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Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

Jesus the Game Changer

October 3, 2018

26:35

Jesus the Game Changer

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Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

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the more astonishing it is, the way that Jesus treats women.
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He grew up at a time where Jewish men
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would regularly pray, and thank you God,
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that I'm not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.
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(upbeat electronic music)
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- Jo, if you will, describe what life was like
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as a woman in the Greco-Roman world,
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kind of around the time of Jesus or just before.
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What was life like then?
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- It was just radically different
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from what our world looks like today.
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It partly would depend on the social
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or economic status of the women.
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It would depend on whether she's living in the city
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or the countryside.
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But basically, with the rare exception
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of the very wealthy Greco-Roman women,
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most women just didn't have the autonomy
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that women have today.
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So you would either be under the authority of your father,
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or of your husband.
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Part of this comes from the sort of platonic philosophy
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that you get at that time,
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where Plato basically argued that women
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are in every sense inferior to men,
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whether that's morally, intellectually,
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spiritually, and physically.
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Just in every sense, they're not on the same level.
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And the way that worked out was that
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within the Greco-Roman household,
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there would be a very strong hierarchy.
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And so there was this idea
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that actually woman as a general rule,
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shouldn't be allowed outside of the home.
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Married women would tend to be secluded,
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and it was even worse if you were an unmarried daughter.
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You would just be kept inside a lot of the time.
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Obviously, that's for the more wealthy.
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At the other end of the spectrum,
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if you were extremely poor then there's a good chance
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that you would actually have been a slave.
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And as a slave woman, you're basically
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the property of your master and can be used
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for whatever means he would desire, including sexually.
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And so, it's just a really different world.
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One of the Fourth Century Greek philosopher guy called,
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Dimon Thinners actually writes
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that in that culture,
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men would keep a mistress for pleasure.
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They would keep concubines for their bodily needs,
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and they would keep wife for children
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and for the guarding of the household.
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(relaxed pop music)
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- I tell you what, I'm pretty happy
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I didn't live in that time if I'm really honest.
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It was really different from what we know
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now, at least in our Western world.
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So for instance, Aristotle, he spoke
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that the building blocks of community was friendship,
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and said that we need thriving friendships
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where equals meet and exchange trust
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and intellectual prowess,
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and really build each other up.
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But then going on to write about a relationship
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between a husband and a wife,
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he said the relationship between a husband and a wife
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should be as a ruler and the ruled.
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- Yeah, you really look at the situation
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of the Roman women,
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it was awful.
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Compare that with the situation of Christian women,
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and you really wonder
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why every woman who ever heard
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about it didn't become a Christian immediately.
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Roman girls got married at 12, 13, 14,
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to men who were over 30.
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They had nothing to say about it and very little
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to say about it, at the max.
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They could be divorced, snap of the fingers, and abandoned.
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There was no divorce court
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to tell him you have to pay alimony,
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or anything like that.
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Christian women tended to get married at 18, 19,
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had a lot of say in who they married.
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Divorce was thought to be impermissible.
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It was thought normal for Roman men to play around.
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It was thought
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a sin for Christian men to play around.
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Christian women had simply,
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a much more secure, nicer life.
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(solemn piano and string music)
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- So Jo, this thing that you mentioned, exposure,
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give us a picture of what that would look like.
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- Yeah, so exposure in that context,
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it basically refers, quite literally,
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to the practice of taking out your child,
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but perhaps because you're in horrible poverty
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and you just have no way of supporting them,
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and there's no other option for you.
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So you go out with your child, probably at night
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when no one can see you, and there are little texts
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that refer to children being left
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at someone like the rubbish tip, or the garbage heap,
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where a child would just be left out, basically,
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exposed to the elements.
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And two things would happen:
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either someone would occasionally get instances
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of children being found in that situation,
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and taken and brought up in a household
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where they may become a slave,
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or these children would just die.
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- Was it true that most of those exposed,
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or the higher percentage of those exposed, were girls?
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- Yes, that's right.
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Occasionally you'd find instances of men as well,
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I think just because some people
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would be in such extreme poverty
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that they couldn't even feed another mouth,
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but on the whole it would tend to be women
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because they would be seen as a drain
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on the economy of the household, rather than an asset.
