Was Jesus a Woman?

Marilyn and Jesus

Marilyn is feminine, non aggressive, demure, even. She notices everything except stop signs and one way streets. She may have taught Mother Theresa a thing or two but also Gail Sheehy, Gloria Steinhem and Betty Friedan. She looks like Betty Crocker but in terms of determination is more like Man Mountain Dean.

She is scared of police and misdemeanor laws and is meek until the police or the law raises a voice or hand against one of her kids or anyone in the family or someone who cannot defend himself, then she’s a bear mother with cubs. I have a theory about Jesus I like to share with her even though she makes the sign of the cross and stuffs marshmallows in her ears. That temple episode where he gets into a physical rage over the money-lenders and curio sellers using God’s purported house as a marketplace was no single tantrum. He was a gentle man with a five star temper. His gentleness was tempered by his sense of justice. A carpenter uses the tools he has to shape what he’s crafting. Jesus was a fighter. You don’t out-wrestle evil with logic, compassion, instruction, acceptance. You heave it across the nave onto the altar and beat it senseless with a collection plate. Then it warms to you and checks its moves when you’re around out of the side of its eye. It respects you now. It’s still evil but it smiles in your direction plenty when you’re around and offers to share its burrito, it’s sizing you up looking for the chink of dark in the light it plans to weasel itself into. When you’ve gone it gets back to cooking up bitter misery and selling it as medicine.

These were the sort of people selling their wares and lending shekels or issuing credit cards to buy them with in the synagogue. Jesus whupping ass was not a one-time thing, it was part of his life to the very end. He bowed to no man, especially those with dead souls. Passivity and acceptance and hope were not things he taught or lived by. The Pharisees taught these things to better shear the sheep. Our own priests teach the same things for the same reasons. He said Sheep are sheep, not men.

Jesus didn't teach Trust in the Lord and you will be delivered. He taught You are the Lord, act like it. He taught Women are not possessions. He learned that from his mother and Mary Magdalene. He said There is no Heaven you can count on except what you make with your lives. He said Hell is when you let others make your life for you and watch it on TV reruns.

Marilyn is like Jesus with more patience and less beard, loving at whatever the cost. I know it’s heresy, but what if Jesus was a, gulp, woman?