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Add Joanna of the royal court to that list of women who followed Jesus
By Ferne Burkhardt
timbrel, July-August 1999
Joanna is not a name that springs quickly from our memory’s short list of significant biblical women. She’s mentioned only twice, by Luke. Who was she?
Luke identifies Joanna as one of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb on the resurrection morning and encountered “two men in dazzling clothes” (24:4), who told them that Jesus had been brought back to life.
The other story, in chapter 8, tells of women who had been healed of evil spirits and diseases accompanying Jesus and the disciples as they traveled and told about the kingdom of God. Among them is named Joanna, whose husband, Chuza, was an officer in Herod’s court.
According to Jörg Zink (Sag mir wohin, Stuttgart, 1977), one day Joanna saw Jesus, listened to him, left her husband, her home at court, and her slaves, and went with Jesus. With the motley throng of followers, wandering through the countryside, the villages, and ports, she spent the night with the foxes and ravens. But for the first time, she was not just someone’s daughter or wife; she was a woman, an authentic person.
Imagine! A woman from court society, the wife of a senior royal official (probably the minister of finance), following Jesus! The throng suddenly takes on an air of splendor. Imagine the tabloids of the day: “Socialite abandons royal court for migratory life with revolutionary sect.”
Of course, life at court also had its risks. Herod, after all, was the king who ordered the killing of the children of Bethlehem; his son, who inherited part of his kingdom, had John the Baptist beheaded. Was Joanna present at the party at the court of Tiberius when Salome danced?
For a woman of that society to leave her husband was scandalous. Some theologians, concerned with the integrity of the family, assume that Chuza was dead and portray Joanna as a widow who poured her energy into service of the church, the model Christian woman of all times.
Whether widow or wife, she had lived “in an atmosphere of lust, caprice, wealth and whim, indifference and open curiosity,” writes Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel in The Women Around Jesus (SCM Press Ltd., 1982). “Joanna’s encounter with Jesus and her healing introduced her for the first time to something else: an independent life . . . with a purpose; a community of men and women from different levels of society . . . a new life of her own.”
Moltmann-Wendel suggests that Joanna brought with her wealth and respectability. Joanna has been credited with providing Jesus’ valuable garment, woven in one piece, for which the soldiers gambled (did we really think the soldiers would quarrel over a tattered tunic?). She may have provided the spices for embalming Jesus’ body, a luxury not likely to be found in the cupboards of fishermen’s wives.
In his book Les mémoires de Jesus (Paris, 1978), the French priest Jean Claude Barreau makes Joanna the leading light among the group of women, the representative of emancipation. For Barreau, Joanna is a well-to-do, independent woman who gives Judas money each month for the treasury. She has good connections as well as her own views, and she is not afraid to join in the discussions with the Pharisees. According to Barreau, she is the leader of the women as Peter is the leader of the group of men.
For Luke, Joanna is not just one who provides money and influence. She is present at the crucifixion and at the empty tomb, the most significant events of the Christian faith. Joanna shows solidarity with Jesus. She embodies total sympathy which risks everything.
The Joanna of the king’s court is far from our experience, but can we identify with the Joanna who knew she was a person in her own right, a woman who risked everything to stand in solidarity with Jesus and with a diverse community of women and men? Can we also be representatives of emancipation, of freedom from those threadbare traditions, attitudes, and habits that hobble us as women?
Do we Mennonite women have the courage of Joanna to share the gifts God has given to us, to pursue new ideas, and to build new relationships with people from backgrounds different from our own as a new denomination with new structures and visions emerges?
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