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- The Romans, they didn't wanna take
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a little girl out and just cut her throat,
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so what they'd do is they'd line her up with the roadside.
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We're talking about a day old, two day old infant.
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And the idea was that if somebody came by and wanted her
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and picked her up, then she was going to have a life,
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and if they didn't, they didn't.
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Mostly, they didn't.
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What's even worse than that, it's very hard, I think,
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for modern people, myself included,
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to realize that abortion was widespread
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in the Roman Empire,
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at a time when there were no antibiotics,
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they didn't know anything about germs or cleanliness.
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The fatality rate was enormous.
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And you say well, if women
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were running such an enormous risk
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of death or serious disability,
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why do they have abortions?
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It wasn't up to them.
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Husbands decided whether or not
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there was going to be an abortion.
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And again, you have these older men
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with these very, very young women,
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and frankly, wives were easy to replace
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and they didn't worry much about it.
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This is not a world
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that we can find very attractive.
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- [Karl] How would you explain A21?
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- I think the simplest way is to say
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that we're all about abolishing slavery
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in the 21st Century, that's A and 21.
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- Okay. - Yeah.
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- That's odd, because most people would think
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surely there's no slavery. (Christine laughing)
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- I can tell you 100% of the time,
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that's what people say to me,
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and I thought that probably eight years ago.
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I thought the same thing, but here's the truth, Karl,
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that there are more slaves on the Earth today
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than ever before in the history of humanity,
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which is incomprehensible, it truly is.
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- How did you find out about eight years ago?
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What was the genesis for this? - Yeah, it's a crazy story.
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I was going to Greece, you know I'm Greek,
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and I was going to speak at a women's conference.
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And I got off at Thessaloniki Airport,
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still feeling a bit surreal.
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But Paul wrote Thessalonians, and I'm like here.
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And as I was standing there, I saw all of these posters
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of these young women and children,
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like dozens and dozens, because I can read Greek.
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It said missing, missing.
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And you know, I travel all the time,
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I had never, ever seen that many posters
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of people that are missing.
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So I go out, call my friend from UNICEF,
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and she said to me, Chris,
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these are the alleged victims of human trafficking.
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I don't know that I had actually ever heard that phrase
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before that, and I went what?
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And she goes yes, it's the fastest-growing crime worldwide.
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And because she was from UNICEF, I believed her.
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She goes, they're faster than the trafficking
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of armaments and drugs, is the trafficking of people.
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- Is there a typical kind of sex slavery case?
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- I think it depends what region of the world you're in.
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We work a lot in Kiev, in Europe,
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in lots of countries in Europe,
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so what has often happened there,
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and every case is distinct,
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but is that girls are promised a job.
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There's so much economic depravation in those countries,
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so often traffickers will go, it's called organized crime
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because it's extremely organized.
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So they'll go into villages,
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they'll tell young women
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that we've got a great job opportunity,
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you can be a waitress, or you can be a hairdresser,
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or a nurse, and basically anything you want to be.
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And so the girls will get working Visas,
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and this then becomes quite complex
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to try to prosecute a case
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when someone's gotten a Visa of their own volition,
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to come into a country.
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And they'll get working Visas,
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and then when they arrive at the destination country,
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the trafficker's there, which they don't know
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that it's a trafficker, they think it's a job agent,
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someone that's a mediator.
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They'll take their passport and their papers.
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So now you're in a country, you don't know the language,
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you're totally entrusting the person that's there.
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And before you know it, time and time again,
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they're taken, literally like you would imagine in a movie,
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put in an apartment, raped 10, 15 times a day.
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They've got no way of getting out.
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And if there's no legislation in these countries
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that protect the rights of victims,
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even if they went to law enforcement,
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they would be criminals because they're illegal immigrants
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in the nation, rather than a victim of a crime.
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It is so diverse.
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We're involved in Bangkok,
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and what happens in Thailand is a whole different story,
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especially with young children,
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younger than, I've got a 10-year-old,
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younger than my daughter's age.
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So we are very, very involved in southeast Asia.
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And you'll find it in Australia, in South America.
