I was chatting with a client at a drop in today, he articulated the Christian hope in a gracious and thoughtful way, seeing hope for transformation even in his darkest struggles.... and I was blessed.
Over the last few weeks I've noticed a rise in the number of face-book comments and blog posts surrounding the question of the role of women in the church. These are coming from all sorts of angles and traditions, and while my usual reaction these days is to simply let this rumble on around me like so much white noise, every now and then it makes me really angry, and today is one of those days. I am not angry for myself particularly but angry for friends, good friends and good ministers who keep on getting hurt by stupid, yes stupid comments from people who try to put them down and question their calling. I have received a couple of e-mails just today from Godly women who are being treated appallingly because they are women, one e-mail said that the attacks, and don't get me wrong I am not using the word attack without thought, the attacks, are often followed with the loving phrase, "nothing personal of course."
Nothing personal???? You mean it is OK to question someones calling, their inner being and then say "nothing personal???" It is not OK, it is very far from OK, and that is what has prompted me to write. I am not going to set out a Biblical argument as to why women can and should be ministers, and how complimentarianism is wrong, quite simply because I know that I will be inundated with those who will throw proof texting counter-arguments at me, and we could get into a theological slanging match which is not something anyone would find edifying!
Instead I'd like to share a little of my journey with you; I was brought up in an unchurched home, and when I came to faith in my twenties it did not occur to me that women and men were anything but equal in the eyes of God or of the church. I was soon to find out that I was wrong, even though I knew an early call to preach and to be an evangelist this made others uncomfortable and I have been counselled to stop being pushy and to consider what other women in the church did. This seemed strange to me because many of these women were competent professionals, but when I did a double take I discovered that within the church their teaching was often confined to Sunday School ( and there is a whole other debate there) , and their activities to "creative things" like baking and flower arranging. Don't misunderstand me I like cakes and enjoy flowers, but I am not gifted in either of these creative outlets in any striking way. BUT I am pretty good with words and I can preach, but the criticisms rumbled on, I was even accused of "stealing" my husbands ministry!
In the 1990's Tim ( mu husband ) joined an evangelistic organisation who conducted week and fortnight long missions, I too joined in with this, and while I was accepted as a team member and even a second in command leader, I was never allowed to lead, even though I have a letter from the founder of the mission quoting General Booth who said; " some of my best men are women" followed by the statement " such are you".
When life took me into Lay Ministry in the Methodist Church it soon became clear that God was calling me to take another step and to offer for Ordained Ministry, through the years of interviews and training that followed that call was confirmed again and again. BUT I still meet opposition, and the naysayers of my early steps into ministry have not all melted away, and sometimes they can be very loud indeed. Usually my stance, as I have said, is to ignore these voices, in effect turning the other cheek and allowing the fruit of ministry to speak for itself, but when I hear of my friends and colleagues being hurt and abused it makes me see red, and I simply ask those who are involved in critisising to take a deep breath, step back and look.Choose to lay aside all of your well formed arguements, your traditions and prejudices and look, look at the good being done by women ministers and priests, look at the creative and innovative ways that they work, see the fruit and the blessings that they bring, and ask yourself, seriously ask yourself, can this be wrong?
At a stewards meeting this afternoon I read one of my favourite passages from Matthew, I read it not because it is a favourite passage but because it is a reminder of our calling, a calling that is not so much about doing as about being;
13 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
14-16 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.(Matthew 5: 13-16)
As I read it I was reminded that the function of salt and light is to enhance the qualities of the environment or mix they are added to, when the salt is added to food it not only adds a preserving, healing effect, but it brings out the flavours of the food it is added to, its function is to enhance not to overpower. I'm sure you'll agree that too much salt in a meal can really spoil it, and before you wonder if I am stretching an illustration here just think about it. The world around us in all of its brokenness is still glorious in its diversity, even the most needy and the most neglected, the most distorted and broken bear his image! Then of course there comes the question who/what is needy, broken and distorted anyway?
As for the God colours of this world they come in a glorious and diverse array that should bring us to our knees in wonder and worship, different shades of glory are to be found everywhere from subtle pastel hues to vibrant primary colours and everything in between. The light Jesus describes is a light of welcome and direction, a city on a hill could be seen, lights in windows lights on hilltops were used as guides, these were lights to draw people, not search lights to catch the unwary, or interrogation lights harsh and demanding. To be sure light will show up faults and flaws, but within a welcoming open community where love's generous light highlights beauty!
I find myself working in a diverse and deprived community, a place where it is obvious that God's flavours and colours are needed, a place where those flavours and colours are evident in the ongoing mission of the church, and not because they have got it all right, but because they are willing to grapple with some hard questions and to respond with grace. One of the Chapels I serve with is situated a large homeless community, people struggling in pretty terrible bed-sit conditions, a sizable LGBT community many of whom are disenfranchised through no fault of their own, families who struggle, a place where unemployment is high. The other is in the centre of town, near to night clubs and shopping centres,the population is both cases is largely transient, though there are obviously exceptions to this, and there are no quick fix solutions or answers here when we are asked questions of church sustainability and growth.
As I ponder my first few weeks I am more and more convinced that being is important, we should exhibit the body language of grace both as individuals and as church, and just maybe we should begin with grace towards ourselves! It is so easy for us to be hard upon ourselves, and easy to miss the God flavours and colours in our lives, to miss his touch of generosity and to become mean spirited and small minded. When we become mean spirited we become closed to the possibilities that present themselves to us. When we become small minded we see look for answers to our questions on a narrow horizon, and possible miss what the Spirit is showing us.
