Pentecost: Women in MInistry

Last week I introduced a poem by Frances Croake Franke. It was written to confront the non-ordination of women in Roman Catholic church. Franke herself was a nun, yet she spoke out for women in ministry-be they ordained or lay who say to the Lord ‘this is my body, this is my blood’.

It has not been that long since women were first allowed to take part in many ministries in the church and to, in fact, be ordained (in the Episcopal church at least). The journey for women to be accepted in ministry, especially into ordination (in the Episcopal Church) was a long journey detailed in this article and highlighted below.* Why does that history matter to the ordinary, everyday woman who wants to serve God, but doesn’t want to be ordained as a priest?

On the retreat last weekend, we came to understand that the 5 women we studied were, in fact, ordinary women, going about their daily lives when God stepped in. Then they acted with courage to be God-bearers to the world. That is what the Philadelphia Eleven and the other women (and men) who worked for generations to make all ministry open to women were doing.

By The Philadelphia Inquirer - © The Philadelphia Inquirer (acquired from The Philadelphia Ordinations), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43398366

A resolution passed at General Convention in 1976 (the same Convention that opened the door to women’s ordination) stated that no one could be barred from participating in the life and governance (italics mine) of the church…because of their gender. Prior to this few, if any, women were allowed on governing bodies (vestries) of local parishes.

By opening more avenues of ministry, the ordinary women in church found ways to use their God-given gifts and talents more broadly than on the altar guild and in sewing circles. Now, in most parishes, you will find women serving in all sorts of ways. Women are even acknowledged as leaders in historically male roles such as president of Standing Committee or other diocesan boards.

As ‘ordinary’ women, we are following in the footsteps of the ordinary women of the past who acted for and with God lead on and show us the way.

·       Ruth, the foreigner whose dedication to her mother-in-law gave her stature as the great-grandmother of King David.

·       Esther, an unlikely queen who saved her people by risking her life and being a whistle-blower.

·       Judith whose bold action of cutting off General Holofernes head routed the Persian army.

·       Mary (Mother of Jesus) who said ‘yes’ to God’s request to bear a child out of wedlock.

·       Mary Magdelene, remaining constant to the end was graced with bearing news of the Resurrection to the male disciples.

·       Lydia, Prisca, Chloe and the other New Testament female leaders who opened their homes and taught their neighbors.

·       Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen and other mystics across the ages, who stood up to popes and kings while speaking for God’s way.

·       Frances Perkins, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale and others who went where ‘women weren’t supposed to go’ and did what others wouldn’t so that the ill and downtrodden had a voice.

·       The Philadelphia Eleven and those who followed who bravely stood for their rights before God.

·       Female priests and bishops in the church now who prove that there is no ‘male’ or ‘female’ in the call to ministry.

We are the heirs of those women and many others. Our faith fore-mothers give us the courage to say ‘yes’ to God ourselves. There is still ground to be plowed. Women may be active in multiple roles, but they are not necessarily accorded the same respect as a man. Women typically work harder to be seen as equal in talent. A lot may have changed over the past decades and centuries, in how women in ministry are perceived, and there is a lot still to do.

“Our daughters’ daughters will adore us and they’ll sing in grateful chorus ‘well done, sister suffragette’,” sings Winifred Banks in the Disney movie Mary Poppins. We can look back at our faithful fore-mothers and applaud ‘well done, sister in Christ’. And we can lay the ground work for our own grand-daughters.

Over the next few weeks, we'll look at some 'ordinary' women, whose lives were anything but ordinary. 

This week, I would encourage you to think about how your life and ministry are affected by the steps taken by women in the past. 

*Briefly, in 1855 the Bishop of Maryland ‘set apart’ two deaconesses. Not quite an ordination, but a first tiny step. Eighty years later, the Church of England found no reason for or against ordination of women; but stated they would continue to be excluded ‘for the church today’. Another 35 years passed before the lay deputies at the General Convention of the Episcopal church passed a resolution affirming female ordination, but it was defeated by the clergy.

