God is Not a Boy's Name

This is not all there is to say (or all I have to say) about inclusive language... but this is what I'm saying to my congregation in a newsletter article this month.

While I was in seminary, I heard this true story: a woman went to the Sunday school classroom after church one day to pick up her daughter. That day, the children had drawn “images of God.” One child had drawn Jesus, another a beautiful butterfly, another a shining sun. The daughter had drawn a very old man with a beard, sitting on a cloud. “That is beautiful!” said the mother. “I like his big beard. He looks so wise. Why did you decide to show God as a man?” “Because we were supposed to draw God,” the daughter replied. “Do you think you could draw God as a woman someday?” the mother asked. “Don’t be silly, mom,” the daughter laughed, “God is a boy’s name.”

For many centuries, the Christian tradition used exclusively male language for God. Most theologians would have acknowledged that God is neither male nor female. But churches referred to God as male, consistently, exclusively, and daily, and one of the unintentional results is that many girls and women could not see themselves as created in God’s own image (Gen. 1:27) because they had been taught – albeit unintentionally – that “God is a boy’s name.” Perhaps some of us grew up thinking that God was, at least a little bit, a boy’s name.

In the past several decades, the church has been led to do a new thing: to change the ways we talk about God and people. The Eleventh UCC General Synod in 1973 called upon churches to use “inclusive language” when talking about people, using words like “humanity” instead of “mankind,” and making other linguistic changes to reflect our wide diversity of age, race, ability, ethnicity, and more. They also called on churches to use “expansive language” for God – using a wide variety of images, God not just as “father,” but as “mother bear,” “light,” “Word,” “potter,” “eagle,” “midwife,” and the many other beautiful images of God from our scripture and tradition.

The congregation I serve is committed both to inclusive/expansive language and to honoring the tradition of our “great cloud of witnesses.” We try to balance beautiful new God-language (ending every benediction with the declaration that the trinity is “one God, mother of us all”) with the richness of the traditions of the historic church (a rollicking Gloria in the style of spirituals including the words “Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you.”) We try to preserve the poetic integrity of texts, while updating the language when possible, and also to strike out into new territory, with bold new hymns that lift up lesser-known images of God.

But I admit that in my own sermons, prayers, and classes, I too often choose between male images and gender-neutral images, male pronouns and no pronouns. Too often, I shy away from feminine God-language because it might be too edgy, too awkward, too distracting. This Lent, I am recommitting myself to exploring new ways to use inclusive and expansive language, delving into the rich imagery of scripture, leaning into the strangeness of choosing feminine pronouns at least as often as I choose masculine ones. I hope it will challenge me – and all of us – to expand our images of God, and to remember the vast, unlimited mystery of God’s being.

The inclusive/expansive language movement is young yet, and we are certainly seeing its growing pains. Some revisions of dear old hymns sound clumsy or clunky to our ears; often it is hard to know how to talk about God without relying on the traditional pronouns of “he,” “him,” and “his,” let alone masculine images like “Lord,” “King,” and “Father.” Like every new thing the church has ever done, we are feeling our way along, through unfamiliar territory and awkward pronoun situations. But with the help of God, we are being led toward a world where little girls like [names of girls in my congregation] – and little boys like [names of boys in my congregation] –grow up knowing that God is not exclusively a boy’s name.

Notes from the Capernaum Synagogue

Sermon on Mark 1:21-28

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

I'm trying something a little bit different this week. The more I studied this gospel passage, the more I wondered about the man with an unclean spirit. I wondered what his life was like before that day when Jesus taught and healed in the Capernaum synagogue, and what his life was like after. I wondered what he might say to us, if he could. So the rest of this sermon is my imagination of how this man might tell us his own story.

We didn’t have air conditioning back then. We didn’t have electric fans. Those wouldn’t come for almost two thousand years, and the heat in summer in Capernaum was relentless. It was so much cooler in the Capernaum synagogue – the thick stone walls retained the cool night air, and the wooden roof let any heat rise out. I could usually stay there for a long time before they made me leave.

