Lent #4 - Miriam: Awakening Prophetic Imagination | @kaleophx
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MARCH 27, 2022
For the fourth week of Lent, I spoke at Kaleo Phoenix about the life of Miriam. Most of what I shared was the work of Rev. Wilda C. Gafney. Check out her blog and her book! Below is a recording from that gathering and a transcript of my message notes.
LENT #4
“Miriam - Awakening Prophetic Imagination”
Women of the Bible | Erin Dooley
As many of your know, my husband Kendall works at a non-profit organization called Neighborhood Ministries, and once a year they go on a silent, spiritual retreat. It’s usually held at a montissori but due to schedule conflicts Neighborhood was having it at Mountain Meadows camp in Payson, AZ. Now, this was Kendall’s first time being invited since he started full-time last year.
Kendall invited me to go with and being more intentionally adventurous this year we decided to turn it into a long weekend of achieving a few items on our Arizona bucket list. Two of which were seeing Antelope Canyon and Horshoe Bend up in Page, AZ.
Although Antelope Canyon was kind of a disappointment for Kendall because he thought we were going to be riding through the red desert in ATVs as we laughed carelessly and let our luscious locs flow in the wind.
It was more of a slow - three quarters of a mile walk. SLIGHT miscommunication (haha!) but it was beautiful nonetheless!
As we walked through the tall red rocks smoothed over by hundreds of years of wind, water and storm; I touched the cold cavern imagining the many people and animals that have made their way through this same canyon. This was the first day of this experience and I noticed how I unconsciously, I even started to listen to nature and the quiet world around me – it was almost like my body knew that the day after tomorrow we would be in Mountain Meadows add a silent retreat.
We left Antelope Canyon and took a 10-minute drive to Horseshoe Bend. And once again, it was breathtakingly beautiful! I was amazed, and still am at how much beauty is in this one state. And how many different types of terrain you can experience in Arizona.
The day moved on we found ourselves at Big John's BBQ - rated the best BBQ in Page, AZ . Unbeknownst to me, there were several elderly White women that did not think that our young Black bodily presence was necessary. Kendall was the only one who noticed at the time but later told me he kept quiet because he did not want to disturb my present joy. The BBQ was surprisingly really good – like Uncle Lee cookin’ a BBQ out back good. Marinated overnight good. Peach cobbler vanilla ice cream good – my God.
Later that day we drove down to Flagstaff to stay overnight at one of our friend’s homes. Settling in after a full day of Adventure was different in a way that I have a hard time describing but I will attempt to.
Again, it was like my body new the silent retreat was coming and at one point in time in the future, words could no longer be uttered so get all of the words out now because there’s coming a time when you cannot. And as I imagined the time of silence I began to listen to the words that my body was speaking.
It’s almost like the book, “The Body Keeps the Score.” The body is always speaking, always tallying, always aware of everything you experience…and Has a language of its own that tells you how it feels but it speaks with Words that cannot be uttered. It speaks with words I can only be heard in silence.
So the silent retreat came and I made a list of things I wanted to hear from God about:
My purpose and identity
Tangible things I can do to reclaim relational confidence
New vision for friendships / especially in light of the ones I’ve felt I’ve recently lost
I wanted to hear from God about partnership and motherhood
I wanted a clear vision and purpose for pastoring and my role as a Black female co-pastor. If I’m honest I don’t always feel confident doing what I’m doing. And sometimes imposture syndrome creeps up on me. So I wanted to hear from God about it.
I left the list alone for fear of becoming too methodical and instead tried to align myself with the mindlessness of “being.” The next few days were intended for me to connect with myself, the Holy Spirit, and the world around me.
As the days went on I began to notice the emotions of my physical body surfacing and welling up. Things I didn't know that I felt became tears welled up in my eyes that flowed down my cheeks and quickly observed by my husband.
We discussed it but I could not figure out why I was crying except that I had never felt this before…nor did I realize I could feel like this…nor was I slowed down enough to know that this is how I’ve been feeling for a long time.
I felt vulnerable, bare, insecure, unsure, and unsettled. I didn't bring much of anything except my Bible, a notebook, and a book called “The Daughters of Miriam” by Wilda C Gafney.