Only 4 years later, on July 29, 1974, the “PhiladelphiaEleven” were ordained by three bishops (two retired and one who had resigned). These were eleven female deacons who had requested ordination. The action by the 3 bishops caused “great consternation among the church hierarchy” and the ordinations were declared invalid. This didn’t stop the women from serving in a few parishes, although priests who allowed this were charged with ‘violating the canons’.

At the 1976 General Convention, in Philadelphia, a resolution passed stating “no one shall be denied access” to ordination. To say that not every person or diocese supported this move is an understatement. Some bishops side-stepped the issue by referring women seeking ordination to other dioceses. Some parishioners left their churches. Even today, some people will change sides at the communion rail if a woman is doing the bread or wine. I remember feeling confused about the issue myself as someone who had just recently returned to the church.

Ten years later, a huge shift happened when the Rev. Barbara Harris was elected Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts on September 24, 1988. Then in 2006, in an even bigger step, the Right Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA. She served for 9 years, the maximum a Presiding Bishop can serve.

Pentecost: Women in the Bible

This weekend, I led a retreat that looked at the lives of 5 women of the Bible: Esther, Ruth, Mary Magdalene, Mary (Jesus’ mother), and Judith (from the Apocrypha). You can read a brief bio of each of these women.

These women are just a few of the many women in the Bible. Some have names, and many more are mentioned as the wife of…, or daughter of… Wikipedia has a list of women who are named in the. It’s a pretty impressive list, and doesn't even include the women without names. However, we rarely hear from or about these women in our Sunday morning lessons.

For many of these women, we don’t have anything more than a name. We don’t know much of their story or where they came from. For others, it takes some research through the Bible to learn about them. For instance, Miriam (Moses’ sister) is mentioned in Exodus and in Numbers. You have to tease out her story to learn that she was a dutiful daughter and later considered a prophet, and even later confronted Moses (and got leprosy as a result), and finally died.

As an author, that is what I do when I write a story about a Bible woman. I find all the bits of her story and then try to fill in the blanks. You can read how I told ‘the rest of the story’ of Miriam in my novel Miriam’s Healing. It is also what we do when we study a passage using lexio divino or other in depth method. We want to get into the story and learn who the woman is and what she can tell us.  

Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at the 5 women we discussed at the retreat this weekend; and see what we might learn about them. It may be that they are nothing like they are often portrayed in culture and even theology. We’ll see that they are brave and godly women, who acted for God. In some cases we might wonder if they made the best decisions. However, we have to also put them in the context of their time and place. We cannot impose 2018 values on a woman living a nomadic life in a patriarchal society 2000 years ago.

Come along and see what we might learn together on this adventure.

I’d like to share a thought-provoking, and moving poem I just recently heard. It is by Frances Croake Franke. I think the image by Jeremy Winborg catches the essence of the moments soon after Jesus birth (at least it was the best one I could find online that showed a human side of Mary). 

Did the Woman Say?

Did the woman say,
When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,
After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Did the woman say,
When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,
After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Well that she said it to him then,
For dry old men,
brocaded robes belying barrenness
Ordain that she not say it for him now.

(Son of Man, Son of God by Jeremy Winborg)

Pentecost: Not Alone

We’ve been looking at how God is working in and through us to make us diamonds and masterpieces. As we noted last week, it’s not necessarily the big and grand things that make the most difference. It can be the small things we do because we are women and men of faith.

At the Daughters of the King Assembly I spoke about last week; the keynote speaker was Deborah Smith Douglas. She is an author, speaker, spiritual advisor, and deeply faith-filled woman. Her topic was Deepening Prayer. Douglas reminded us all that in our faith journey, we are never alone.

She said, we are always in the company of the saints who have gone before. Some of these are well known women or men. Others are the everyday people who lived a life of faith and in doing so, changed their corner of the world. In fact, many of those considered saints, like Julian of Norwich or Mother Teresa had no aspirations for sainthood.

Mother Teresa, it has been learned from her letters, even doubted her own faith. She wrote, “Where is my faith? – even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. – My God – how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. – I have no faith. – I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me – I am afraid to uncover them – because of the blasphemy – If there be God, - please forgive me.” - Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

A long list of others who doubted their faith could be compiled. The Psalms are full of David’s wavering faith and fears. Psalm 42 is just one of many.