I don’t know what you call people like me now. You’ve sorted us all out into categories – schizophrenia, Tourette’s syndrome, bipolar. But then, we were all called demoniacs. Or they might say that we were en pneumati akatharto – with an unclean spirit. There are different names for it these days, and there are pills and things, but in a lot of ways it isn’t so different. There are still people like me wandering out on the streets with nowhere to go. People still act the same way around us, looking at the ground and hoping we’ll go away soon, no matter whether you call us schizophrenic or possessed. Whatever you call it, I was different. I was unpredictable. I heard things that other people couldn’t hear, and sometimes I would just know something was true but people didn’t believe me. I heard voices sometimes, and they told me to do things and I knew something bad would happen if I didn’t do what they said. I was usually pretty jumpy, because the centurions were always watching me and following me, although my brother said I was just imagining it, and that they had better things to do with their time. I shouted a lot, sometimes to tell the centurions I was onto them, or sometimes because the voices said to. I didn’t want to be like this, I didn’t want the voices and the thoughts in my head, but I couldn’t stop them no matter what I did. Prayer, fasting, healers… nothing changed it.

I lived with my brother and his wife, but they didn’t like me hanging around the house all day. I heard my sister-in-law say she didn’t like me home with just her and the children. Sometimes I would try to help my brother with his work – he was a fisherman – but I couldn’t always do that. A lot of days, he said he just couldn’t deal with me, out there on that boat.

I liked the synagogue, though, because it was cool, and quiet but not too quiet. It was calming, sometimes, to sit and think while the people would study or pray or talk. I liked the music, too – when they sang the psalms.

I was sitting in the synagogue one Sabbath– that’s Saturday for you – when a man I’d never met before came. He had some guys with him, and I recognized a couple of them – they were Zebedee’s boys. He walked up to read something from the Torah. Then he sat down, and began to talk about the passage he had just read. That raised some eyebrows. Everyday people don't really do that, that's more for the scribes and educated people, and who knows who this guy was, wandering around with a bunch of fishermen. But after a few words, he had everyone’s attention. He told these stories and none of us quite understood what they meant, but you just wanted to keep thinking about them. He said that God loves and blesses poor people, and people who are hungry. I wondered if he would tell what God thought about me.

That's when I started to get excited. When I get excited, that can be a bad thing – when my mind gets busier, often there are more voices, more shouting and acting strange.

First I started to get a little bit jumpy, and then I stood up and started pacing back and forth. And I just felt like I had to shout. I knew the guys at the synagogue wouldn’t like it so I tried to hold it in, but I kept hearing these words, so I shouted them: "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are! The Holy One of God!"

Joel who helps run the synagogue rolled his eyes and sighed. He's usually the one who has to tell me to leave.

Jesus looked frightened for a second. People usually are when I shout. Then his face softened and he asked, "How did you know my name?" I don't know how I knew his name. That was just what I had to shout.

I had to keep shouting. I knew I had to, or something bad would happen. So I shouted more. "What have you to do with us?" He came towards me, and he put his hands on my shoulders, looking very stern. "Please stop shouting," he said. But I kept shouting. Then he was shouting, too: "Be silent, and come out of him! Be silent, and come out of him!"

I get angry at myself when I shout, because I try to stop it and I get so frustrated when I do it anyway. Sometimes people get angry and shout back at me. It’s not fair that people get so angry at me for something I can’t help. But Jesus wasn’t angry at me, I could tell. He was angry at the voices that were making me shout, and he wanted them to stop as much as I wanted them to stop. He was angry at them, not angry at me, and he was shouting for them to be silent, shouting for them to go away, to leave me forever. “Be silent, and come out of him! Be silent, and come out of him!”

I kept shouting and he kept shouting, and I kept shouting, and he kept shouting. No one had ever acted like that when I was shouting, like they weren't afraid of me. Like they knew that I was still there, that I was still me, a me separate from all of the shouting and voices and strange things I said and did. Like they actually saw me. I started to weep, and I was shaking, and I wasn't shouting anymore, and I kind of wanted to just run away and get out of there as fast as I could, but I wanted to stay near Jesus, too.

All the other men were glaring, glaring at me, and Jesus still had a hand on my shoulder and he looked right back at them. It was like he really knew and saw them, too, imperfections and all. It was like he knew that Joel got really irritated about tiny little things in the synagogue being exactly perfect, and that Samuel was always trying to be the center of attention, and he talked so much all the time and never wanted to listen. And Levi and Joshua just never stopped bickering with each other over things that didn’t even matter at all.

Jesus just looked at them all glaring at me, like "Well? You think he's the only who struggles?" And then Joel said "Jesus, why don't you sit down and tell us more about the guy on the Jericho road." So that’s what Jesus did.

I think people read my story these days and they assume that I was normal from then on. They figure that whatever was wrong with me, Jesus fixed it and that was that.