I knew that I was going to be preaching about a woman of the Bible and, at first, I thought I was going to preach on Gomer. She was an unexpected vessel, with an unexpected story, underestimated by others in the world and culture around her. Disqualified by those with such high standards but used by God to speak to a prophet. She sounds like my kind of woman! Always underestimated always looked down upon always more than what others give her credit for… sounds like someone I can identify with.
Then I thought of preaching on Hagar – a slave girl with such a nuanced, Hulu-drama series type life that only the Holy Spirit of God could explain. Used by a superior to give birth to a child then that child was seen as a threat by the same superior that used her. Hagar was seeking equality, rights, and privileges that should have belonged to her because of who she gave birth to. The nuances of slavery and power and Empire are truly remarkable and Hagar speaks to so many of those complexities.
But, I did not bring a book about Hagar. Nor did I bring a book about Gomer. I brought book called the daughters of Miriam.
The author Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney is a scholar, pastor, preacher and activist. She is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth, TX, where she teaches masters and doctoral students in initial and advanced degree programs including Masters of Divinity, Theology Majors and PhDs.
Representation matters…ALWAYS. So when I saw that Dr. Gafney is a Black women with beautiful peppered fro/braids, oh you better BELIEVE I'm listening and leaning ALL the way in.
In the book the Daughters of Miriam, There are untold numbers of female prophets hiding in the masculine grammar and androcentric focus of the Hebrew scriptures. The rabbinic and Christian fathers analyzed and found more women in the scriptures who function as prophets than the biblical authors identify. All of these female prophets have an intimate connection with the God of Israel; they express that connection by singing, dancing, drumming, speaking with and for God, waging war, performing miracles, exercising statecraft, and giving birth. Dr. Gafney explains that each of them is a daughter of Miriam, the mother of all women-prophets.
And what I love about the book, is that Wilda C. Gafney tells you about these women, lists the scriptural passages that coincide with their life and then presents the many interpretations of these scriptures by Rabbis (often called the midrash) in the scriptures and then challenges the western world-view of how we interpret women in the Bible.
What I hope to do tonight is present to you her work and my own journey of enlightenment about the life of Miriam while I was at this silent retreat.
Miriam is found in nine passages of the Bible three of which we’ll look at today. Miriam is the oldest of three, and the only sister of Moses and Aaron. If you're familiar with Moses, he is the prophet that God uses to deliver the Israelites out of enslavement and Egypt and to Freedom, Liberation, and the Promised Land.
In Exodus 2:1-10…
The beginning stages of Miriam’s life is recorded. Her mother, Jacobed, gave birth to a son during a time where Pharaoh was having all Jewish boys be thrown into the river for fear of a prophecy becoming true and his power and empire being turned over. Jocabed sewed together a waterproof papyrus basket with tar and pitch and placed Moses inside of the basket and drifted it off into the river. For “astrologers at the time had predicted that water would be the catalyst for the "downfall" of the savior of the Jews.”
Some scholars say that “Moses' mother — who was aware of her son's special destiny — hoped that as soon as Moses was placed in the water, the astrologers would see that the savior of the Jews had already been "cast" into the water and the decree against the Jewish boys would be annulled, and she would be free to bring her son back home.”
It is said that Miriam was at least 7 - 10 years old when Moses was born. Concerned for what might happen to her brother, Miriam is sent to observe his journey as he drifted off into the river.
Would an Egyptian find him and kill him based on Pharoh’s mandate? Would a living creature in the river eat him alive? Would the basket get caught in the outer bank or stopped by a large branch and he starve to death? Can you imagine what Miriam is thinking? What would be the fate of her brother?
Then something miraculous happens. Miriams watches as Pharoah’s daughter sees the basket in the river, looks at the face of this baby boy and has compassion for him.
What’s interesting to note is that it is Miriam who, although a young child is intuitive, courageous, and brave enough to speak up and literally negotiate a contract with Pharoah’s daughter. That she might keep him alive and have her mother, Jacobed, nurse him until he became a young boy. And the princess says YES?! Imagine a young girl that you know doing that!
