The Feminine Face of Discipleship

 

Human being whether male of female, is essentially divine. Often God is understood as male because of patriarchal nature of the society, and forget the feminine aspect, which is equally important than the former. In Christian literature also God is portrayed in the feminine qualities such as generative, sacrificial, loving, compassionate, tender, nurturing, service minded, dedicated and so on. These are also the explicit qualities of the balanced person. Jesus is no doubt a balanced person in all the aspects, who respected and upheld the human dignity at his time in the male dominated society. These are also the qualities Jesus imposes on the person who would like to be called his ‘Disciple’.

In the society we see women subjugated in various aspects. They bear the torture, undergo pain and become subjects of harassment. There are also women, amidst all these problems, bear the pain and ‘stand up’ in the situation. Women are also the ‘masterminds’ to uproot the societal evils. A true disciple of Jesus needs to know and learn these qualities so that he can be ‘another Christ’ for himself and for others and thus to bring the good News of liberation to all.

This is a small effort made to know the qualities of a disciple. It is noteworthy to find out that these qualities are also the qualities every woman possesses specially the women disciples of Jesus. A synthetic approach is being made in the conclusion to inculcate these qualities in the ministry entrusted to us.

1 The Discipleship

1.1 The Qualities of Discipleship

The call for a discipleship involves several aspects. They include, God calls and we accept the call. Once we accept unconditionally, involves our fuller commitment to our ‘yes’ to Him. Finally once when we say unconditional ‘yes’, comes the test, ‘to be identified with the master’.

1.2 A Call to follow

            Whatever we are, wherever we are, God loves us unconditionally, because he wants ‘everyone to be saved’ (1 Tim 2:4) and he ‘doesn’t want any one to be ‘lost’. With this motive, Jesus calls us to follow him. It is a call first and foremost to save my soul and secondly to save souls of the other. His call is a gratuitous call.

1.3 ‘Follow’ – a complete Commitment

God the Father gave the relay baton of salvation to his Only Son Jesus. He won this race through His utmost sincerity and commitment and now the same baton is passed on to me. As a true disciple I must be a person of total commitment and sincerity. For Jesus himself said, “once you put the hand in the plough and look back is not worthy to be my disciple”.

I had a dream of becoming an Engineer but that dream was shattered by the call of Christ. In my following Christ, some time in the middle I was shattered by the attraction towards opposite sex, but I was not shattered. Instead, she by knowing my real intention encouraged me with support and courage.

1.4  The Joy of Discipleship

The story of the Tax collector in Mt. 9:9-17 is a model for Jesus’ gratuitous call of those ostensibly unworthy of discipleship. It is a radical grace enfleshed in the radical demand to follow, a demand which is immediately obeyed. Even though unworthy at the call, after receiving it, the person becomes worthy. The person is spiritually healed, in the very act of physical healing. The inner peace resulting from such grace is noteworthy.

Jesus shows mercy, which is the essence of his messianic mission. He came to call sinners, which imply the recipient’s unworthiness to be called. Jesus shows mercy to Mary Magdalene and latter she becomes the ardent lover and follower of Christ’s mission and thus a role model to be followed by many.

1.5 The Total Renunciation – A Self Denial

The sending of the Twelve among the lost sheep (Mt 10:5-15), incorporates the traditional missionary charge as a sense of reverence and testimony. The rejection of Jesus in his own people and land shows the stringent situation where one needs to work. One is forced to provide new leaders for the shepherdless sheep of Israel.

Missionary needs only basic food and lodging that must be provided as the right by the ones they serve. Wherever they go, are not to seek out better lodging later. The worth of the host is no doubt to be judged by the acceptance of both messenger (hospitality) and the message (faith). Both of them go together.

1.6 Persecution, the Identification with the Master

     The cost of discipleship is the persecution and persecution is the identification of the disciple with the Master. ‘The disciple is no superior to his master. If they’ve called the master the house of Beelzebub, what will they not say his house-hold?” (Mt. 9:34, 12:24).

During the persecution one must not be fearful for He says. “Fear not for I am with you” (Jer 1:7-8). Dispite imprisonment, the persecution cannot keep the Gospel message hidden. It will be out in the light.

