Recorded Dec. 11, 2022. 

Content warning: this episode discusses sexual abuse and rape. 

Whether you want to believe Caleb's reading, that Mary is a victim of sexual abuse or not, the fact is, she's living in this context where sex is weaponized. 

Mary, like Christ's grandmothers, uses her body to rebel against the patriarchy. Rather than seeing the abuse as ending her story and genealogy, she calls the child and his birth a beginning -- "the salvation of Isreal." Like Tamar and Ruth, Mary takes for herself what is reserved exclusively for men; she becomes what she and all women have always already been — the source of her people.