Well, yes and no.

I was definitely better. Maybe a lot better. I think that after that day with Jesus I shouted less, and I didn’t worry as much about the centurions. Sometimes when things were getting bad I would remember Jesus and it would calm me down and bring me back.

But something else happened, too.

Joel and Samuel and everyone who was there treated me differently after that day. They weren't so afraid of me, and when I was yelling or muttering or pacing, sometimes they would just talk to me.

I think that when Jesus and I shouted at each other in the synagogue that day, he changed the way we all thought about each other, and ourselves. Because all those other guys, they’re not perfect; we all have things about ourselves that we would change if we could. We all have ways that we’re broken. Mine is right on the surface for everyone to see. Everyone saw it that day, but Jesus said in every way he knew how that I mattered and belonged anyway. He said in every way he could that God loved me and that those people in the synagogue should love me too. God goes and finds the lost sheep, he said. God loves all those people on the edges. And God loves the people whose brokenness is hidden, like the priests who walked past the beaten-up guy on the road, or the responsible brother who got ticked off when his dad threw a party for the irresponsible brother who came home alive. Jesus told us every way he knew how, with his words, and then with his actions, and then with words again. And the miracle is, I think all of us heard him.

Things are different around the synagogue now. Sometimes I get to read from the Torah, even -- I learned how when I was a kid. When I have a bad day, if I shout too much or say something horrible or mean, Joel still tells me I have to leave. “No blasphemy in the synagogue,” he says, or “You can’t be so loud here, you need to leave for now.” But other times, Joel comes and sits by me and talks to me, even if I’m having a little bit of a hard day, he just talks to me and I talk to him. The other guys are nicer to me, too, and sometimes they call me over to sit with them while they study. It’s like everyone can see me now, like when Jesus sent away my voices that make me shout, he sent away everyone else’s voices, too… the voices that make people hate me and fear me and ignore me. I think we’re starting to be friends, maybe. I think that’s how Jesus wanted it to be.

I think that is how Jesus wanted it to be.

God of the lost sheep, send away the voices that whisper fear and hate. Help us to see one another as you see us. Amen.

Fearfully and Wonderfully

Sermon on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Smog.

Spork.

Turducken.

Brangelina.

Those words are all portmanteaux, words that blend the sounds and meanings of two words into one. Portmanteau words are fun, and funny, but they also help us to name things that are two-or-more-in-one.

My spouse and I have a portmanteau we’ve made up. This word describes the state of being so hungry that you’re likely to act cranky, or get angry for no good reason. We call this combination of hungry, cranky, and angry, “hrankgry,” H-R-A-N-K-G-R-Y as in, “I forgot to have lunch before church, so I got hrankgry during the sermon.”

I was struggling a bit to write this sermon earlier this week – I had the worst writer’s block. When I told my spouse about it, he said, “Did you eat a good breakfast? You always get writer’s block when you’re hrankgry.”

The next morning, after I ate a good breakfast, the ideas finally started to come together. As I wrote, I marveled at my own foolishness. I had forgotten that my mind and body are connected, even as I studied Paul’s words about the connections between body and soul.

Today’s epistle reading from First Corinthians is famous among biblical scholars for being confusing and obscure.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

That is pretty confusing.

Not only confusing, but a little troubling, especially the part about prostitutes. Paul sounds horrified and disgusted by prostitutes, revolted at the idea of connecting a prostitute to the body of Christ. It’s hard to imagine Jesus sharing that revulsion – Jesus, who ate with sinners and tax collectors; Jesus, whose feet were washed with the tears of a sinful woman, and dried with her hair. I have no doubt that every child of God can be welcomed joyfully into the body of Christ. But there is something important here, nonetheless.

When we study epistles, it’s important to remember that we are reading someone else’s mail. In the early days of the church, people like Paul and Peter traveled the known world, spreading the good news and starting Christian communities. They would form close relationships with these people, but eventually they’d move on, and so they would keep in touch by correspondence. Many of these letters were kept, copied, and shared, and those letters are the epistles in our bible today. One reason this passage is confusing is that we have walked into the middle of a conversation, and we’re only hearing one side of that conversation – a letter from Paul that responds to questions and concerns in a letter from the Corinthians.

We can tell from Paul’s letter that he has just read a lot of bad news about how the Corinthian Christians have been behaving. Paul opens the letter by sternly chastising the Corinthian church for their infighting, divisions, and factions. Soon after that, he is scolding them for sexual immorality. He rounds out the letter by yelling at them for the way they’re conducting communion: some people are coming early, getting drunk, and eating all the food.

