From Shame to Glory: Mothers in the Heritage of Jesus

FROM SHAME TO GLORY:

MOTHERS IN THE HERITAGE OF JESUS

Copyright © 2014 Valerie Fons and Nancy Regensburger.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-4199-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4198-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4197-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014913114

iUniverse rev. date: 10/29/2014

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One Biblical Genealogies

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Chapter Two The Mothers

Part One Story of Tamar

Theme: Hold the Vision

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Part Two Story of Rahab

Theme: Make the Choice

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Part Three: Story of Ruth

Theme: Enter the Grief

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Part Four Story of Bathsheba

Theme: Speak the Truth

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Part Five Story of Mary

Theme: Receive the Gift

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Chapter Three The Son

Story of Jesus

Theme: Do Not Fear

Bible Story

Bible Study

Narrative

Contemporary Story

Personal Reflection

Dedication

To Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary,

In gratitude for our mothers’ testimony.

To women burdened by shame who dare hope for freedom.

Mothers in the Heritage of Jesus

Matthew 1

A story of conversion

An invitation to faith

For use in personal reflection, Bible study groups,

Sermons and Genealogical studies.

Foreword

The authors have written this study material because of their mutual interest in the women of the Bible. They both have considerable training and experience in Biblical studies.

Rev. Valerie Fons is a United Methodist ordained elder, spiritual director, and chaplain endorsed by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. Presently, Valerie is appointed by the West Michigan and Wisconsin Conferences to Bread & Water, LLC and Lake Adventures Uniting Nature and Children With Hospitality, (L.A.U.N.C.H.), Inc., extension ministry on Washington Island, Door County, Wisconsin, where she works with teens in a café, kayak, lodging ministry of hospitality. She explores environmental ethic and outdoor education with interns at the Butterfly House on Island. Valerie lives on Tipping Bucket Farm, with her husband Joe and six children.

Nancy Regensburger received her education from Elizabethtown College and Lake Erie College where she received a Bachelor in Religious Education. She had further study at St. John’s Provincial Seminary where she received a Master of Theological Studies. She has also served as Christian Educator in several local churches. Nancy has written extensively in the Christian Education field, having published church school curricula for various publishing houses, including Methodist and Presbyterian. She also wrote a devotional book, Walking Through the Waters: Biblical Reflections for Families of Cancer Patients, published and distributed by Upper Room Publishing.

The result is a well written study of five women in the lineage of Jesus. Their objective is to provide a study guide to church groups and others based on these significant women in the heritage of Jesus Christ.

Preface

Notes by Valerie Fons

When Nancy Regensburger invited me to contribute to From Shame to Glory I was not willing to send my writing through the mail. I met Nancy only once at a writer’s conference. The writing needed for this book, even the topic seemed too personal to enclose in an envelope and let out of my sight. After months of putting Nancy off, I called her and asked if we could meet. She invited her friend, artist Sue Bielski, to join us.

Redeemer United Methodist Church in DeWitt, Michigan, became an ideal meeting place. The church was located halfway between Nancy and Sue’s community in Vassar, Michigan, and my house in Dowagiac, Michigan. We each drove approximately one hundred miles to meet in the middle. Many times during the winter months we set out for rendezvous before dawn. Heading into darkness and trusting new morning light became a connecting metaphor for our project.

I remember our first meeting. We sat in the church library, sharing, trusting, and accepting where we were while exploring where God was calling us to be. We brought resources, reference books, snacks, photos, and samples of our work to share with one another. Opening our bibles and studying the biblical text was an experience of revelation. Each time we gathered I lit a purple candle and invited; Come Holy Spirit Come. The Spirit did not disappoint nor delay. We voiced our own perceptions, let the Spirit guide, listened, and at times left the meetings exhausted but amazed with a developing sense of relationship with each other and the women in the lineage of Jesus. All the while the book was being shaped. I felt as if the book was already fully formed beyond us, offered by God. We were on a passage to receive the book in trio, beyond ourselves in communion with God. We continued meeting monthly from September to May to pray, talk, listen and write.