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We have an office in Cape Town, and in Australia,
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and just the trafficking that happens in Africa,
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it all has a distinctive,
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but it all comes back to the same thing,
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that you have the most vulnerable,
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which are women and children, mostly,
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that are just taken against their will
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and forced to do things that are just unspeakable.
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(solemn piano and string music)
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- When John tells us the story
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of the first Easter Sunday morning, he tells us
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about the women who went to the tomb.
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They were going to anoint
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what they thought would be the dead body of Jesus.
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There was no body there.
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They rushed back to tell the other disciples.
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Mary Magdalene is left in the garden by herself.
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She hears a voice, she turns around, she thinks
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it's a gardener, and it's Jesus.
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Jesus first appears to a woman, which is really important
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for two reasons.
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Firstly, if you were making the story up, if it weren't true
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you wouldn't make a woman as the first person
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that Jesus saw, because at that time, in that culture,
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women had no status and no standing.
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But secondly, what it demonstrates is the importance
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that women had in Jesus' life and ministry.
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The people around Him were women.
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They supported Him in ministry.
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And the early church actually gave women
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position and dignity.
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Women had an important place in the ministry of Jesus,
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and the church as it unfolded.
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(solemn string music)
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Into that setting Jesus comes.
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So how did Jesus treat women around Him?
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- I think the more you study the culture of the time,
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the more astonishing it is, the way that Jesus treats women.
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He grew up at a time where Jewish men
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would regularly pray, thank you God
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that I'm not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.
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And yet you have Jesus coming onto the scene,
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and even if you just look at the way
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He socially interacts with women, it's amazing.
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So often these women were segregated and secluded,
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and yet Jesus not only counts them among His friends
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but He's financially supported by them,
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He travels with these women,
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even to the point where people are looking at Him
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and He's getting a bad reputation for it.
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They're saying oh, He associates
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with prostitutes and sinners,
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but Jesus is more concerned about welcoming these women
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than He is about His own reputation.
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I think His teaching on the subject
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is just absolutely amazing.
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So for example, if you look at the Sermon on the Mount,
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at that time, men could divorce women
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just by writing them a certificate of divorce,
00:13:42.280 --> 00:13:44.270
almost on a whim, if you will.
00:13:44.270 --> 00:13:46.110
So they're incredibly insecure in that culture,
00:13:46.110 --> 00:13:49.030
and yet Jesus says that any man who divorces a woman
00:13:49.030 --> 00:13:52.120
except for adultery, for the sake of adultery,
00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:55.290
is himself committing adultery.
00:13:55.290 --> 00:13:57.200
And so that seems kind of a strange thing to ask
00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:00.260
but in our culture today, but actually
00:14:00.260 --> 00:14:03.020
that's designed to protect women.
00:14:03.020 --> 00:14:05.000
It gives them a security they would not have had.
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:07.130
A similar thing goes on when you look at what Jesus says
00:14:07.130 --> 00:14:10.050
about whoever looks at a woman lustfully
00:14:10.050 --> 00:14:12.180
commits adultery with her in his heart.
00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:14.040
We hear that and we think gosh, that's quite harsh isn't it?
00:14:14.040 --> 00:14:17.070
But actually, at that time,
00:14:17.070 --> 00:14:19.200
women who were beautiful were often written about,
00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:22.000
or seen as dangerous seductresses.
00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:23.220
There are all kinds of texts of that time
00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:25.070
that really condemn women for leading men astray sexually.
00:14:25.070 --> 00:14:28.230
Even get a text slightly later, written by a rabbi
00:14:28.230 --> 00:14:31.260
who says it's more dangerous to walk behind a woman
00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:34.100
than it is to walk behind a lion.
00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:36.100
See, you kind of, within this culture,
00:14:36.100 --> 00:14:37.280
then Jesus comes along and He says that.
00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:39.240
And actually, it's just amazing, because what He's saying
00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:41.290
is men, if you're struggling with lust,
00:14:41.290 --> 00:14:44.140
if you're objectifying women,
00:14:44.140 --> 00:14:46.070
you can't put the blame on these women.
00:14:46.070 --> 00:14:48.030
Actually it begins within your own heart,
00:14:48.030 --> 00:14:50.200
which is just radical.
00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:52.020
Actually for that day in age, and I think
00:14:52.020 --> 00:14:53.170
even in our culture today, that's quite unexpected.