For all of this bad behavior, these are the saints of Corinth. Corinth was a port city in Greece, and it was famous for its rowdy nightlife. So famous, that in the Roman Empire, getting drunk and acting lewd was known as “Corinthianizing.”

The Corinthians, living in this city famous for its licentiousness, hear the gospel of a God of grace, and eventually, some of them start to think to themselves, “Hey, we’re all set! Our God is a God of grace, and our sins have been redeemed, and that means that we can behave however we like! Party time!” This passage is Paul’s answer.

First, he quotes back what they wrote to him: “Everything is lawful.” Then he responds, “But not everything is beneficial.” He quotes it again: “Everything is lawful.” And he responds again: “But I will not be dominated by anything.” That is, nothing but God should have power over me. Again, he quotes the Corinthians: “Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” The Corinthians are advocating satisfying the appetites of the body: only souls matter, they think, so why not do what feels good for our bodies? But Paul says no. The body is not meant for fornication, he says. The word there is porneia, the word from which we get the word pornography. It’s not clear what Paul meant by porneia. In popular usage, it meant some kind of sexual immorality, but we don’t know whether it was general or specific. Is it prostitution? Is it adultery? Or, since Paul grew up Jewish, schooled in the Old Testament, is he using the word metaphorically, like the prophets who described the Israelites’ unfaithfulness and idolatry in terms of adultery and prostitution? Scholars have spilled gallons of ink trying to argue it out, most of them trying to push one agenda or another. I can’t tell you what it means for sure. But I think we’re actually better moving on to what Paul says next: the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Part of the Corinthians’ mistake is that they imagine that the soul and the body are entirely separate things – they can do what they want with the body, they think, because it is merely a vehicle for the soul. That idea was prevalent in Greek philosophy – Platonist philosophy in particular, tended to believe that the soul was eternal, good, and unchangeable, while the body was temporary, changeable, and basically bad. In The Republic, Plato wrote that we are at our purest and most virtuous when we are least connected to our bodies. Platonist philosophy saw bodies as little more than gross, stinky houses made out of meat in which our souls were unfortunately imprisoned.

But Paul says a resounding “no” to the idea that bodies are an inconvenient, irrelevant coincidence. “The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.” God created bodies, God came to us in a body, and the crucified Christ was resurrected in a body. Bodies matter to God, Paul declares. They are not just temporary houses for our eternal souls.

Today’s Psalm points us towards a more faithful way of thinking about human bodies: it speaks of a God who knows us, body and soul, “knitting us together in the womb.” It proclaims that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” This is the tradition from which Paul speaks when he declares to the Corinthians that how we use our bodies matters profoundly.

This weekend we remember the legacy of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. While he was in prison for his work, Dr. King wrote one of his greatest works, the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In this letter, King spoke out against complacent churches which, he writes, “commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.” The legacy of Martin Luther King reminds us that injustice perpetrated against bodies has deep effects on the souls of the oppressed and the oppressor alike.

Because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, there are intricate links between our physical bodies and our internal states, links that we feel in big ways and in small. When our minds our troubled, we feel it in our bodies – in headaches or sore backs. Hunger can make us cranky. A time of prayer can relax our shoulders. A brisk walk can lift our spirits. An hour of yoga can help us feel a deep sense of spiritual peace.

We shape our relationships through physical touch, from handshakes and hugs during the passing of the peace, to lovers embracing. As a mother and infant fall asleep together, their heart rates synchronize. The body is more than a place where the soul lives; our inner and outer selves are deeply connected. It’s how we are made. And so what we do with our bodies, honoring or harming them, using them to honor or to harm, does matter.

It is true, Paul acknowledges, that everything is lawful. That is to say, our God is a God of grace who comes to us despite every sin, flaw, or shortcoming. There is no rulebook we have to play by in order to earn God’s love. God’s love is not quid pro quo; it is freely given to us, no matter what. Paul urges the Corinthians to see this surpassing grace not as an excuse for doing harm, but as an encouragement toward deeper faithfulness. He urges us to glorify God by honoring God’s creation, our bodies – and, I would add, not only our own bodies, but also the bodies of others.