We can thank Miriam for assuring that Moses was kept alive, and kept in contact with his Mother and Hebrew heritage and family. For just maybe…it was solely because Moses was nursed by his mother that he never forgot who he was and stayed grounded in his culture and his people as a Hebrew boy. We can thank Miriam for that.
Dr. Gafney reminds us that after Miriam negotiates a contract with the Princess…there is a great space in her story. The bible is full of these spaces, many, disproportionately, in the stories about women. Did Miriam continue her relationship with the Princess? Did she and her mother live in the palace while Moses was nursing? Why did Miriam never marry? How did she become a prophet? How did she serve God and her people? We do know that at some point in her life she becomes recognized as a woman of God, not Moses’ prophet like Aaron, but a prophet of God in her own right. God spoke to her and through her and she spoke for God in song and verse. The bible’s oldest passages are songs and poems composed by the prophets Miriam and Deborah.
Now imagine with me that Miriam is watching the life of Moses unfold before her. She is watching Moses grow up in the Egyptian culture as an adopted son of a Princess. She is watching her brother have access to privilege and power while still being in the body of a slave boy a – Hebrew boy. She is watching her brother assimilate and maybe at times forget who he is. She is watching him live in the tension of “am I going to assimilate and be who the Egyptians want me to be” or “am I going to be a voice for my people.” She watched her brother go back to her people and see how strenuous the labor was and how brutal the oppressive conditions were. She saw how Moses eyes were opened as has he watched an Egyptian brutally beat one of his own people. In rage Moses killed an Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.
Though Miriam may not have been present for every single incident, she is present for the transformation of her brother, Moses. She is present for the 12 plagues that God uses to awaken Pharoah into realizing that the people he is oppressing do not belong to him.
She is watching him grow and being called by God to be prophet and voice of deliverance. She is watching and beholding the story and life of her brother whom she helped save become an emboldened and impactful voice to deliver her people and she along with Moses and Aaron become a powerful Triune, power-packed, sibling dynamic trio that God uses to deliver His people.
And FINALLY she is also present when Pharoah says “I will let your people go,” and Moses leads them to the Red Sea and God through Moses Parts the Red Sea but – get this no one wants to walk through the parted sea to the other side.
Dr. Gafney states, “Moses and the Israelites sing Miriam’s song, the Song of the Sea, at the water’s edge. But the people wouldn’t move, they wouldn’t walk through the waters. So Miriam took a small hand-drum – I know your bibles say a tambourine in Ex 15, that’s a translation error, it was a tambourine-shaped drum without the metal pieces – she took a drum in her hand and led the people through the water singing her song. First she sang by herself and danced by herself…
This reminds me of the great prophet Lizzo said in her most recent sacred text “Watch out for the big grrls,” she said “I had to liberate myself first so I could then liberate others.”
…Moses was on the side holding his arms in the air. He didn’t lead the people through the water. The prophet Miriam led her people to freedom beginning with the sisters. The women joined Miriam in the Song of the Sea and Dance of Deliverance. Leading her people through the danger water, Miriam was the first Israelite to set foot on the other side.
Isn’t it always like women to be first?! We can thank Miriam for her artistic prophetic voice. She was an embodied witness of liberation and freedom and created a prophetic imagination for Israel to get to the other side. To imagine no longer being enslaved. To imagine a life without oppression.
Men I hope you are encouraged to decenter yourself and let the women around you lead. For Miriam had always been leading with Moses and Aaron. She had always shared leadership with Moses and Aaron.
Women, I hope you are encouraged that you have ALWAYS been a part of God’s story. You have always been a prophetic voice throughout Biblical history. You have always been a leader. You have always been used by God to stir prophetic imagination in this present culture in order for them to see that we can exist as something different. So lead in whatever context you are in. We are Daughters of Miriam.
This is where Miriam speaks to me. She is a poet, a singer, a drummer, and visionary…
The song she sang read, “Sing to the Lord. He is exalted. He has thrown horse and rider into the sea.”