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
   so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
   the face of God?
My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

These things I remember,
   as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,*    and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
   a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
   at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
   have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
   and at night his song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
   ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

David feels like he has been abandoned by God. People are even asking, “Where is your God?” He says “My tears have been my food day and night” and “my soul is cast down within me”. Yet ultimately, he is able to say that he will, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

Doubt doesn’t make our spiritual ancestors, or ourselves, any less suited to act on God’s call in our lives. Deborah Smith Douglas told the women at the recent retreat that we are part of the company of those who walk with and act for God now and in the past. She reminded the women that God rarely choses those with ‘clean hands’ or ‘pure blood’ to “come follow me”. Jesus chose fishermen and women to be his disciples. Over the centuries, God has used harlots, adulterers, murderers, cowards, and other widely assorted men and women. God uses you and me, too. 

This coming weekend, I will be leading a retreat that will look at 5 women of the Bible. Mary (Mother of Jesus), Mary Magdalene, Esther, Ruth, and Judith have been maligned, glorified, or ignored by history. We’ll see who they really were and what their lives can teach us about our lives of faith in the 21^st Century.

If Mother Teresa, John of the Cross, 'Doubting' Thomas, and many others throughout the centuries can wonder about their faith and calling, we do not need to lose heart when we have our own questions. As Douglas noted last weekend, we are not alone. We can find community with our fore-bearers through gratitude, intercession, drawing near to God, and simply loving God and our neighbor.

Do you ever think you are unworthy because you have doubts?

What do you do when you feel alone and far from God?

Next week, we’ll start a series based on the women we will discuss at the Aug. 17-18 weekend. For those readers who might be at the meeting, this will be a chance for further learning. Others may find it interesting to discuss with friends in book or Bible study groups. 

Pentecost: Plans

For the past couple weeks, we've looked at how God works at making us masterpieces and diamonds, even though at this moment in time, we may look more like a mess of paint or just dust. God's work often involves changes to our plans. Being remade, even if we are willing isn't necessarily an easy process. 

Max Lucado notes, in his book And the Angels were Silent, that we all have gifts to ‘move the Kingdom down the road’. Focusing on the episode in Matthew 21 where Jesus sends 2 disciples to get a donkey right before his entry into Jerusalem, Lucado goes on to say, “All of us have a donkey. You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road. Maybe you can sing or hug or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check. Whichever, that’s your donkey. Whichever, your donkey belongs to him. It really does belong to him. Your gifts are his and the donkey was his.”

This past couple of days, I have been at the annual Assembly and Retreat of the Daughters of the King in the Diocese of the Rio Grande. Over the past 6 years, I was honored to use my gifts to move the Daughters of the King part of the Kingdom down the road a bit further as the diocesan president. Now it is someone else’s turn.

Of course, letting go of one ministry means I need to evaluate what to do with the time and talent I was using in that role. Proverbs 16:1-4 tells us, “The plans of the mind belong to mortals, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All one’s ways may be pure in one’s own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose…”

As the citation notes, human minds make plans, but God weighs (tests) the spirit of the action. Only when we ‘commit our work to the Lord’ can we accomplish anything. I often ponder my gifts and contributions. Culture says that we can count our ‘success’ in numbers. Numbers of attendees, or purchases, or income. God doesn’t count that way. Back in 2016, Mark Roberts of Life for Leaders at the DuPree Institute remarked, “No matter the work you do, whether you’re a writer, a banker, a mother, a bricklayer, or you-name-it, your greatest success is the assurance that God values your work and that what you are doing makes a difference for God in the world.” 

We are often pointed to the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) as a way to measure our work for God. Are we producing or hiding our ‘talents’? Recently I heard a meditation pointing to the Parables of the Mustard Seed and Yeast as another way of measuring our ministry.