Paul’s words to the Corinthians focus on sexual intimacy as a way that we can either glorify God or do harm. I don’t know what Paul means by porneia, but I do believe that God delights in expressions of sexuality that are loving, honest, mutual and respectful, and I believe that God does not delight in expressions of sexuality that harm, oppress, or objectify. But the words “everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial” have implications far beyond sexuality. What would it mean to try to delight God through how we eat? How we use our time? How we spend our money?

The Iona Community is a community of Christians in Scotland. Members of that community commit to being accountable to one another for how they spend their money. Not just pledging – what percent, before or after tax, blah blah blah. No, how they spend all of their money. Periodically, the community gathers with their checkbooks and bank statements to discuss whether their financial decisions are reflections of their Christian faith. Are they spending more on luxuries or on feeding the hungry? Does their use of money reflect their commitment to caring for the earth? Do they avoid supporting corporations that use slave labor? Would God take delight in the ways they spend money? God will love us if we squander every cent of our money on fancy gadgets and expensive clothing – everything is lawful. But not everything is beneficial – thoughtful, faithful use of the blessings we have from God will deepen our faith and delight God’s heart.

We are not just souls housed inside of bodies, Paul says. We are portmanteau people; our souls and bodies are blended and bound up and knitted together. When our souls are well, we can feel it in our bodies; honoring bodies can buoy up souls. Our God is a God of grace – there is nothing we can do, body or soul, that will separate us from the love of God. But Paul invites us to go deeper than that: to remember that bodies matter. To remember that we are created by God, fearfully and wonderfully made. We are invited to respond to God’s love with everything we have: with our hands and feet and minds and heart and voices. With our time and money and skills and words and actions. We won’t live perfectly today, and probably not tomorrow either. And that is fine, because nothing can separate us from the love of God, who came to us in Christ, and who loves us beyond our wildest dreams, and who created us fearfully and wonderfully.
Thanks be to God.

The Light Bulb in the Manger

A Sermon on Luke 2:1-20

Like the congregation I currently serve, my childhood church presented a Christmas pageant during an Advent worship service every year. But in stark contrast to my current church's Christmas pageant, the Christmas pageant my childhood church presented every year was emphatically NOT FOR CHILDREN. The shepherds were adults, the wise men were adults, Joseph and Mary were adults, and the narrator was an adult. The script had been the same every year since about 1901, passed down on type-written yellow pages. Each set of characters silently acted out their parts as the narrator provided a voiceover, and then each group made their way to the nativity tableau, which seemed to glow with a heavenly light. There were roles for four children: two pre-teen girls were selected to be angels, and the two best-behaved seven-year-olds would be chosen to represent the modern Christians who were still devoted to the Christ-child. They would don their Christmas finery, climb the tall, tall steps to the nativity tableau, and lay wrapped presents for charity in front of the manger, posing there with the shepherds and angels while the congregation came forward with their own toys to donate to needy children. I yearned to be in the Christmas pageant – I just remember feeling so drawn to that nativity scene, glowing there in the darkened sanctuary. And the year I was seven, my prayers were answered and I was selected.

That chilly Sunday morning, I climbed the tall, tall steps in my forest green velvet Christmas dress and knelt in front of the manger, trying not to wiggle. But I couldn’t resist – emanating from the manger was this heavenly golden glow, and I just had to look in. I edged forward, as surreptitiously as possible, still kneeling, until I could peer over the edge of the manger. In I looked, holding my breath. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a 100-watt light bulb wrapped in orange cellophane.

A light bulb wrapped in plastic. That's what they were using to represent Jesus. Because, of course, no one was going to be able to see it, and they didn't want to bother with a doll or, God forbid, a real baby, a real baby who might fuss or cry, babble or wiggle.

That says something to me about how we as a society have come to think about Christmas. Of course, we get all up in arms about the commercialism and materialism of our contemporary Christmas celebrations. Of course, we worry that our secular festival of gift-giving and cookie-eating has distracted us from the Gospel stories of Christmas. Of course, some people oppose the trends of multiculturalism and religious tolerance, claiming that there’s a “war on Christmas” because public schools and retail establishments don’t assume everyone is Christian – which I actually think is a wonderful way to respect our brothers and sisters of other faiths. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I think that sometimes, when we reflect on Christmas, we imagine a night of pristine holiness, perfect order and peace. Our images of Christmas are often so simple and lovely and quiet and glowing that we have a hard time imagining that there might have been an actual baby – a noisy, drooly, sometimes smelly baby – in that manger.

But as I studied the Gospel lesson for today, I was struck by its absolute insistence that the first Christmas was every bit as messy and difficult and disorganized and REAL as our real lives, right here, right now, two thousand years later.

