Doing Gender Justice as a Mission Imperative

Announcement of the kingdom of God The gospel of Luke describes John the Baptist going throughout Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight'" (Luke 3: 4-5). When the people ask John, "What then should we do?" John doesn't moralize, but responds proactively: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." (Luke 3: 11-14) In other words, to prepare the path for God's kingdom is to actively do justice and destroy the consequences of the sin. What we have in the words of John the Baptist is an expression of Christological eschatology, i.e. the kingdom of God is going to be given to us as a gift, but at the same time we have been called to "make the path smooth" in our acceptance of the gift. In that sense, eschaton is God-human endeavour, the kingdom that we're awaiting from God is anticipated and expressed in history through the praxis of human beings that should iconize the new eon. In Gustavo Gutierrez's words, "The hope which overcomes death must be rooted in the heart of historical praxis; if this hope doesn't take shape in the present to lead it forward, it will be only an evasion, a futuristic illusion." (1) Christological eschatology means one important thing: it is divine-human synergy, just as Christ has divine-human nature as defined by the ecumenical council of Chalcedon. It isn't a communist utopia in which heaven on earth will be brought about by the proletariat, or a utopia of Zealots during the time of Jesus that human will is capable of bringing kingdom of God. We sometimes forget this truth and make ourselves passive in history through the expectation that God will do everything exclusively. We forget sometimes that "from the very beginning Christianity was socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social and corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically 'social sacraments,' i.e., sacraments of incorporation ... To build up the church of Christ means, therefore, to build up a new society and, by implication, to re-build human society on a new basis." (2) The New Testament reveals the kingdom of God as a new mode of relationship, a new quality of life. The kingdom is proclaimed when the sick and the poor are healed, when the dead are resurrected, when the disenfranchised are accepted, when abundance of food is offered to many, when justice, love, peace, harmony, and solidarity rule (Matt. 4:23, 5:10, 25:34; Luke 9:2, 9:12-18; Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 6:9). Let's look at the words from the beginning of the liturgy in the Orthodox Church: "Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Through these opening words, the liturgy is supposed to open up toward the eschatological kingdom, "a progressive movement towards the fullness of the kingdom of Christ, toward His cosmic and historical triumph." (3) The kingdom of God should be manifested in all of its social implications through historical limitations. It means that the liturgy should not reflect a patriarchal mode of relationship, the degradation of women,4 * disregard of lay people/ and inaccessibility for the sick and elderly. Primacy should be given to these issues that collide with the values of God's kingdom. Genesis 3:16 argues that man should rule over woman, but this verse comes as a consequence of the sin--the fall. This verse only expresses how the male-female relationship has been lived or conducted in our communities where the ideology of men rules, and not God's given/original order. …