I imagine that all of Israel is marching together just like they do in the protests of today. They marched on dry ground surrounded by walls of impossibility, yet God made a way for them to cross over to the other side. And they are led by a prophet called Miriam as she sings and as she dances she embodies a place of liberation as the river swallows up the horse and rider. Miriam begins to give Israel prophetic imagination to exist and to live as something different.
She invites them to imagine a life without White supremacy. Imagine a life without police brutality. Imagine a life without mass incarceration. Imagine a life without code-switching. Imagine a life without abuse. Imagine a life without oppression. To imagine a life FREE…LIBERATED…EQUAL…JUST.
She uses her singing, dancing, drumming, truth-telling, and poems, original songs to imagine and see something different. You can’t become something you don’t see.
Miriam is freakin’ dope.
The story of Miriam moves one. (Deep Breath)
Numbers 12:1-16
Is the story of Miriam that oftentimes many point to when they think about her life. “Remember the woman who became leprous because she spoke out against God's Prophet Moses?”
It’s almost like this one act that is seemingly characterized by others as a mistake becomes the thing we remember Miriam by.
As we look at this passage, I want to invite you to look at the story with fresh eyes and to remember that Moses, Aaron, and Miriam – although God used them to deliver the Israelites out of enslavement into liberation, they are were still human beings. Like you and I – still needing to eat and make dinner and poop and pee and sing and dance and laugh and cry and get looked over for promotion and fall in love and be rejected and be misunderstood and try and grow and be fearful and be scared and be uncertain and unsure and try to lead people that complain and believe in you and then they don't believe in you. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam are literally human beings may we not idolize their sacred calling but see it with fresh eyes and remember but they are human just like you and me.
Now with that in mind, let’s read the text.
NUMBERS 12:1-16
12 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.
3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)
4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:
“When there is a prophet among you,
I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions,
I speak to them in dreams.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses?”
9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. (God left the scene)
10 When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, 11 and he said to Moses (not God), “Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.”
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “Please, God, heal her!”
14 The Lord replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.” 15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.
16 After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.
Now this is a story all about how her life got flipped turned upside down…BUT Dr. Gafney invites us to think of this story a bit differently.
In this passage, Miriam has something to say about the state of Moses’ household. She was right in her criticism. Moses wasn’t God’s only prophet; she was God’s prophet too. But she was wrong in talking about Moses and not talking to him. And don’t get it twisted, Moses needed talking to. He had just shown up with a shiny new wife. Black and shiny. A Nubian sister, perhaps blacker than the range of beige, brown and black that made up Israel and the multitude that left slavery on their time. But perhaps not. Skin color wasn’t an issue in their time. The issue was that Moses just showed up with a new woman having put out his old woman and their children. For polygamy was acceptable to the Israelites, child abandonment was a whole ‘nother issue.
Think about that for a second. In Exodus 18 we see that Moses literally marries his first wife, Zipporah has a couple kids then eventually “sends them away” sometimes appropriately translated as “divorce.” People don’t like to think of Moses as being a divorced man, but that’s also the western world for you. Then later on Moses father-in-law comes back with his wife and kids hoping to put the family back together, but Moses doesn't even acknowledge them, he simply hugs his father-in-law and again “sends them all away” for a second time. We don’t hear anything more about Moses and his family business until he shows up in our passage with a brand new wife. The dark and lovely melinated Cushite woman.
And Miriam’s like, “When does the madness stop?!” Her frustration with Moses boils over into a heated conversation with her other brother Aaron. And she’s like, “Bro, what is he doing? He can’t treat people like this! I mean what kind of example is he setting? The math is not mathing for me?”
Although she is not wrong for holding a man of God accountable she did not speak TO Moses, she spoke ABOUT Moses to someone else...and that's kind of where things get messy.
Current translations of the Bible seem to make Miriam look like the bad guy Aaron gets off on the hook and Miriam is the one that gets leprosy. But there's so much more to the story. In her further research, Dr. Gaffney states that rabbinic scholars have suggested that “leprous as snow” can be interpreted as “flaky/scaly like snowflakes” or “cold/dead as snow” or “wet as snow.” Acquired leukoderma, is a relatively common affliction of women of color in which portions of their skin lose pigment and become scaly in texture.