The Christmas story, like many of our stories, starts with some bureaucratic red tape. Our real, everyday lives can get thrown out of whack by all kinds of things: a canceled flight, some problem with the bank, a summons for jury duty. And so, too, with Mary and Joseph in the Christmas story: "A decree went out from the Emperor Augustus that all the world was to be registered." An interruption, an inconvenience, that just seems to come at the worst possible time, taking no account of our lengthy to-do lists and packed schedules, or the aching back and swollen feet of a pregnant girl. There's nothing to be done about it, and so Mary and Joseph set off to Bethlehem, where the time comes for Mary to give birth.

“She gave birth to her firstborn son,” we read in the gospel, “and she wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” After five Christmases in this city, those words have taken on new meaning for me. Luke tells us of a Bethlehem filled with transient people, weary travelers “making do,” crowding into inns and stables alike for the census… and it reminds me of New York, with all the people coming and going to do their shopping, see the sights, and visit family, and all the people who are just passing through on their way from one place to another. Sometimes, it reminds me of our living room. At this time of year, calls pour in from family and friends. “I missed my greyhound bus,” says a weary friend, “The next one isn’t until tomorrow.” “The couch is already taken,” we reply, “But if we move the dinner table we can put a sleeping bag on the floor.” There is usually a bit of room at our little Manhattan apartment inn, but when the travelers are hungry and the groceries are scarce, sometimes we find ourselves out in the streets of lower Manhattan, wandering from door to door because there is just no room at the diner.

"In that region," the gospel writer continues, "there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night." The story of Christmas does not happen to people who are attentively watching and hoping, silent and prepared, waiting for Christmas. During Advent, we do try to prepare our hearts and minds, but the Gospel insists that Christmas comes bursting in, ready or not, on people who are busy, working, trundling along with their everyday lives. It comes to us, too, when we have other things to do, family crises and work projects; flocks to watch and papers to write. And it comes to all kinds of people. Despite all of our romantic mental images of beautiful green fields and soft white sheep, shepherding was not a particularly respected job in the ancient Near East. But Christmas comes to us all, the Gospel reminds us, not just to well-behaved, neat-and-tidy, church-going people. It is, the angels proclaim, good news for all people.

When I look back on the Christmas pageants of my youth, where the shepherds were artfully smudged with little streaks of brown makeup to represent just a tiny bit of dirt, and the baby Jesus was represented by a glowing light bulb in the manger, I know that we had forgotten something. Christmas is not about getting all of your ducks in a row – logistically, or theologically. It is not about constructing the perfect nativity tableau, it is not about Martha Stewart crafts and perfect pie crusts, it is not about making everything “just so.” No, because Christmas, at its heart, is about Christ coming into the world. And that world is messy, and busy, and difficult, often beautiful but never perfect or pristine. Christmas is about immanuel – God With Us. Us, real people with all of our flaws and imperfections, our mismatched socks and broken relationships. The Good News of Christmas is that in Christ, God comes to messy, busy people in a messy, busy world. Or, as the Christmas song I Wonder as I Wander puts it, Christ comes “for poor, ornery people like you and like I.” And so it is, every year, with Christmas. Christmas comes to the world as it is, not the world as we would prefer to imagine it. That is what we forget when our Christmas pageants are perfectly choreographed and synchronized, with perfect shepherds and perfect wise men and a perfectly behaved light bulb wrapped in cellophane.

But there was something real and true about the light bulb in that manger, as well. There are two different Gospel readings for the day of Christmas; one is the Christmas story I’ve been talking about. But the other one is from the Gospel according to John, and we read it together at the beginning of worship today. It speaks of the mystery of the incarnation: it declares that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the light of the world. "In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh, who came to show us God's love and God’s grace. Decades later, Jesus would tell us that whenever we give a hungry person a sandwich or a thirsty person a drink of water, we do it for Jesus. Jesus teaches us to see Christ in the faces of our neighbors, to love one another as Christ loves us, and to see ourselves and one another as beloved children of God.