00:14:53.170 --> 00:14:56.140
- But Jesus always went after the lost,
00:14:56.140 --> 00:14:59.250
and the last, and the least.
00:14:59.250 --> 00:15:01.100
He had women disciples,
00:15:01.100 --> 00:15:02.240
though people don't usually realize that.
00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:04.080
All you gotta do is read through the Bible
00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:06.030
and look at Susanna, look at different people
00:15:06.030 --> 00:15:09.010
that He mentions that not only followed Him around
00:15:09.010 --> 00:15:11.240
with His other disciples, but actually funded His ministry.
00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:15.120
That was unheard of, that was shocking,
00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.020
that would've been shameful in a time
00:15:17.020 --> 00:15:18.250
when women couldn't have economic transactions,
00:15:18.250 --> 00:15:21.010
couldn't be seen as social, or political,
00:15:21.010 --> 00:15:23.270
or financial leaders.
00:15:23.270 --> 00:15:25.110
And yet He had women that not only followed Him enough,
00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:27.180
but put their own personal finances
00:15:27.180 --> 00:15:30.080
into backing His ministry.
00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.070
(solemn string music)
00:15:33.070 --> 00:15:36.120
- The scene with Mary and Martha, I love that,
00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:45.230
because Martha's doing what the culture expects of her.
00:15:45.230 --> 00:15:48.170
She's cooking, she's cleaning,
00:15:48.170 --> 00:15:50.150
she's doing all that.
00:15:50.150 --> 00:15:51.260
Not that there's anything wrong with that,
00:15:51.260 --> 00:15:53.110
but then she pipes up and says hey, look at Mary.
00:15:53.110 --> 00:15:55.250
Tell her to come help me.
00:15:56.260 --> 00:15:58.160
And Jesus tells her,
00:15:58.160 --> 00:16:01.210
you know what?
00:16:01.210 --> 00:16:02.190
Mary has chosen what is better.
00:16:02.190 --> 00:16:03.260
It's not gonna be taken from her.
00:16:03.260 --> 00:16:05.100
And I think that's just revolutionary.
00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:07.120
Here, I'm gonna continue to let her sit at my feet
00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:10.150
and learn theology, philosophy,
00:16:10.150 --> 00:16:14.130
'cause she has a mind.
00:16:14.130 --> 00:16:15.230
God has given her a rational mind
00:16:15.230 --> 00:16:17.290
that needs developed, and look what she's doing.
00:16:17.290 --> 00:16:20.040
She's sitting here learning from the greatest teacher
00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:22.110
who ever lived.
00:16:22.110 --> 00:16:23.180
It's not gonna be taken away from her.
00:16:23.180 --> 00:16:25.060
Wow!
00:16:25.060 --> 00:16:26.130
What a statement, that she's not just an object
00:16:26.130 --> 00:16:28.240
to be used, but she is a subject
00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:31.030
who's a human being to be loved, to be poured into.
00:16:31.030 --> 00:16:35.180
And I think that's the major change that you see
00:16:35.180 --> 00:16:38.200
with how Jesus interacts with women.
00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.050
- Do you see Jesus being very different
00:16:41.050 --> 00:16:43.080
from His culture at the time?
00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:45.130
- Absolutely.
00:16:45.130 --> 00:16:46.190
I think that we look at the tradition
00:16:46.190 --> 00:16:49.130
of the Jewish culture out of which He came.
00:16:49.130 --> 00:16:52.090
Women were to sit on one side, or to sit
00:16:52.090 --> 00:16:54.060
in the back of a synagogue or a temple,
00:16:54.060 --> 00:16:56.280
men were in the front.
00:16:56.280 --> 00:16:58.130
So you think about the story of the woman
00:16:58.130 --> 00:17:00.190
that was bent over, who Jesus, as He was preaching,
00:17:00.190 --> 00:17:04.050
stopped everything that He was doing, and saw her,
00:17:04.050 --> 00:17:07.250
and didn't go to the back to her, but called her forward
00:17:07.250 --> 00:17:11.070
in the midst of His preaching,
00:17:11.070 --> 00:17:14.020
and laid hands on her.
00:17:14.020 --> 00:17:16.270
I can't imagine what it was like.
