Fashion and Freedom
August 10th, 2025 “Fashion and Freedom” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Summer Sermon Series: Stump the Pastor
Esther 2:1-18 and 1 Corinthians 11:2-16
Today we continue our summer sermon series “Stump the Pastor” where you ask hard questions and I try to answer them. As we come near the end of our summertime, I will be combining topics so that I can try to get to most folk’s questions. If I skipped yours or missed it, it’s probably because I addressed it in an earlier sermon or last summer when we did a similar thing. Today we are talking about fashion in the Bible, and I am combining this with a request for a sermon on Esther who is all about fashion.
Let’s begin in the Old Testament. Esther is one of those strange little books that we wonder why it is even in the Bible at all. You might remember from our sermon on how the Bible came to be, that Esther is a book that is often on the chopping block regarding holy lists. Why? Because there is no mention of God at all! Also, Jewish custom and culture and hard to find in the book. What we do see there is an embrace of sexuality, beauty, the power of women, and violence. The book of Esther was written as a historical novel to entertain, and boy does it deliver!
The story of Esther is a relatively short one. She is an orphan Jew living in the Persian empire. When the king kills his wife for refusing to present herself at his party, he begins to search the area for a new queen. Virgins, or women of marriageable age, are brought from all over the country to see who might be a good fit for a new queen. Esther is part of this rounding up of young women.
The women are held in a women’s only section of the palace and are treated to epic Persian beauty routines. For 6 months they are massaged with oil and perfume, followed by 6 months of beauty treatments to perfect their appearance. The women are trained in the sexual arts and how to entertain and please a man. After one year of preparation, the women are granted one night in bed with the king. The woman who is the most beautiful and the most pleasing in bed will win his heart and be granted the crown.
Esther, who we are told is shapely of form and good of appearance, succeeds at winning the king’s heart. He is in love, and she moves into the royal palace as queen. While this story might make us blush, no one in the Bible bats an eye. In this Bible story, women using beauty and sex to achieve freedom and power is celebrated, and Esther is a hero. While today we find a story of women competing in a beauty and sex contest to be a bit over the top, it certainly isn’t too much for our TV viewing with “The Bachelor” and “Love Island”. More than just a hookup, in the book of Esther these women are given a path to power, and they take it.
What makes the story of Esther worthy of its position in our canon, is that Esther uses her power for good. Later in the story, a scheming official in the king’s court plots to kill all the Jews in Persia. Esther remembers her people, and at risk to her life decides to stand up to the king and ask for his mercy to be on her community. The king is notoriously fickle, and if he doesn’t like what you say or do, he will kill you. When Esther is debating whether or not to risk her life, her guardian tells her, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Esther is bold, her people are saved, and God uses a woman’s beauty and power to save the people of Israel. It’s a great story!
I don’t need to remind you that women in power are never that popular. As we move into our New Testament reading, we find just that. In the Old Testament, beauty and sexuality are God blessed paths for women to achieve power and freedom. In the New Testament, we see a movement to limit that freedom. As the church grows, women are stripped of not only their freedom of dress, but also their freedom to speak in the community.
In the Corinthian community the women have been busy. When they heard Paul teach that there is freedom in Jesus Christ they took his message to heart. Casting aside traditional gender roles, the women of Corinth have become leaders in the church. They are praying, prophesying, and even preaching in the church. Some have even cast aside the traditional garb of marriage, the head covering, to celebrate their freedom in Christ. And here Paul seems to want to draw a line.
In our second reading for today we find Paul waxing eloquent about hairstyles in the church. In both Greek and Roman society, men typically had short hair and women had long hair that they braided and wore pinned up on their heads. Women would only let their hair hang loose in the privacy of their own home or for certain religious rites. Paul seems to be encouraging women to go ahead and lead worship, but make sure you keep your hair in the traditional style so as not to distract from the service.
You might be wondering why Paul would suddenly be worried so much about how women wear their hair to church. Didn’t Paul have lots of women he worked with as church leaders? He never says anything about their hair. And what about all this husband over the wife stuff? Doesn’t Paul write that “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”? That sure seems to imply that old cultural hierarchies no longer apply in the community of Christ.
Well, scholars agree and most think that Paul didn’t actually write this paragraph. This paragraph is an interruption of an argument Paul is making that flows from 11:2 and then continues at 11:17. Moreover, the vocabulary here doesn’t match Paul’s other writings and as we have seen it doesn’t fit with his other statements. What it does fit with is the writings of later authors in the name of Paul. Remember that the only reasons we have these texts are because people copied them by hand to share around in communities. It wouldn’t be hard for one person, or a group of people, to try to “correct” what Paul is writing about women’s freedom in the church by adding in this passage on marriage and hairstyles.
We see the same thing in 1 Timothy, also not written by Paul, when fashion is used to limit a women’s freedom. There we read,
“I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument, also that the women should dress themselves in moderate clothing with reverence and self-control, not with their hair braided or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
I’m sure you can guess how I personally feel about this little addition to the good book. It is interesting to note here that now women’s hair can’t be braided, which goes against the reading from 1 Corinthians. Also here, women shouldn’t dress too fancy for church showing off their wealth. This author then takes things a step further and strips women of the freedoms they had originally with Paul. As we move further away from the original writings of Paul, women lose more and more of their power and authority in the church.
If I was granted the opportunity to speak against this passage of the Bible, I would say that the line of corruption regarding women in the church is relatively easy to follow. In all of the gospels, women are granted the authority to preach by Jesus Christ himself who commissions them to go and tell the good news of his resurrection. Paul follows the tradition by radically breaking down the societal structures and welcoming women into leadership as deacons and heads of churches. But those who come after Paul begin to limit the freedoms that Jesus granted. The copier of 1 Corinthians allows women to talk but only if they obey the culture and custom of proper hairstyles and head coverings. By the time we get to the author of 1 Timothy, women don’t even have the freedom to ask questions in church, let alone give the answers. I, and many other scholars, believe that is a corruption of the will of God.
The path of women in the church or in any place really, has never been an easy one. Women’s fashion is an expression of our freedom and power. In this congregation, we welcome all expressions of personality in clothing and hairstyle much as the culture around us does. In fact, I have never heard anyone comment negatively about anyone else’s dress or hairstyle here in this community. We are a “come as you are” type of place and we like it that way.
But of course, not every church agrees. There are churches and religions that have strict dress codes for women and men. We find some of these stemming from the Bible, like orthodox Jews, and some stemming from culture like the Mormons and the Amish.
Women’s fashion throughout the scriptures and today has always been part of women’s expressions of freedom. Here in this community, we recognize that in Jesus Christ all of us have freedom to express who we are, and all women and men have the opportunity to speak freely and share equal power in the church. We honor and celebrate the freedom won for us in Jesus Christ for all people to gather together, express their own style, love one another, and form a church community of love and belonging. From Esther to the women prophets of Corinth, we celebrate fashion and freedom. Amen.