The light bulb in the manger didn’t look much like the baby Jesus. But light bulbs are not for gazing at; we aren’t supposed to stare at them. We are supposed to look at what they illuminate. In that light, the faces of shepherds and wise men, Mary and Joseph, glowed. They were everyday people, like the people in the Christmas story; they were accountants and janitors, school teachers and postal workers. They juggled work and church and home. They shoveled the church sidewalks and raised foster children and coordinated food drives and edited the church newsletter. The light from that manger, the light of Christ, shone on their faces that day, and maybe they looked a little like they look to God: created, beloved, holy, everyday people, people whose lives have been changed forever by what happened that day in Bethlehem. We stood around the manger, and we were illuminated by the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Women's Ordination: My Conclusions; OR: What I Say When Some Jerk on the Bus Wants to Start With Me

This is the third part of my "utrum" paper, rebutting the arguments against women's ordination. Please note that any theological discourse undertaken with Jerks on the Bus is more likely to lead to a headache than a change of heart.

Responsio: I answer that it is theologically sound to ordain women.

Ergo: The strongest case against women’s ordination is the one based on teachings in the Pauline epistles [presented in The Case Against Women’s Ordination]. It is certainly dangerous to claim that the Christian church can simply disregard inconvenient scripture. However, there are ample grounds for valuing women’s calls to ministry over this interpretation of these particular scriptural passages.

Much of Paul’s other writing on gender is disregarded as clearly outdated, meant for people and problems of his own time and not for ours. For instance, immediately before the passage from First Timothy which is used against women’s ordination, the writer says, “women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, 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” (1 Tim. 2:9-10). Of course, this passage may still have something to say to our time, but few Christians take the admonition against hair-plaiting literally.

Moreover, First Corinthians has an extended argument about head-coverings for men and women, including this:

…any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. . . . Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. (1 Cor.11:4-6, 13-15)

This passage, which includes a lengthy argument about creation and gender, stretches a full twelve verses, yet the wider church has judged hair length and head covering to be of little importance for our time. In this case, a lengthy and emphatic discourse on gender has been judged, and rightly so in my opinion, to be a product of and for Paul’s time, rather than an instruction for all time on the appropriate behavior of women.

If we consider this teaching about head coverings to be part of our tradition but not part of our task as Christians, why should we regard the words about women in the church any differently? Paul is no less emphatic here; these words are no more specific to Paul’s social context. In short, his teachings on women and authority need not limit the church’s ability to recognize God’s call of women to ordained ministry in our time any more than any other passages demand that contemporary Christian women wear veils.

The question of catholicity – faithfulness to the traditions of the church worldwide and through the ages – and women’s ordination is a complex one. On one hand, most churches throughout time and many around the world have declared that the ordination of women is not theologically sound; in recent years this has changed, but we must ask whether this change has to do with the guidance of God, or with the pressures of contemporary feminism.

Church history provides some parallel instances which may clarify this question: as we move further away from the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement, for example, it is clear that the churches which advocated abolition and racial equality, both in society and in the church, while this was still unpopular, were influenced not by the whims of the world, but by God’s will for the church.

It is important that the church move in response to God’s will rather than secular trends. Given the testimony of women called to ministry, the witness of scripture, and the history of the church, the ordination of women is theologically sound.

In Favor of Women's Ordination

Below is the second part of my "utrum" paper on the issue of women's ordination. This part of the paper attempts to lay out the case for women's ordination, stating the case thoroughly and fairly but without counter-argument. Strangely, it was harder to write than the case against women's ordination, although the process probably involved much lower risk of aneurysm. Tomorrow, I'll post the third and final part, my conclusion on whether it is theologically sound to ordain women to ministry.

Sed Contra: On the other hand, the ordination of women must be considered theologically valid.

Many women feel specifically called to ordination and are uniquely gifted for pastoral ministry. When a woman has carefully discerned the will of God, in some cases experiencing a dramatic call to the pulpit and the parish in a voice or a vision, how can the church claim that God’s will is for her to ignore that call?

Ordination of women is a matter of respecting divine vocatio. In Not Every Spirit, Christopher Morse writes that “Christian faith refuses to believe that God calls anyone to reject the particular gifts that God gives uniquely to each human life to make it whole” (267). God would not give women the aptitude for ministry and a sense of call to ordination, only to ask them to ignore this call. Neither, then, should the church ignore this call.

Furthermore, ordination for women is consistent with biblical witness. In the midst of a patriarchal society, Jesus defied societal norms by treating women with dignity and respect, maintaining friendships with women including Mary and Martha, and including women in his ministry. Jesus’ ministry included healing many women (Luke 13:10-17; Mark 5:25-34; Matthew 8:14-15); parables such as the unjust judge and the lost coin place marginalized women at the center (Luke 18:1-8; Luke 15:8-10) In the Gospel of John, we read of the woman at the well, with whom Jesus had a long conversation even though his disciples “were astonished that he was speaking with a woman” (4:27). Jesus’ disregard for social mores around gender calls into question the assertion that women must necessarily be proscribed from certain roles in God’s ecclesia.