00:17:16.270 --> 00:17:19.080
A pin must have dropped, all of them must have looked
00:17:19.080 --> 00:17:21.180
and said what on Earth?
00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:23.110
Or you think of those who were angry with Him
00:17:23.110 --> 00:17:25.050
for healing on the Sabbath.
00:17:25.050 --> 00:17:26.220
He said you untie your donkeys.
00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:28.240
Should not this woman go free on the Sabbath?
00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:32.100
Jesus was completely counter-cultural,
00:17:32.100 --> 00:17:34.240
which is why they wanted to run Him off a cliff,
00:17:34.240 --> 00:17:36.120
which is why we see they wanted to kill Him
00:17:36.120 --> 00:17:39.000
from the very beginning.
00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.250
- In the context that Paul, and Jesus,
00:17:40.250 --> 00:17:43.170
and the early church stood,
00:17:43.170 --> 00:17:45.030
that was a radical shift, wasn't it?
00:17:45.030 --> 00:17:47.000
- Yeah.
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:48.120
Paul is doing some really unexpected things.
00:17:48.120 --> 00:17:49.290
He really, I would say, he's just
00:17:49.290 --> 00:17:51.060
carrying on what Jesus began.
00:17:51.060 --> 00:17:54.000
Even if you look at just the way he greets women
00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:56.130
in Romans 16, he's addressing
00:17:56.130 --> 00:17:59.020
a whole host of women who he calls his coworkers.
00:17:59.020 --> 00:18:01.150
You have Phoebe who's referred to as a deacon,
00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:03.290
and Paul even says she's a patroness of me.
00:18:03.290 --> 00:18:06.160
You have Junia, who he praises
00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:08.190
as someone who's outstanding among the apostles,
00:18:08.190 --> 00:18:11.010
and his good friends Priscilla and Aquila
00:18:11.010 --> 00:18:13.020
who are a married couple, who Paul often is working with.
00:18:13.020 --> 00:18:16.120
So already, you see him interacting in a different way,
00:18:16.120 --> 00:18:19.100
just this kind of general expectation
00:18:19.100 --> 00:18:21.010
that women are involved in the work of the church.
00:18:21.010 --> 00:18:23.130
And of course, we have this amazing vision that he writes,
00:18:23.130 --> 00:18:26.010
that in Christ,
00:18:26.010 --> 00:18:28.040
there's no male or female, but all are one.
00:18:28.040 --> 00:18:31.020
And I think often, we'll look at texts,
00:18:32.070 --> 00:18:34.210
because we don't understand the context,
00:18:34.210 --> 00:18:36.090
they can seem hard to understand.
00:18:36.090 --> 00:18:38.250
So we look at Corinthians and we think,
00:18:38.250 --> 00:18:40.090
what is going on in Paul's teaching on marriage?
00:18:40.090 --> 00:18:42.170
But actually, what he has to say about men and women
00:18:42.170 --> 00:18:45.260
within the marriage relationship,
00:18:45.260 --> 00:18:47.250
is just a real change from what's come before.
00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:51.030
So for example, He says
00:18:51.030 --> 00:18:53.050
that not only does a wife's body belong to her husband,
00:18:53.050 --> 00:18:56.190
but actually a husband's body belongs to his wife.
00:18:56.190 --> 00:18:59.260
When we're looking at those marriage inequalities
00:18:59.260 --> 00:19:01.290
of younger women marrying older men,
00:19:01.290 --> 00:19:04.100
this idea that there might be equal interdependence,
00:19:04.100 --> 00:19:07.170
if you will, is amazing.
00:19:07.170 --> 00:19:09.220
- They were basically
00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:10.280
setting up a different model of society.
00:19:10.280 --> 00:19:15.280
It was enormously attractive.
00:19:15.280 --> 00:19:17.200
Actually, when you start looking at the early church
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:20.140
within the context of the Roman Empire,
00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:24.090
you wonder why everybody didn't turn Christian
00:19:24.090 --> 00:19:26.270
in the first 10 years!
00:19:26.270 --> 00:19:28.260
(inspirational piano and string music)
00:19:28.260 --> 00:19:33.130
- So how have women influenced
00:19:36.130 --> 00:19:38.080
the growth and development of the church?
