“From Mary Magdalene to Waldensian women, Ursuline nuns, Moravian wives, Quaker sisters, Black women preachers, and suffragette activists, history shows us that women do not wait on the approval of men to do the work of God.” —Beth Allison Barr.
It may come as news to you, but this week, the Department of Education, or what’s left of it, announced a proposal that would redefine the meaning of professional degrees.
This “redefinition” would cause several essential professions to lose their professional degree status, in turn significantly limiting access to loans for those pursuing them.
Some of the affected fields, if this proposal goes into effect, would include: Education, Nursing, Social Work, Public Health, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Audiology, and Speech-Language Pathology.
Although I’m not in any of those fields, I am a public theologian, so what goes on in the world around me matters to me.
Most importantly, though, I’m an advocate for the marginalized, so I can’t ignore that this proposal affects fields heavily populated by women.
Frankly, it pisses me off.
But I’m working on not calling people names at this stage in my Jesus journey.
Speaking of Jesus, let’s turn the corner and get to the heart of this post.
There’s a story recorded in Mark’s Gospel that I want to explore briefly.
It was now two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The leading priests and the teachers of religious law were still looking for an opportunity to capture Jesus secretly and kill him. 2 “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.”
3 Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.
4 Some of those at the table were indignant. “Why waste such expensive perfume?” they asked. 5 “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” So they scolded her harshly.
Mark 14:1-5 NIV
Mark 14 places us in the home of Simon the Leper. A woman enters the room carrying an alabaster jar worth a year’s wages. She breaks it and pours it on Jesus.
Her act is both sacrificial and prophetic.
But the men in the room don’t see any of that.
Instead, the text says they rebuked her harshly.
The Greek carries the sense of “snorting with indignation,” a phrase used for scolding someone as if they are beneath you. In the Greco-Roman world, it was the verbal posture men used toward children, slaves, or the socially inferior.
In other words, they weren’t simply “annoyed.”
They were offended that she had stepped into a space they believed was theirs.
This moment only makes sense when you understand the world Jesus lived in. It was a world where women were barred from testifying in court because their voices were deemed unreliable; where theological reasoning was considered a male domain; where women ate separately at public banquets, and where a woman stepping into a room of men, especially without invitation, was seen as a breach of social order.
So imagine then how this woman stepping forward with a costly offering would send the men into a frenzy.
To be clear, when they rebuke her, they are not just concerned with money or propriety; they are protecting a system that allows only men to make meaningful, public contributions.
It’s discrimination disguised as discernment.
But then Jesus, the Master Teacher, steps in.
6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Mark 14:6-9 NIV
The point I’m making here is that this proposal is not accidental.
It communicates, “this work doesn’t count,” which really means “this work doesn’t count when certain people do it.”
It is the modern equivalent of the same old story:
Women bring their gifts, and systems try to push them back.
But I can hear Jesus’ words echoing as loudly today as they did back then.
🗣️ LEAVE HER ALONE.
Whether she’s following in her mom’s footsteps by becoming a teacher, or a passion for helping others has led her into nursing, leave her alone.
Whether she is single and trying to make ends meet or a wife doing everything she can to fill in the gaps, leave her alone.
Whether she is counting down to her final student loan payment or is so far in debt she feels like she’s drowning, leave her alone.
I believe that’s what Jesus would say.
Reflection Questions
The way of Jesus is accessible to us when we put His words into practice.
So this week, work these words:
👩🏾 As a woman:
By not shrinking your calling to fit their comfort. Break the jar anyway.
👨🏾As a man:
By using your (male) privilege to defend women’s right to belong.
✝️ As the church:
By honoring women’s voices, gifts, scholarship, leadership, and presence.
Work These Words
Work These Words is the first newsletter from the “with Sean Dreher” Substack. It focuses on exploring the words of Jesus and how to put them into practice in the modern world.
The name comes from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Matthew 7:24-25 in The Message:
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.”
Most times, I write alone. Occasionally, I’ll invite members of the ministerial team from Kingdom South to lend their voices. But always, the aim is the same: to help you work the words of Jesus into your life.
Happy trails.