Women in the Gospels take on pastoral and ministerial roles. The woman at the well is arguably the first person to preach the good news, announcing to her town, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (4:29). All of the Gospels agree that women were the first to find out that Christ had been resurrected from the dead. Furthermore, in Matthew, Mark, and John these women are explicitly bidden to spread the good news, and in Matthew, Luke, and John, the women are the first to the disciples of the resurrection. In light of these clear scriptural instances of women being sent to spread the news of what has happened with Jesus, it seems that there is biblical support for the ordination of women.

The shift toward women’s ordination in the last two hundred year reflects the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit, leading the church to grow in faithfulness to the will of God. The first woman to be ordained in America was a Congregationalist in 1853. Since that time, many Christian traditions have embraced the ordination of women, including mainline Protestant groups, Evangelical traditions, and many parts of the Anglican Communion. These widespread changes in policy, undertaken in prayerful discernment, demonstrate that many Christian communities around the world are discerning that the ordination of women to ministry is the will of God.

The church’s shift towards women’s ordination coincides with the secular movement for women’s rights and equality. On its own, feminism in the secular world is a poor reason to change church standards of ordination. However, if the church arbitrarily resists gender equality in the name of preserving tradition, it risks being seen as archaic and irrelevant. When our growing societal awareness of gender equality is combined with the testimony of women’s experiences of call, the witness of scripture, and discernment that God is leading the church to ordain women, it is clear that women’s ordination is theologically valid.

The Case Against Women's Ordination

For one of my seminary theology courses, I wrote an "utrum" paper, an analysis of a theological issue in a style first used by Thomas Aquinas. The task is to lay out two opposing positions as thoroughly and fairly as possible, before offering one's own conclusion. The issue I chose was the ordination of women to Christian ministry. The work I did in preparing this paper really served me well; it equipped me for conversation with people who doubt my call to ministry, and the faithfulness of denominations that ordain women. I'll be posting the paper here in three parts. What follows is my understanding of the case against ordaining women.

Utrum: Whether it is theologically sound to ordain women to Christian ministry.

Videtur: It would seem that it is not theologically sound to ordain women to Christian ministry. There are two significant places in scripture that seem to forbid women from leadership roles in the church. In First Timothy, the author instructs: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no 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” (2:11-14). Here, the writer, who in deference to tradition will be referred to as Paul, asserts that women are forbidden from having authority over men because of the Genesis story of the Creation and the Fall. Paul employs the Genesis 2 story of creation in which Eve is formed from Adam’s rib in order that Adam might have a companion, interpreting it to mean that women are secondary. Furthermore, the inheritance of sin can be traced to Eve’s gullibility; thus the descendants of Eve, women, are forbidden from teaching and from positions of authority.

A second instance of biblical witness against women’s ordination occurs in First Corinthians: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (14:33b-35). If women are to be subordinate in the church, as Paul writes here, that certainly precludes granting them leadership roles within the church. Furthermore, a final element of scriptural witness against the ordination of women can be inferred by considering the religious leaders of the New Testament. While it is sometimes asserted that Jesus’ maleness is not significant, it is nonetheless important to note that the major leaders of the church identified in scripture are men: Jesus, the twelve disciples, and Paul. In the New Testament, the most significant leaders of the ecclesia in the New Testament are all men.

The ordination of women is also judged to be theologically unsound by catholicity -- continuity with the church around the world and throughout the ages. Women’s ordination began to be granted by some denominations in the nineteenth century; up until that point it was widely unknown. Furthermore, many significant Christian traditions hold the ordination of women to be unacceptable up to this day, including the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, some provinces of the Anglican Communion, and several Protestant denominations including the Southern Baptist Convention, Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), and Presbyterian Church of America. These traditions justify their decision not to ordain women based not only on scriptural witness, but also on continuity with apostolic tradition.

Finally, it is important in considering this question not to be swayed by the tendencies of contemporary society. The past two hundred years in the United States have seen great advances in women's rights. However, it is important to remember that the church is not necessarily beholden to the ethical norms of the world. We as Christians must decide questions about the rites and sacraments of the church based not on contemporary identity politics but on scriptural witness and faithful theological discernment.