In those twin parables, Jesus tells the crowds, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches…[and] the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matthew 13:31-33)

It is not necessarily the big things that make the greatest difference or impact. It is the small, day-to-day actions, which point to God’s love, that can create the most change. It’s easy to think we must do more, give more, or get more involved in issues. Doing little things may not seem to make a difference. You may have heard of the woman who each year planted a few daffodil bulbs. Ultimately the entire hillside was covered. A little mustard seed in the ground, as Jesus notes, becomes a bush for birds. Something similar happens when you mix a little yeast with flour and water. The next thing you know you have a bubbly mixture that will become bread. The bread can feed a crowd. The teaspoon of yeast couldn’t feed anyone, but the bread it makes does. 

Whether you are planting a mustard seed of a ministry that someday turns into an international blessing, adding a few daffodils to a hillside, or yeast to water and flour, the end result is a blessing to those involved.  

What is your ‘donkey’, Max Lucado asks? What mustard seed, daffodil bulb, or yeast are you nurturing?How is God working in you to grow a great harvest? 

Pentecost: Diamonds in the Rough

Last week we considered the idea that ‘God is making a masterpiece’ as Mark Roberts notes. There are many layers to each of us and they are being changed and transformed day by day. Hawk Nelson, in his contemporary Christian song Diamonds agrees. He sings, “He's making diamonds, diamonds/Making diamonds out of dust/He is refining and in His timing/He's making diamonds out of us.”

I think it is reassuring to think that God is ‘making diamonds’ from the layers of ‘stuff’ that we accumulate in our lives and in our hearts and minds. Incidentally, diamonds do not start as coal (I know, I was surprised, too). They are made from the element carbon under extreme pressure. Coal is also formed under pressure, and includes organic components that diamonds don’t. Diamonds are formed, according to Geology.com at “very high temperatures and pressures. These conditions occur in limited zones of Earth's mantle about 90 miles below the surface where temperatures are at least 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.” Diamonds can also form where one layer of the earth’s crust goes under another (subduction) and by (or sometimes in) meteors. 

It takes the correct combination of carbon, pressure, and temperature to make a diamond. It happens, sciencing.com tell us, when the “carbon atoms bond together in…a particular way that lets them share electrons--a regular, three-dimensional geometric pattern that, if left to grow without interference, produces large, pure diamond crystals.” Science can now make synthetic diamonds using similar pressure and temperature processes.  

Even after the diamond is in your hand, it’s not done. It takes time to make the chunk of rock formed by heat and pressure into a sparkling gem. Rough diamonds are nice stones, but not something you’ll want to show off in a ring, necessarily. It takes a master craftsman to turn that rock into a polished diamond fit for a piece of jewelry. 

It takes time, and work, to change us into the beautiful diamond masterpiece God plans. Mandisa, another contemporary Christian artist sings, “my God's not done/Making me a masterpiece/He's still working on me/He started something good and I'm gonna believe it/He started something good and He's gonna complete it.” (Unfinished)

On those days when I feel, as Nelson says, “I'm in the fire in above my head/Being held under the pressure don't know what'll be left.” It is then that “I'll surrender to the power of being crushed by love/Till the beauty that was hidden isn't covered up.”

The jeweler knows how to chip away at the stone until the beauty is revealed. We don’t like that chipping away process. It’s not easy to surrender, even to God’s love. We want too much to believe that WE can MAKE it OK. Our world tells us that we are 'in charge of our own destiny'. God's love says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest". (Matthew 11:28) 

We have to let the Master Jeweler work. Ultimately, we’ll be glorious diamond masterpieces. Even now, God sees us as that jewel, because God knows that is what we are. I have to remind myself that ‘I’m just unfinished.”

Diamonds are formed by pressure. Are you under pressure today? Can you believe that God is making a diamond with that pressure?

Does it comfort you to know that God already sees you as a completed masterpiece and flawless diamond? 

Masterpiece-in the making

In the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Mark Roberts of the Fuller DePree Institute notes on June 18 that the “Greek word [translated handiwork] is poiema, related to the verb poieo (to make), had a broad range of meaning in Greek, referring to many things made by a creative agent, usually a human being.” Roberts states that in other translations the word is variously translated as “accomplishment” (CEB), “workmanship” (ESV, KJV), or “masterpiece” (NLT). I like the translation as ‘masterpiece’. To me that means that God is working on something extra special, not just an everyday piece of work.