There is also a possibility that it is Moses and not Yahweh that has caused all of this skin suffering which radically changes the Interpretation of this text.
Fresh Eyes…remember?
In verse 9 Yahweh leaves before the disease comes upon Miriam and Aaron which happens in verse 10. Then in verse 11 Aaron says “Please, my lord (using the human form of lord not the divine form – pointing to Moses as the addressee), please do not place on us the sin which we have been foolish and in which we have sinned.”
The placement of the sin was the skin disease the sin itself was questioning the prophetic calling of Moses despite his life choices and moral obligation.
I am not asking you to take this interpretation and make it law for yourself. I ask only that we read these stories in light of the realization that the western world and western translations at times have interpreted the text drastically different than the original, cultural meaning.
Now Miriam is banished for seven days, after which the Israelites refused to leave the city of Hazeroth without her in verse 15; after her “gathering,” they depart for the next city, Paran. The strength of Miriam’s influence and leadership of the Israelites is revealed in the narrative of the refusal of the people to leave Miriam behind after her affliction; the congregation would not continue to the Promised Land until (Miriam was restored).
When Miriam made her mistake she owned it, she didn't throw Aaron under the bus, she repented, and she sat down for a time.
Dr. Gafney reminds us at this point in Miriam’s life that she didn’t sit down alone… “The people sat with her, and get this; they sat down on God and so God waited for her too. Ordinarily, the people followed the leading of God in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, watching over them by night as a pillar of fire by night. But in Numbers 12:15, we see that the people would not get up and go without their prophet. They knew Miriam was more than her most public mistake. They remembered Miriam’s role as a prophet to the people.
Imagine God picking up the cloud and starting out on the next day’s journey… and no one followed. So God waited on Miriam, with her waiting people…waiting on her restoration.
INVITE THE BAND CAN COME UP.
CONCLUSION
Miriam left a good name, a great name and an enduring legacy. Miriam is one of the most important women in the bible. She is mentioned in more books than any other woman. And she is the only woman to have her childhood, adulthood, old age, death and burial recorded in the scriptures.
In Israelite culture, a person had immortality through their children, specifically through their name passed down to and through their children. But Miriam didn’t have any children. She never married. Yet her name lives on forever.
Miriam…
The one who watches over Moses to keep him alive
Prophet, dancer, singer, artist
Truth-teller
1 of the 3 Divine Trio leading Israel into the Promised Land
Never marries
Never has children
But her name was the most popular woman’s name in Jewish communities for almost 500 years before the birth of Jesus.
Did you know that Jesus’ mother Mary is actually translated as another form of the name, Miriam?
Hundreds of years later Mary - another Miriam gives birth to the Savior of the World…and at His Resurrection, it was Mary Magdalene - another Miriam that was the first to see that Jesus was resurrected and literally rejoices as she goes to tell the disciples what she has seen.
It was almost as if Mary-Magdalene was an embodied witness of the prophet Miriam – at the Red Sea with a pathway to liberation before her, she invited the people to sing and dance and rejoice because their delivering God had once again delivered them.
All of those Marys, all of those Miriams, were named for one woman, the mother of them all although she never married and never gave birth, She was the prophet Miriam.
Take a moment and ask the Lord, what does He want YOU to know about the life of Miriam?
In the name of the One who waded in the waters of Miryam’s womb, walked the way of suffering as one of the woman-born, and woke from the grasp of death in the deep darkness of the morning. Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS / BENEDICTION
Our 6-week Kaleo Book Club will begin April 5 - May 10. We’ll be meeting at Chris Townley’s home in downtown Phoenix and discuss a book called “Who Will Be a Witness?” by Drew G.I. Hart. If you would like to participate, just let Chris or myself know and we’ll add you to the group.
We’ll also have a new service time of 5pm beginning on Easter Sunday, April 17th. Easter Sunday service will be outside in the courtyard and will begin at 5pm.
Tonight we will be enjoying a plethora of pizzas for dinner! Please let families with children eat first.
Until we see you again… may the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
ENDNOTES
Most of the italicized paragraphs come from this work by Wilda C. Gafney: