Call the Midwife: Sanctified imagination and the birth of Jesus

In listening to a sermon one Sunday, the speaker declared that Mary and Joseph were alone in the barn the night that Jesus was born. He suggested that Mary was without the comfort of a midwife because none are mentioned in the text. Hmmm, there is so much here to unpack.

First, it annoyed me that this was a man (surprise, surprise) who had something to say about child birthing. In my mind the barn was attended by a handyman who mucked out the stalls and replenished the food bowls. Somebody had to fill the manger with hay. The creche dioramas at Christmas time invite shepherds and perhaps a drummer boy to the manger scene. We are happy to install the three wise men at the manger when they were unlikely to be present at the birth since they are described as finding the child with his mother in a house. We don’t mind including them in the manger scene. If we allow such images to be part of our Christmas pageants and decorations, then why can’t we extend to Mary the timely care of midwives?

Second, if Bethlehem is a town, and its so full of people because of the census, and females make up 50% of the population, could we not surmise that Bethlehem was home to a least one midwife? Sure, it is possible to birth your baby in the fields and wrap them up and continue hoeing. This story is borne (ha-ha, get it?) out in anecdotal narratives of women from Philippines. You can read about the Aztec and their maternal care here. If there was no local midwife, could not Joseph implore a female guest of the inn to attend to his wife?

Thirdly, we can agree that references to women are largely missing from the stories in the Bible. Noah and his sons had wives, but they are unnamed. The healing of the leper Naaman is brought about because a little unnamed Israelite slave girl recommended that this general seek out the prophet Elisha. King Lemuel was advised by his unnamed mother to choose a wife who demonstrated the virtues listed in Proverbs 31.

There are so many unnamed women who are part of the Jesus story. Think about the woman at the well, the woman “caught” in adultery, the hemorrhaging woman, the Syrophoenician woman with the sick daughter, and the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. The gospel of Mark refers to “many other women” followed Jesus. Of course, there are many women identified in the New Testament, but some of the main characters in prominent stories remain unnamed.

Fourth, the birth of Jesus and the lack of any mention of midwives is no different than any other story of birthing in the Hebrew bible or New Testament. During the time of slavery to the Egyptians, the Pharaoh decreed that all baby boys should be killed at birth. Two midwives disobeyed the man-made law by obeying the higher law of God and did not kill these babies. They are memorialized with their names entered into the scriptures as Shipharah and Puah. Let us consider the math. Scripture tells us that 600,000 men with women and children walked out of Egypt. If there are 600,000 men, lets suggest that there are equal number of women and the uncounted children. Two midwives are not enough to minister to, let’s say 200,000 women of childbearing years. Looking at modern birth rates, the birth rate in 1910 in the USA was 30 births per 1000 women. That would mean 6000 babies were born in one year to the Israelites, roughly 16 babies per day. Two midwives and 16 babies a day…hmmm. Likely there were other midwives or other women involved.

It troubles me when the inherency of scripture is sacrosanct when considering all the narratives featuring heroic and villainous men. If we suggest that logic informs us the women must also feature in the stories, we come up against those who claim we are reading into scripture what is not there. Hence, we are told that we are wrong, if not cursed for adding to God’s word.

In the same vein, we are told by the fungel (fundamentalist/evangelical) that we must accept the scriptures as written. If we do not, it is because we are using human wisdom which of course is flawed and evil. The word “faith” is thrown at us as in “you just have to have faith that it happened exactly as outlined in the text.” If I refuse to believe that Mary was alone with Joseph in the barn giving birth, I am faithless. I reject this sentiment as well.

Where do we go from here? May I suggest that we take a page from the gospel of John where the writer states that if every deed and teaching of Jesus were written down (John 21:25) the world cannot contain them. If John suggests that mere words penned on sheepskin scrolls cannot contain all that is observable and measurable about the Christ, should we not be humble enough to admit that God is bigger than our minds can comprehend from words on a page? God’s revelation of Godself is more than the sum of the crossed t’s and dotted I’s. God reveals Godself through the human form of a male body as Jesus, God incarnate, and in the Spirit—pneuma, a gender-neutral term. There is a great expanse contained in God who is not containable.

If, in fact the scriptures are Living Words, then there are spaces between the individual letters where the Spiritus Sanctus may breathe and animate us. The story of Jesus’ birth has space for the presence of Mary’s midwife.