Interrupting Silence – By Mike Boucher

Mike Boucher preaches about how Jesus teaches us to interrupt the silence. To align with someone and not just offer a contribution, but offer a commitment. Mike recognizes that this can be nerveracking, but to “speak your truth, even if your voice shakes.”

Full Homily Transcript:

Many of you may have heard me say that I’m a sucker for these Facebook videos that play automatically when you scroll over them.  The other day, I was watching one with a wildebeest caught by a crocodile by a watering hole.  The rest of the herd just looks on as this drama plays out.  The wildebeest is getting slowly and methodically dragged into the water and its fate seems certain.  Then out of the corner of the video comes a head slowly moving across the water.  When it gets close you see it’s a hippopotamus that rears up and uses its foot to hit the crocodile – setting the wildebeest free….

The video got me thinking about today’s gospel – where this drama is building.  This woman is brought before Jesus and the local religious authorities try to trap him in an ethical situation where it looks like both of them are in trouble no matter what he says.  But Jesus responds in a way that dramatically changes the equation.

Before we go any further, I just want to pause to highlight a few details of the story.

The scribes and Pharisees bring this woman before Jesus in the middle of the crowd.  They declare that she has been “caught in adultery” and should be stoned.

Now you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that if, in fact, she is guilty of adultery that adultery requires TWO people and only ONE is appearing in this scene. Furthermore, Mosaic law actually stated that BOTH parties were to be stoned.   But we also know from historical research that women who were sexually assaulted by a man could be “charged” with adultery.  So no matter what actually happened, Jesus knows from the start that this is a sham.

But Jesus is also aware that they are doing this in public.  And when things are done in public, it is meant to make a point.  In this case, they’re trying to do two things. They want to catch Jesus with witnesses present but they are also sending a message to the crowd about their power – and it’s a message especially to the women.

Then and now, we live in a sexist and patriarchal world that targets women and anyone who does not fit the gender binary.  I think Jesus was aware of this.  And if we look at who is speaking in the first part of the gospel, it is all men.  The woman is silent.  She isn’t even given a name and she stands before men who have authority – authority even to take her life.

The great writer Rebecca Solnit – Being unable to tell your story is a living death, and sometimes a literal one…. Violence against women is often against our voices and our stories. It is a refusal of our…right to self-determination, to participation, to consent or dissent; [even] to interpret our own narrative…”

So today we see a woman who is not just quiet, she is silenced.  And the silencing of women can take many forms.  You can be harassed into silence.  Talked over. Cut off or cut out of conversations.  You can be dismissed.  You can even be mansplained.

If you are unfamiliar with mansplaining, Wikipedia defines it as “a pejorative term whereby a man comments on or explains something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner”. You might have seen the New Yorker cartoon of a woman and man at dinner and the guy says, “Let me interrupt your experience with my confidence.”  Heck,  I might even be mansplaining by defining mansplaining…

I won’t ask to see a show of hands at how many women have experienced mansplaining, but I’m guessing the percentage is high.

And while we might laugh at something like mansplaining, the consequences are very real.  Imposed silence is a form of violence, and we all lose when women’s voices are not heard.

My wife has been an incredible teacher for me in this regard.  We’re often at events – especially formal ones like graduations – and she’ll look through the list of speakers or reflect on who has just spoken and say, “Man, man, man, man, man…”  Or sometimes when I am preparing for bible studies, she’ll say, “Who wrote the books of the Bible?  Who mostly speaks in the Bible?  Who used the Bible to establish their authority?  Men, men, men….”  I was even at an event a few days ago that was celebrating diversity and the list of speakers was – you guessed it – man, man, man man.  For my part, there are times when I do not even notice.

I even got to thinking about the title of this passage.  This gospel passage is commonly referred to as “the woman caught in adultery”.  Who made up that title?  Why isn’t it called, “The “conniving male religious leaders using a woman as a pawn in their power games?”  When we keep repeating things like the woman caught in adultery, it starts to shape our thinking and we might miss other things that are going on in the situation.  Words matter.

This stuff is really good to pay attention to, and when we start to pay more attention to it, we see more clearly that patterns still exist.  With all of the gains have made, sexism is still alive and well in our world.

So I would just ask all of us to do a little experiment over the next week.  Whether it’s on television, in a meeting, wherever…Just notice who speaks, how often they speak and with what authority they speak.  Notice who gets interrupted or talked over.  Notice who’s voice carries more weight, whose ideas get amplified and who gets the important roles. 

It’s just an experiment, but if we don’t notice what is happening in front of us – and most of us have been conditioned NOT to see it happening in front of us – then we can’t ever recognize it and we’ll likely never change it.

Just paying attention to who gets to speak and with what authority is a way to begin to interrupt the patriarchy.  But we can’t stop there.

In today’s gospel I think Jesus notices that this woman has been silenced and diffuses the situation with a brilliant response.  But he also squarely positions himself on her side of things.  By publicly diffusing their argument, Jesus casts his lot with this woman.

Isn’t it amazing when people defend you and stick up for you?  Have you ever had anyone do that for you?

Most of us can remember when it happened but we for sure can remember when it didn’t happen, right?

Martin Luther King once said, “”In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

I remember back to our days at Corpus Christi church when we were going through a lot of trouble with the diocese.  I honestly thought that at least a few other churches would speak out with us when we took our stand.  Because when we were out in the community, people said privately, “I so stand for the same things you do!”  But when it came to public solidarity…crickets.

I hear this time and time again in the racial justice circles that I move in.  People of color are in meetings, in workplaces, in schools and there’s an “incident” and no white person comments on it at the time, but after the meeting or later in the day the same people at the meeting come up and say, “Oh my God I was so with you.  What they said was terrible….”  Come on!

A pig and a chicken were walking down the road. As they passed a church, they notice that a potluck charity breakfast was under way. Caught up in the spirit, the pig suggested to the chicken that they each make a contribution.

“Great Idea!” the chicken cried. “Let’s offer them ham and eggs!”

“Whoa, whoa, not so fast.” said the pig. “For you, that’s just a contribution, but for me, it’s a total commitment.”

As he always does, Jesus aligns himself with all the people who were outcast for one reason or another and had very little power.  He lets these people touch him.  He eats with them.  And he goes to bat for them.  Jesus offers the woman a total commitment, not just a contribution, and he invites us to do the same.

Now I can say with some confidence that someone, somehow is going to need you to do that this week.  They are going to need you to align with them or to amplify their voice.  They will need a witness to what just happened or someone who recognizes the offense.  And they’re going to need you to do it in a way that is a total commitment (not a contribution).

Oftentimes when I am faced with these invitations to publicly align, I feel a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat.  At those moments , we often can feel the energy change in the room, and sometimes we’re waiting for someone else to SAY SOMETHING.  I know I get really nervous.  I worry that I won’t say it right or that people won’t like me for saying it.  But I have always loved the phrase, “Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes…”

In the first reading from Isaiah, we hear God say that something new is happening, and Paul’s letter to the Philippians encourages us to “press on.”

There is no way though that the new can emerge without us challenging the old.  So we must press on, keep paying attention and speaking up when we can.

I recently read a story written by a woman who said she was very loud and talkative as a kid – so talkative that some of the adults around her grew tired of her talking and one day told her, “You’d better be careful or your voice will run out.”

But our voices don’t run out.  In fact, they only grow stronger the more we use them.  This week may we have the confidence – even if our voice shakes – to say what needs to be said in a way that might make a crucial difference in the life of someone else.