00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:40.210
- Oh, in enormous ways.
00:19:40.210 --> 00:19:42.280
Women were there from the very early start,
00:19:42.280 --> 00:19:45.060
in the earliest communities, leading and teaching people.
00:19:45.060 --> 00:19:49.230
They influenced the church
00:19:49.230 --> 00:19:52.190
through being in convents, and those kind of things,
00:19:52.190 --> 00:19:55.290
but I think one of the really striking features
00:19:55.290 --> 00:19:59.070
that you find throughout Christian history,
00:19:59.070 --> 00:20:01.280
is that the vast majority of mystics were women.
00:20:01.280 --> 00:20:05.050
So those who were having remarkable religious experiences
00:20:05.050 --> 00:20:08.140
and talking about their religious experiences,
00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:10.240
now most of those, not all of them,
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:12.070
but most of them were women.
00:20:12.070 --> 00:20:13.170
So I think there's something about the way
00:20:13.170 --> 00:20:15.260
in which the women, 'cause they were probably
00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:17.240
outside of the power structures
00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:19.050
and outside of the influence,
00:20:19.050 --> 00:20:20.240
were able to see things more clearly.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:22.280
And I think there's a remarkable strand to trace there,
00:20:22.280 --> 00:20:26.070
of women's influence in that kind of way.
00:20:26.070 --> 00:20:28.280
(inspirational string music)
00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:32.150
- In the early church and moving onwards, you just see
00:20:32.150 --> 00:20:34.160
women throughout history doing astonishing things
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:37.120
to advance the Kingdom of God.
00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:38.250
So if you want to look, for example,
00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:41.130
at the women who founded religious orders
00:20:41.130 --> 00:20:43.280
like Saint Clare of Assisi,
00:20:43.280 --> 00:20:45.170
or you could look at women who the Roman Catholic Church
00:20:45.170 --> 00:20:48.040
has now recognized, adopters of the church
00:20:48.040 --> 00:20:49.290
like Catherine of Siena,
00:20:49.290 --> 00:20:51.140
these women who aren't just doing amazing work as deacons,
00:20:51.140 --> 00:20:54.150
among the poor, and caring,
00:20:54.150 --> 00:20:56.180
but actually they also have a public voice for Christianity
00:20:56.180 --> 00:20:59.290
within their society.
00:20:59.290 --> 00:21:01.180
- I think people often look at religious orders,
00:21:01.180 --> 00:21:04.020
women in religious orders, nuns,
00:21:04.020 --> 00:21:05.140
as somehow missing out on life,
00:21:05.140 --> 00:21:08.120
but they actually opened up opportunities
00:21:08.120 --> 00:21:10.120
for them to make a difference
00:21:10.120 --> 00:21:11.290
where they couldn't at that period of time, could they?
00:21:11.290 --> 00:21:13.140
- At that time, women just didn't have options.
00:21:13.140 --> 00:21:15.230
So many of these women were not even educated,
00:21:15.230 --> 00:21:18.070
and the only expectation is that you marry,
00:21:18.070 --> 00:21:20.090
you have children, whereas actually religious orders
00:21:20.090 --> 00:21:22.170
opened up an entire other way of life.
00:21:22.170 --> 00:21:24.270
It recognizes that actually, women
00:21:24.270 --> 00:21:26.160
have this spiritual calling as well,
00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:29.050
and it gives women opportunities for an education,
00:21:29.050 --> 00:21:31.280
and women opportunities to actually be validated
00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:36.160
as someone who is equal before God
00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:38.230
and therefore has a role to play in building His kingdom,
00:21:38.230 --> 00:21:41.080
whether that's through caring for the poor,
00:21:41.080 --> 00:21:43.070
whether it's through education.
00:21:43.070 --> 00:21:44.280
In so many ways, these women did remarkable things
00:21:44.280 --> 00:21:48.070
through religious orders.
00:21:48.070 --> 00:21:50.130
(inspirational string music)
00:21:50.130 --> 00:21:54.050
- There's a lot of people watch this Sister Clare
00:21:55.180 --> 00:21:57.020
and think wow, she joined the Sisters of Charity at 21.
00:21:57.020 --> 00:22:01.010
And there'll be a sense
00:22:01.010 --> 00:22:02.150
of, she's missed out on a whole bunch.
