Numbers 27:1-11
October 27
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Introduction to the Text
I have to tell you I’ve had the most wonderful few weeks in preparation and becoming friends with these five sisters. Between walking beside them in the desert, I’ve had the remarkable Professor Kathie Sakenfeld walking beside me in faithfulness and scholarship – every step of the way. And gratitude to Carol Wehrheim for writing our Study Guide. [ii]
And to top it all off, I’ve discovered contemporary Jewish women’s Midrash – voices of faith, artwork, poetry, and song, all celebrating five remarkable women who lived thousands of years ago.
Our story, from the 4th Book of the Hebrew Scriptures, is set in the Plains of Moab, across the Jordan River from Jericho. The Israelites are in the wilderness, awaiting the crossing of the Jordan River, to find their new home in the Promised Land.
How did they do it? These five sisters, orphans without standing, unmarried women without security, making their way to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, stepping over the threshold to God’s own sanctuary in the desert, a tabernacle where Moses himself and throngs of formidable men gather, and they walk right into the place of sacrifice and worship — not a place where women’s voices or upper registers are heard. And everyone is listening. [iii]
And in full-voice, before God and everyone, they proclaim the right, under the law, to be counted, valued, respected, and seen as human beings. [iv]
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah – they do the unthinkable. Voices reaching across time and space: ‘Our father died before we reach the Promised Land. Why should the name of our father be taken away from our clan because he had no son? Give to us his possession.’
They know the rules and regulations. They understand what it means to be at the mercy of men – and to be in danger without men. They understand the problem of not belonging. Their lack of both brother and father means they no longer belong: a family forgotten; no name in the genealogy; no protection under the law.
Kathie Sakenfeld, in her inaugural lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, takes us to the heart of this passage and into the workings of feminist biblical interpretation. She speaks of many possible interpretations for this text, and through her scholarship, Professor Sakenfeld opens the Word of God as it comes to the community in its encounter with the text; that the revelation of this story comes to us because God is at work in the whole life of the believing community.
She says: I believe in the power of acts of imagination. As the community encounters the Bible, hearing God’s Word, is an act of imagination where personal experience and the biblical text most readily touch each other, because together we can mark a path through the wilderness to the land of promise. [v]
Now here’s the place this pastor can jump into – where the act of imagination, personal experience, and the biblical text are converging. I can hold onto that faith-filled imagination. These sisters too converge at the Tent of Meeting, and in their bravery, they broaden our theological imagination.
Through this one small, but mighty story – so easy to gloss over because it’s hidden in the middle of a book that’s one never-ending list — comes voices that spin an ancient world on its head: Belonging is magnified, being counted is amplified, and God’s generosity is multiplied. All because five women were willing to claim:
- They too are God’s beloved,
- They too have names.
- They too have a place.
- They too have the power to advocate.
- They too should enjoy inheritance.
Not only are these sisters our fore-mothers in the faith; they are also our inheritance. [vi]
What is your inheritance in the faith?
Here’s a little bit of mine. In 8th grade, I asked my parents about becoming a Presbyterian minister. I think they tried to remain calm. In those days, there were no ordained women clergy in the Pittsburgh Presbytery. My church was the last in the Presbytery to ordain women Elders and that was in 1984. To say my parents were speechless is an understatement, and not knowing what to say, they sent me to talk to my pastor.
My father drove me to church mid-week after school and I met with my pastor, in his office. I said to him I felt God wanted me to be a Presbyterian minister; that there was so much joy inside of me, and I thought I would like to study the Bible. My pastor said he was sorry, so very sorry, but it wouldn’t be possible. He said, I could marry a minister, but not be a minister. He said there was so much I had to be grateful for as I had many role models in the faith, including my mother, aunts, and grandmothers, who enjoyed working in the church’s kitchen. The church he said, did not ordain women to become clergy. He lied.
Four years before I was born, Margaret Towner was the first woman to be ordained as Presbyterian clergy by the Syracuse-Cayuga Presbytery of New York. That very year Katie Geneva Cannon was the first African-American woman ordained. In 1965, the first woman in the southern branch of our church, Rachel Henderlite, was ordained a Minister of Word and Sacrament. Perla Belo, the first Asian American woman ordained in 1985. And you can bet, for years before Margaret, Katie, Rachel, and Perla, dozens and dozens of people of the church acted as Daughters of Zelophehad, standing in the halls of power in our denomination to demand justice. They spoke, saying the voices of women had an equal inheritance to preaching, teaching, lecturing, counseling, and having a voice at Session and General Assembly.
Ten years later, I had graduated from college, moved to New York City, and joined a new Presbyterian Church, and a few years after that, with great trepidation, I approached my new pastor in New York City and asked if we could meet. His name was Bob Nunn, and when I met in his office, I said I really, really felt called to be a Presbyterian minister, and called to serve the church, he said, “Of course you do. I’ve been waiting for you to talk to me. When would you like to begin?” It may have not been like standing before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and all the congregation, but in my world, it was close. And Bob Nunn was for me, a Daughter of Zelophehad.
And it’s not just ordination. The Daughter’s act for justice is for anyone denied serving Christ and the church; anyone refused full inclusion, to fully serve our Lord, be it race, gender, sexuality, marital status, being otherly-abled, financially insecure, and more.
Take a look at the cover of your Order of Worship. It’s a painting of the Daughters of Zelophehad. It’s painted by Presbyterian minister, Lauren Wright Pittman,[vii] who says, when the powers in place don’t budge, it’s not the end of the story. For those whose voices are less valued, those who go unseen, those who have fought a long and continuing fight, we must breathe life into those old, tired, worn-out laws. The winds of change, the breath of God, surrounds the tent of meeting, and the voice of God descends on these women, hearing their cry. New life sprouts from the ground as the law is heard afresh. And the catalyst for this moment of new inheritance – it isn’t only the women’s strength; it takes all of us to listen. Moses opened his heart, and God declares, “They are right.” Make way for change.[viii]
Our faith is living, breathing, changing.
Remember their names:
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah.
Remember their names:
Margaret, Katie, Rachel, and Perla,
Kathie, Carol, and Bob … You.
Remember Your Names.
ENDNOTES
[i] Numbers 27:1-11 NRSV: Then the daughters of Zelophehad came forward. Zelophehad was son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph, a member of the Manassite clans. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and they said, “Our father died in the wilderness; he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin; and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” Moses brought their case before the Lord. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: The daughters of Zelophehad are right in what they are saying; you shall indeed let them possess an inheritance among their father’s brothers and pass the inheritance of their father on to them. You shall also say to the Israelites, “If a man dies, and has no son, then you shall pass his inheritance on to his daughter. If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. It shall be for the Israelites a statute and ordinance, as the Lord commanded Moses.”
[ii] Carol Wehrheim. https://nassauchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fall-2024-Small-Groups-Guide.pdf.
[iii] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. “Feminist Biblical Interpretation.” Theology Today, Vol. 46, Issue 2, 1989, 155.
[iv] Lauren Wright Pittman. Adapted from her Artist’s Reflection on They Stood, a graphic image
inspired by Numbers 27:1-11. © A Sanctified Art LLC, Sanctifiedart.org, 1, 2018.
[v] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. 166-168.
[vi] Teri Peterson. “Expanded Inheritance: Numbers 27.1-11.” The Presbyterian Church of Palantine, IL, June 5, 2016, palatinepres.org.
[vii] Lauren Wright Pittman. They Stood, a graphic image inspired by Numbers 27:1-11. © A Sanctified Art LLC, Sanctifiedart.org:
https://nassauchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fall-2024-Small-Groups-Guide.pdf
[viii] Lauren Wright Pittman.