God never said, ‘Cursed are you, Adam.’ God never said, ‘Cursed are you, Eve.’”
Barbara Lavarin
This is part of the miseducation of the church about Eve and the role of women, she said.
“But I’m here tonight to tell you that if there’s anything to be gained from a miseducation, it’s a revelation, that the only thing more satisfying than learning is a good unlearning. Because something powerful happens when you unlearn a lie.
“When you unlearn a lie, you unearth the truth about your identity. When you unlearn a lie, you unearth the truth about your power. When you unlearn a lie, you unearth the truth about your possibilities. But to unlearn a lie, we have to first start asking some questions about the questions that have been asked to us.”
The serpent’s query of Eve — “Did God really say?” — “was the first theological inquiry of all time,” Lavarin said. “It was when the serpent asked a question about God and what God said and what God meant about what God said. That is theology. It is a study of God and what God does and how we are to deal with those things. So for all intents and purposes, Eve was the first divinity student of all time, unknowingly enrolled in the Garden of Eden Seminary and her first class was not a bird course, it was Toxic Theology 101. And thus began the miseducation of Eve.”
“The best lies ever told are half-truths.”
The serpent speaks a half-truth to the woman, she noted. “The best lies ever told are half-truths. … The woman got lost because the serpent made a direct challenge to who she was to become without ever affirming who she already was.”
God already had created male and female, both “in the image of God,” she noted.
And the phrase “suitable helper” used to describe Eve in Genesis 2:18 also is misunderstood, Lavarin said. “That phrase ‘suitable helper’ has been used to determine the position of women in life, in society, that we are meant to be the help, that we are meant to be treated like the help, that we are supposed to be relegated to a life of help.
“But the Hebrew word for ‘help’ is ezer,” she added. “The word appears 22 times in Scripture and twice is used to describe Eve. And the other 20 times it is used to describe God — a God Israel would call on in times of trouble. So when the Bible says, ‘I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help,’ they’re talking about that kind of help. When the Bible says ‘God, our help and our shield,’ that is the image and the role Eve stands in as a strong helper and deliverer.
“That is the strength of which Eve was to walk into her purpose,” Lavarin declared. “She was already in the image of God. … It’s about time you unlearn the lie that women were created to be inherently inferior, to be the damsel in distress.
“When God created women, God created a mercy. When God created women, God created an experience of people to know what it means for God to save you.”
“When God created women, God created a mercy.”
From the Garden of Eden to today, “the lie was that she will be like God, but the truth is she already is. The lie is you are not enough but the truth is you already are. That is the miseducation played out around us, but also in us. But thanks be to God, there is no lie that can’t be unlearned.
“So what did God say about you?” she asked the women gathered. “Did God say you were fearfully and wonderfully made? Did God really say you were a part of a royal priesthood? Did God really say you were called? Did God really say … ? The answer is yes, and the truth is you are enough today, nothing added, nothing subtracted.”
Those who stop at Genesis 3:16 in developing their view of women need to keep reading to John 3:16, she said. “We’ve missed everything between Genesis 3:16 and John 3:16. In between Genesis 3:16 when the curse begins and John 3:16, when we learn that God so loved the world that he gave, there are 42 books in the Bible and there’s also 40 and two generations of women …, the Deborahs, the Ruths and Esthers, the Marys and the Elizabeths. They all have the courage to stand in the gap between the lie and the truth.
“And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Here in the gospel, we see in the first garden, the first Eve reached for knowledge. And in the second garden, the second Eve, Mary, reached for her Savior. In the first party there was a treat missing, a forbidden fruit. And in the second party there was a tomb missing or a broken body.”
Jesus, the second Adam, spoke to women upon his resurrection, she said. His message: “Go tell the others the fall was never the end of the story. Go ahead, go tell it on the mountain. If you’re going to tell it, tell it. Tell it.”