2. The Feminine Face of the Discipleship

2.1  Christ’s feminine face to follow

Christ is Son of God and Son of Man and yet He is both male and female. Isn’t this a paradox? Yes, it looks like a paradox. Carl Gustav Jung speaks of ‘self’ as ‘Androgyny’ which refers to the presence of both masculine and feminine qualities in an individual and the ability to realize both potentialities. Thus a human being is both masculine and feminine consisting of anima-animus, personal-shadow, body-mind and conscious-unconscious (Theories of personality by Barbara Engler). A balanced person knows to harmonize these qualities well in one’s life. All the qualities said earlier like mercy, sacrifice, self-denial, persecution, joy can be applied to a woman. She is an embodiment of all these characters. Jesus incorporated all these qualities in his public life, in his existential dealing with the reality, with both men and women.

2.2 The Feminine Qualities

2.2. 1 Courage

To follow someone breaking the boundaries of tradition and culture in the society amidst all the ups and downs needs courage and boldness. Some of the women have shown it like Martha, Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary herself (Mk 15:40-41, 16:1-7).

2.2.2 Self-Denial

‘If you want to follow Christ, leave everything, take up my Cross and follow me”. These words were very much true in the case of Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman etc. Once they knew Him, surrendered totally to Jesus. Samaritan woman goes a step ahead, ‘leaves everything’ and announces about Jesus in her village, Martha, forgets everything and chooses the right spot, ‘to listen’ at the feet of Jesus (Lk 10: 38-42).

2.2.3  Persecution

    Mother’s love to the child is unconditional. Likewise, Mother Mary loved her son unconditionally. From the conception till the death of Jesus, in all her sons’ good and tough situations, she was there to assist his son. As Simeon prophesized a ‘sword was piercing’ Mary’s heart at every moment of Christ’s hardship. This is nothing but the authentic example of true discipleship. Jesus moving with compassion for the trouble the women took, feels sorry for them and says at the way to Calvary, “Do not cry.”

2.2.4 Dignity of person

Society looks women down upon. This was true even to the time of Jesus. Knowing this reality, Jesus upheld the right of women. This is clear from the incident where Jesus raised the widow’s son to life (Lk 7:11-17), the story of Mary Magdalene (Lk 7:36-50), the healing of crippled woman on the Sabbath day Lk 13:10-17), woman searching for the lost coin which symbolize the search of lost humanity (Lk 15:8-10), and the widow demanding justice (Lk 18:10-18) etc.

2.2.5 Joy

‘Assurance’ of discipleship can be said to be fulfilled when the person receives inner peace. Because of the tremendous love and concern for the women and their dignity, Jesus blesses them and makes them as the first ‘Apostles’. It is none but the once sinner Mary Magdalene was sent as ‘apostle’ to proclaim good news to his brothers, and not the 12 who were always with him. It was when Mother Mary was present, the promised Holy Spirit descended upon them.

Thus Jesus had a balanced outlook of personality. By being male He had the characters of female. The qualities said to be feminine such as sensitivity, love, service, self sacrifice, or self-denial, hard work, tenderness, commitment were synonymous with his personality. Jesus demands these same qualities from His would be follower.

3. The Synthetic Approach to Follow Christ

The characters said to be feminine are also the characters needed to be a good disciple of Jesus. What Jesus did at His time in society is also demanded of today. Today’s society is mainly male dominated one, except for a few which see women as equal to men. But there is hardly any culture which see women as superior to man, they are always the weaker sex. Today the task given as St. Paul rightly pointed out is ‘to become another Christ.’ Therefore to become another Christ I need to inculcate a balanced personality within. I must have a balanced approach towards everyone.

3.1 Integration into the ministry

     If I go to people with my patriarchal personality, I will be a failure and if I go with the feminine personality I will be of no value. To keep the boat safe and keep going, I must first and foremost have a balanced approach.

There is always a growing tendency to get alienated from the opposite sex. My experience has taught me that ‘women can change’ the society more than the men. Therefore to bring a positive development in the society our main weapons are the women. Therefore to have a good rapport in the workplace, in the social sectors, I need to cultivate the qualities of love, service, sensitivity, joy, peace, perseverance, hard work, self-sacrifice etc which would enable me to be a better disciple of Jesus.

Discipleship is a deep experience or a deep relationship between the master and the disciple. A true disciple is one who follows the footprint of his master. A Christian discipleship is the ever-deeper growing life of faith in Christ or the experience of Christ, and its highest stage is to remain in faith and love with Christ. Thus a Christian disciple is the one who hears, follows, seeks, finds, comes, sees, and remains with him. The women disciples of Jesus in this sense were the true disciples. This fact challenges me to be an authentic person to like those women disciples.

Raju Felix Crasta