I'm three assignments away from finishing this semester! Granted one of those assignments is worth 30% of my grade but let's pretend it's not. Here are the sermon notes from last Sunday (I spent the first part of this week working on a few assignments and the past few days taking a break. My grandpa took me out for lunch and a movie on Thanksgiving, he's hysterical. He messaged this text group (all my uncles and aunt and their spouses) that we were going to a movie about a stripper named Coco and he laughed so hard before showing me the text. This man is a retired preacher, gives very few fucks these days).
My boyfriend joined me at church :) The guest pastor is a shitty preacher. Last time he spoke he just hawked his books. He's the pastor from a megachurch a couple hours away. And he's awful. During the "say hi to your neighbors" part, the woman in front of me introduced herself, she's a Rachel too. This is incredibly ironic as today's sermon is on Rachel, Jacob and Leah. That's right, my church affirms polyamory ;) His first point was everyone has stuff. Articulate.
"These guys have stuff. We didn't really wanna know about." Pictures of Weinstein and Franken show up on the screen. He didn’t say people shouldn’t assault people. He said people should keep their “stuff” private. He didn’t even fuckin say their names, some people in this audience probably don’t know they are assalters. I wanted to know about their stuff. Outing assaulters can prevent more assault. This asshole is more upset he’s heard about assault being on the news than ASSAULT. Fuck him (metaphorically- I would never wish rape on anyone). He keeps using the word stuff when he means trauma or baggage or jesus get a thesaurus.
He went on a rant about fatherly bounds and without them kids have “father wounds” insulting single moms and over glorifying the paternal relationship. If a kid doesn’t have a relationship with their mother, they will have wounds from that too. Dad’s aren’t special or more able to damage their kid. Bad parental relationships hurt kids. But women don’t matter and in this Bible story Jacob has a “father wound” which justifies all his shittyness. This also reminds us of the heteronormativity of this church, like I could forget.
Now he’s talking about beauty privilege without saying the word privilege (big surprise), but how beautiful women have to endure specific temptations and harassment. He doesn’t say harassment is bad or tells the good Christian men to stop harassing women in public. It’s just some women’s burden. Rachel, the Bible character, took the sheep to the well everyday because her father didn’t have any sons. The pastor believes she endured harassment being around all those crass shepherds but that’s not in scripture, nor did he classify this comment as eisegesis or an assumption based on historical context. Belle. Read Genesis 29:9. Rachel wasn’t watering the sheep, she is called a SHEPHERD. She always takes care of the sheep. But this pastor just left that detail out? That Rachel had a job. Hell, Jacob kissed her after just meeting her, this could have been assault! How old was she? Did she want to kiss this stranger that she just learned she was related to?
Leah means cow. What a great name to give your kid. This poor woman! He father snuck her into the marriage tent and Jacob 1. Didn’t notice it wasn’t Rachel (too drunk?) 2. Or didn’t care. Did Leah want to marry Jacob in this manipulative way? Did she want Jacob to have sex with her while he was drunk? There’s a lot of non-consensual shit here because of what isn’t said in scripture. And what about Bilhah and Zilpah, Rachel and Leah’s maids? Did they want to have sex with Jacob and carry children for their masters? Could they have said no without being abused or fired? Of course the pastor brushes over this.
“I’ve discovered anger almost always comes from unrealistic expectations.” How dare I expect men to not harass me in public. Clearly my anger toward them is MY fault and an avoidable “sin” if I just expect to be harassed. He has a point here, some anger does come from not communicated expectation to a person. But it’s not an almost always thing, nor does he say, how about we try to communicate our expectations more? Here’s a nifty little acronym to remind us to not act on SAD temptations (selfish, angry or demanding). I’m an adult, why do I need an acronym? Especially one that connotates sadness with being a sin.
“Ladies let me just talk to you. Have you noticed some young men have a hard time talking to you? That ‘stupid in the face of beauty’?” Oh god. Ladies, let me talk to you. Don’t date someone who can’t communicate to you in full sentences (vocally, written, sign language, whatever). Have that standard please.
Now he’s going on about him making dinners because his wife has a shit commute. Nowhere does he say how many YEARS she made dinners prior to this new job. Yet we are supposed to give him gold stars for making dinners now. I’m so glad you “adapted” for the sake of your marriage, how big of you to order and make a meal kit during the weekdays. Do you wash the dishes too? What a man.
“God may have touched you when you were a child.” No that was my assaulter. Get new metaphors. Ones not involving the same sanitized language people use in reference to molestation, assault or rape.
“She [Leah] has a plan on how to turn him [Jacob] into her soulmate.” That’s manipulative as fuck. Also, she didn’t make herself pregnant with boys, she couldn’t have executed that plan. That was god. Nor did she kill Rachel, that was childbirth, leaving him and her alone for more one on one time(besides the maids, Bilhah and Zilpah). He asks to be buried by Leah before he dies, instead of by Rachel. Congrats! The first two decades or so of his marriage he didn’t like Leah. Married to a man who thought she was ugly. What a great life Leah had. She “wins” for staying connected to god and making Jacob fall in love with her when she was old.
He just bashed Rachel for giving Jacob her maid, then glossed over Leah doing the same damn thing. But she’s the steadfast winner in this story? Both women sound very much like not winners. Where in this sermon was biblical lessons for modern marriages? What advice was actually from the Bible story and not his eisegesis?? I've suffered through Facebook memes with more scripture.
They closed the sermon with baptisms. A different pastor made a joke to the man who got baptized saying, “Francis is my grandmother’s name.” You just made a sexist joke because this man’s name is Francis before baptizing him. You just cheapened what is a very important religious ritual!? And people think I’m sacrilegious. Oh god they are baptizing an 11-year-old. The pastor mocked him for looking seven. What a charming pastor.
I was baptized at seven. I stood on a brick in the baptismal so everyone could see the top of my head. Dad was a deacon so he was allowed to baptize me. Before going up there though, the audience voted on if they thought I should be a member. I watched all these old men raise or not raise their hands, but most did so I was allowed to be baptized. After I asked dad why some people didn’t want me to be baptized and he never answered my question.
Anyway, my parents are out of town tomorrow. I get to miss the last marriage sermon. I’m thankful for that.
-Rachel