00:22:02.150 --> 00:22:04.240
How do you see your life, all these years later?
00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:08.020
- I would never have had this life
00:22:08.020 --> 00:22:10.060
if I had've been a laywoman,
00:22:10.060 --> 00:22:12.200
finished my nurse training at the (mumbles) in Brisbane.
00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:15.130
My life would never have been as fulfilling
00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.270
as it is as a woman religious,
00:22:19.270 --> 00:22:22.240
and as a Sister of Charity.
00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:24.020
I would never have had this life.
00:22:24.020 --> 00:22:26.160
Each day when I get up in the morning,
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.040
I thank God for my vocation.
00:22:28.040 --> 00:22:30.200
- In my own case, I was born in Australia.
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:33.140
Now this part I didn't find out 'till I was 33,
00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:35.180
but I was aware of it when I started A21.
00:22:35.180 --> 00:22:37.230
You know, Australia, between 1958 and 1968,
00:22:38.280 --> 00:22:43.210
we had a time where many, many women
00:22:43.210 --> 00:22:47.120
who were single and pregnant,
00:22:47.120 --> 00:22:49.220
and had gotten pregnant out of wedlock,
00:22:49.220 --> 00:22:52.110
were forced to give their babies up for adoption.
00:22:52.110 --> 00:22:55.040
Well when I was 33, I found out that I
00:22:55.040 --> 00:22:57.100
was one of those children,
00:22:57.100 --> 00:22:58.270
and that my biological mother
00:22:58.270 --> 00:23:01.220
was a 23-year-old single woman.
00:23:01.220 --> 00:23:03.280
When you're Greek, and Greek in Australia way back then,
00:23:03.280 --> 00:23:06.220
dear Lord, to be not married and pregnant
00:23:06.220 --> 00:23:09.140
would have been the greatest shame that could've existed.
00:23:09.140 --> 00:23:11.260
And so she had me at Crown Street Women's Hospital,
00:23:11.260 --> 00:23:15.220
and I was left there.
00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:17.100
Now on my birth certificate, there is no name.
00:23:17.100 --> 00:23:19.210
In the category that says child's name,
00:23:19.210 --> 00:23:21.230
next to it is literally typed-in the word unnamed,
00:23:21.230 --> 00:23:24.220
number 2508 of 1966.
00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:27.240
So here I was, left in a hospital in Sydney, Australia,
00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:32.020
a number, not a name.
00:23:32.020 --> 00:23:33.160
So to me, instantly when you think 27 million,
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.000
it's not just a number
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:37.150
because I could be 2508, one of those 27 millions.
00:23:37.150 --> 00:23:40.170
Now just imagine, Karl, if I wasn't born in Australia.
00:23:40.170 --> 00:23:43.140
I could've been that very same child, a Greek girl
00:23:43.140 --> 00:23:46.070
to a single Greek mother, but left in a hospital
00:23:46.070 --> 00:23:48.240
in Greece, or Albania, or Romania,
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:51.190
or Yugoslavia, I mean, pick the country
00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:53.250
in that region of the world,
00:23:53.250 --> 00:23:55.150
and nobody would've known that I existed.
00:23:55.150 --> 00:23:57.220
And so a trafficker could have taken me.
00:23:57.220 --> 00:24:00.070
You're one degree separated.
00:24:01.060 --> 00:24:02.190
So we just think it's happening over there somewhere else,
00:24:02.190 --> 00:24:05.130
and it really doesn't concern me.
00:24:05.130 --> 00:24:07.190
I'm thinking this couldn't be more personal if I tried.
00:24:07.190 --> 00:24:10.200
- It's a really interesting time to live, I think.
00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:12.170
I meet so many women who will say to me,
00:24:12.170 --> 00:24:14.200
I can never become a Christian,
00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:16.090
because the Bible, or Christianity is just too misogynistic.
00:24:16.090 --> 00:24:19.130
The church has nothing to offer me.