Working with Nancy and Sue reminded me of making a beautiful quilt. In a quilt the overall appearance is only one dynamic. An experienced quilter looks closely to see how tiny and uniform the stitches are. The closer we looked at the stories of Jesus’ mother and grandmothers, the more beautiful God’s plan appeared.

We noticed and studied the character and circumstance of each woman named in Matthew’s record of the genealogy of Jesus. Each woman made a journey from shame to glory. Jesus would have heard their stories. Their lives were part of his history. What did Jesus learn from his mother and grandmothers? We dared believe the life lessons passed to Jesus informed his purpose and journey to the cross.

We looked closely at the lives of the women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. We wanted to see beyond the shame of circumstance and cultural context of each episode. Instead of looking for one to blame, shame, or scapegoat, we looked for God’s grace. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary distanced themselves from shame and embraced glory. We kept asking; How does one make the journey from shame to glory? The grandmothers and mother of Jesus gave us the answer in the Hebrew word; hesed, which means God’s grace.

The grace of God brought us together. We relied on God’s grace and leaned into the relationship with one another to create this book.

Nancy brought the experience of a Christian educator paired with a clear sense of purpose and organization. She is a champion for peace and justice with keen advocacy for marginalized persons. Nancy is quick to recognize, name, and dispute shame. She teaches redeeming power of God in Jesus Christ.

Sue translates scripture into love made visible. Her drawings capture the vitality of each woman’s strength with sensitivity to God at work meeting the women’s needs.

In the library at Redeemer church, a big picture window provided a view of the Bell Garden. Looking into the garden through fall, winter, and spring seasons, I was reminded of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:25, residing in the Garden of Paradise, naked and unashamed. I tried to imagine life in a garden free from shame. In the stories of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary, relationship with God is not broken by shame but overcome by glory.

This book is an invitation to participate in the journey from shame to glory. I accepted the invitation to let loose of my shame and accept God’s gift of glory. I offer my writing as a testimony to God’s presence on my journey as I join the cloud of witnesses along the path.

Valerie Fons

Notes by Nancy Regensburger

This book was birthed approximately fifteen years ago when I enrolled in a course on Mariology at a Roman Catholic Seminary where I was a student. Our assignment was to write a devotion to Mary. After sitting in the library staring at books on novenas, rosaries, and saints, I returned to the next class convinced I could not complete the assignment.

The only thing I could possibly write, I blurted out to our teacher, is a Bible study I could use in my own Presbyterian church.

That’s exactly what I would want you to do, she replied.

So I did. I penned a study curriculum on the five women in Matthew’s genealogy. I later used the study with a women’s discussion group in my Presbyterian Church. The group was intrigued and inspired by these biblical women.

I sent my manuscript to a number of publishers but with no success. In 1998, I took my study of Tamar to a writers’ conference. At the conference, I received good advice from Valerie Fons, who was in my critique group. She suggested I change the title from The Family Tree of Jesus, to From Shame to Glory. I immediately knew she was right, for the title she suggested is an overarching theme. The theme is transformation for lives of contemporary women as well as the five ancient mothers.

I continued to submit my manuscript to publishers with the new title but to no avail. The responses provided some clues for improvement. I began to see I needed modern stories to personalize my Bible study. I contacted Valerie Fons who was serving a United Methodist Church as pastor. I knew she was a fine story teller. While interested, she was unable at that time to free her schedule to write, so a few years lapsed before we finally got together.

In fall, 2002, we began meeting together with our artist Suellyn Bielski, my neighbor and friend. Sue is a Roman Catholic, which made us an ecumenical group. Since we lived at opposite sides of the state, Sue and I met Valerie at a midway point where we worked for a whole day at a time each week, for many weeks.

At our meetings the book experienced a rebirth. Together we prayed, studied, struggled, and even cried through the lives of these five courageous women and our own parallel stories. We ended where we did not anticipate - in the healing arms of Jesus.

We experienced our time and place together as holy ground. We marvel at how God used our variety of meager gifts to craft a book.

May the Holy Spirit be present to guide you as you read this book, as the Spirit