Roberts goes on to say, “When we respond to God’s grace through faith, not only do we receive assurance of our future salvation, but we are also remade by God’s creative power. We become new people, even though we continue to live in our old bodies. In this sense, we are God’s handiwork, accomplishment, workmanship, or masterpiece…God doesn’t make damaged goods or mediocre products. Whatever God makes could, in a real sense, be called a masterpiece.”

How does that idea make you feel? It humbles me. Too often I don’t feel like a ‘masterpiece’ at all. I am very good at identifying the traits I have that are ‘bad’ or at least not very ‘Christian’.

Roberts says we all ask ourselves, “How could I possibly be God’s masterpiece?” Then he responds, “your status as a masterpiece is true, not because of how healthy you are, how accomplished you are, or how moral you are. You are a masterpiece because of what God has done in your life by his grace. You have been newly and wonderfully created through Christ, so that you might live in relationship with God and for his glory. This is God’s work in you.”

It is God working in me and in you that makes us the masterpiece. It is not what we are doing or not doing. God's grace is what makes and remakes us again and again

When I first read this meditation, I thought of the work that art restorers do, and how they are now using technology like ‘multi-spectral imaging’ to see the various layers of art beneath what we see as the finished masterpiece.  They have discovered that, even under something as famous as Mona Lisa, there are other images. Da Vinci started out with one idea and then modified it as he went along. 

I ponder whether my actions and reactions to God at work in my life make God readjust how the finished masterpiece will look. The basic design is there. God’s call and love and grace are unchanging. I, however, might make a mistake or ‘spill paint’ resulting in a reworking of something in the final piece.

God’s Grace ultimately will triumph and I will be the masterpiece God already sees. That is a beautiful thought. Nothing I can do will really ruin the beautiful creation God is making. 

Does it change anything to think that God is making you a ‘masterpiece’?

Will you look at yourself differently?
Next week, we'll continue exploring this topic.

Family

Last week I was with my husband’s family for our nephew’s wedding in Nebraska. It was lovely to be with his siblings, many of our grandchildren and others of the extended family. Seeing the joy and love of the bride and groom was a reminder of the love that our Lord has for us as the Bride of Christ.

As an only child it was, in one sense bittersweet, to see the relationship re-blossom between my husband and his siblings who hadn’t all been together for over a decade. On the other hand, because his family has been part of my life since I was in 9^th grade, it was a also a reunion for me.

Psalm 64:5-6 notes that God is “A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation. God settles the lonely in families; He leads the prisoners out to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.” No matter how scattered, or lost, our birth families are, God’s family is huge.

We are all part of the Family of God, just as we are members of our own extended families. It is too easy to forget how much we have in common when we neglect to keep in contact. Watching my husband pick up the relationships with his brothers and sisters after not being together for over a decade brought tears to my eyes. Getting reacquainted with his sister, who was my maid of honor (so many years ago), was delightful and I was sorry we’d let so much time pass without sharing more than a Christmas card.

My husband and his siblings had drifted apart simply by not chatting regularly. Once together, they remembered how much they had in common and how much history they share. The same is often true in day-to-day relationships, too. We think we have nothing in common with someone until we start talking, and then discover that we grew up in the same town, or majored in the same subject, or even both just like cats.

Just as we need to maintain relationships in our biological families, we need to keep open the lines of communication between our neighbors, churches, and even with those we may not agree. I like the meme that shows up every so often on Facebook. There is a number laying on the ground. The person on one side sees it as a ‘6’ and the other sees it as a ‘9’. Both are right, from their perspective. From the outside perspective of the viewer-both are right. When we disagree, it can help to step outside the confrontation to try and see the other side, or even better, to see both sides. 

God uses us to welcome the lonely and to create a ‘family’ for the fatherless. As the song says “We are the family of God/Yes we are the family of God/And He's brought us together/To be one in Him/That we might bring light to the world.” 

Let's build relationships, instead of tearing each other apart. Let's find common ground and learn to be civil. Let's build bridges instead of walls. We are one family, after all. 

Is there someone you might be able to mend a relationship with?

Have you been meaning to contact an old friend, but haven’t because you think too much time has passed?

Can you think of someone you might have something in common with, even if you don’t know it?