00:24:19.130 --> 00:24:21.190
And it just makes me so sad, because I have to say
00:24:21.190 --> 00:24:23.260
that as a woman who's grown up within the church,
00:24:23.260 --> 00:24:26.250
actually I just think I've found a freedom
00:24:26.250 --> 00:24:29.110
that I don't see anywhere else, in our culture of freedom,
00:24:29.110 --> 00:24:32.280
from being objectified, from being seen
00:24:32.280 --> 00:24:34.270
as just a sexual object, a freedom to become
00:24:34.270 --> 00:24:38.280
who God has called me to be in every aspect of life.
00:24:38.280 --> 00:24:42.030
And it's not about meeting cultural expectations
00:24:42.030 --> 00:24:44.130
and what society says I have to do, but actually
00:24:44.130 --> 00:24:48.020
it's about who does God call me to be.
00:24:48.020 --> 00:24:49.270
And I think actually, within our time,
00:24:49.270 --> 00:24:52.170
more than ever, women are being encouraged into that.
00:24:52.170 --> 00:24:55.120
- Karl, this is quite funny, 'cause a lot of people
00:24:56.230 --> 00:24:58.090
don't like the phrase born again.
00:24:58.090 --> 00:24:59.250
Okay.
00:24:59.250 --> 00:25:01.130
But I didn't like the way I was born the first time,
00:25:01.130 --> 00:25:02.240
so I kind of really love,
00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:04.080
I'm back to reclaiming it 'cause I really love the fact
00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:06.160
that you get the chance.
00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:07.270
And for all, perhaps, the stigma
00:25:07.270 --> 00:25:11.000
associated with the truth of that, at its core,
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.200
is so powerful.
00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:14.180
That's why He's a game-changer,
00:25:14.180 --> 00:25:16.020
because He took this unnamed, unwanted, abused, adopted,
00:25:16.020 --> 00:25:19.030
chick, that should've been a statistic,
00:25:19.030 --> 00:25:21.000
and He was the game-changer.
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:23.110
He just turned my life around radically.
00:25:23.110 --> 00:25:26.010
And then not only that, but He gave me
00:25:26.010 --> 00:25:29.210
this sense of like, you know what?
00:25:29.210 --> 00:25:31.040
My life could be a game-changer for somebody else's life.
00:25:31.040 --> 00:25:33.180
And I thought I've only got one life.
00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:35.170
It's so quick, it's here today,
00:25:35.170 --> 00:25:36.260
gone tomorrow. (snapping fingers)
00:25:36.260 --> 00:25:38.040
And you're just kind of sitting in that moment,
00:25:38.040 --> 00:25:39.260
going, you know what?
00:25:39.260 --> 00:25:41.040
You can either live as a victim,
00:25:41.040 --> 00:25:43.090
or you can either live safe, or you can go, you know what?
00:25:43.090 --> 00:25:46.280
Jesus came and rescued me,
00:25:46.280 --> 00:25:48.180
and my life can be a game-changer for someone else's life.
00:25:48.180 --> 00:25:51.060
It doesn't mean it has to be spectacular.
00:25:51.060 --> 00:25:53.070
It doesn't mean it has to be sensational,
00:25:53.070 --> 00:25:55.070
but I truly believe if you value your life,
00:25:55.070 --> 00:25:57.140
your life can be a game-changer for somebody else's.
00:25:57.140 --> 00:26:00.110
Absolutely.
00:26:00.110 --> 00:26:01.140
(inspirational electronic music)
00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:04.260
It's cool in the air
00:26:04.260 --> 00:26:09.260
Smiling into my new life
00:26:10.250 --> 00:26:14.200
It's cool in the air
00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:19.180
Smiling into my new life
00:26:20.230 --> 00:26:24.170
It's cool in the air
00:26:24.170 --> 00:26:29.170
Smiling into my new life
00:26:30.220 --> 00:26:34.150
It's cool in the air
00:26:34.150 --> 00:26:39.140
It's cool in the air
00:26:44.140 --> 00:26:49.140
Smiling into my new life
00:26:50.210 --> 00:26:54.120
It's cool in the air
00:26:54.120 --> 00:26:59.120
Smiling into my new life
00:27:00.220 --> 00:27:04.140
It's cool in the air
00:27:04.140 --> 00:27:09.130
Smiling into my new life
00:27:10.210 --> 00:27:14.080

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Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

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Menu Top

Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

Jesus the Game Changer | Episode 5 | Women

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