I am also more and more convinced that mission needs to be locally and particular/ specialised. Seeking God's gifting and vision, flavours and colours for our particular locations are key homogenised or McDonaldised Christianity is monotone and lacking in flavour! One size does not fit all, one course will not be the solution, and youth workers however good do not have magic powers and may not be the person with the gifts your church needs; surely the church should reflect God in all of Gods glorious colours and flavours! Perhaps our ongoing priority should be to:
...get down on our knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. To ask him to strengthen us by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite him in. And to ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, we’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness and grace of God, all the time inviting others to join us, living with an open door... (Ephesians 3: 14-19- adapted)
That may seem like an odd title for a blog post, but when I went to bed last night I had intended to be climbing Pendle Hill today after Synod. I was going to climb it with others from the District (read Methodist District) as part of the Year of Prayer, during which Stephen Poxon the Chair ( another Methodist term) is inviting others to join him in walking and praying around the Distirct.
My body had other ideas, I woke with a sore throat and swollen glands, and while ibuprofen meant that I was able to attend Synod, but when it came to climbing Pendle Hill I found myself defeated. I did climb part of the way, but there reached a point when I just knew that to carry on would be stupid and would possibly land me in bed for a few days!
Reluctantly I turned to walk back, as it turned out that walk turned out to be a real blessing, on the way down, walking on my own I took greater note of my surroundings, I noticed the ways the trees leaned, I listened to the stream bubbling over rocks and stood to enjoy a robin's cheerful song. I suspect that I saw more detail than I might have done had I climbed to the top and I took lots of photos.
I was challenged by this because one of the things I had been really looking forward to was the view from the top, I wanted to take in the 360 view, I am by nature a big picture person, but as I find myself at the beginning of a new phase of ministry I know that taking in some of the details and listening to the songs and stories of those I am called to work amongst and with is important,these early weeks and months are a time for pausing and praying, listening and discerning. Later we will climb the hill ( or mountain), later and hopefully together, and while I may want to get to the top right now, maybe the time is just not right not yet, but this I do know, I found God in the details today, in the glory of creation, and in the views that I did see, and that is enough for today. There is something to be said for not rushing! I had a number of good chats with folk on the way down too :-)
This picture was drawn by Tim in response to a sermon you can follow the link to read more about it and to a poem I wrote at the time. I have returned to it today following a couple of conversations recently with members of the LGBT community I work with and amongst. One of those conversations was about baptism, and a request for a re-baptism following a sex change, and while I understand the request at a surface pastoral level I think there is some deeper theology to be done here, theology that will hopefully be more useful than a knee jerk response of affirmation. In a sense I hope that it will speak to the brokenness in all of us.
When we are baptised we mark the reception of an inward grace of God; the Methodist Worship Book (my tradition) speaks of the saving work of Christ, and how his work is effective and sufficient even before we know of it. If that is true then it seems to me that we are all recipients of that inward grace whether we know it or not, and that through baptism we mark the beginnings of our awakening to that. The life of faith that follows ( though it did not necessarily start there) is a growing into a deeper wholeness both within or without. That life may take twists and turns, and even dives into the darkness, it will probably be marked by anguish and struggles as well as joys as we begin to grapple with who we are before God , with God and in God in Christ.
While I understand the request for baptism I know that I cannot, nor would I want to re-baptise, and while Methodism does allow for a re-dedication using water as a symbol I wonder if we need more creative liturgies and ways of responding to our growth towards wholeness particularly when that means marking significant transformations or milestones. Celebration is an important part of any life, and in our walk of faith I believe that we need to be able to celebrate with one another along the way, it will be an encouragement for all concerned. My step towards wholeness may be about the conquering of a bad habit, someone else's might be a revelation and acceptance of who and where they are, however large or small the steps taken when there is a request for celebration voiced then we must be prepared to celebrate, for we are all in the process of being made whole!
Now there's a title for a blog post, I could go almost anywhere now, and possibly I'd make some new friends, and loose others, and for those who think I have left out a word and had meant to write "on the passion", sorry but no! Then again I suspect it will come into it somewhere....
So why am I writing about passion, and specifically in this case passion for God, for God's ways, and the wonderfully expansive life giving good news? Well I'll be honest and say that very often it is something I lack in abundance, often it flickers away somewhere deep within me, but it struggles for life. Quite often my prayer is God where are you, and when that prayer is answered it is often answered in surprising ways, I find God very often not within the church but beyond it, and I find myself wanting to encourage my often disheartened fellow travellers to lift their eyes to a wider horizon, and to catch again a sense of the glory awe and wonder of the God we claim to worship, the God we try to follow....
So why do we lack passion? Why do I encounter folk in the church who again and again speak in many different ways of their lack of confidence in their ability to do or be different, folk who are talking of either pulling up the drawbridge and retreating to a safe place, or perhaps even giving up altogether. Don't get me wrong, these are often good and faithful people, people who would love to see the churches full, but somehow the years have eroded their passion, they have lowered their eyes and opted for survival at best...
Again and again I find myself returning to a short sentence often quoted by Alan Hirsch:
"If you want people to build a ship don't drum up people together to collect wood, and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." Antoine De Saint-Exuprey
When it comes to longing for the endless immensity of the sea, I wonder how often in the recent history of many churches ( and I am talking church local) time has been taken, really taken, beyond that hour on a Sunday, to sit and to dream, to catch sight of fresh vistas and new horizons, to be surprised by the endless immensity and possibilities of a God who in Christ calls his people to follow, to be a pilgrim journeying people, a people who because of their passion long to draw others along with them so that they can explore together the wonders set out before them.
We have wonders to explore, I finished my service today with the wonderful prayer from Ephesians 3;
"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God."
"I pray that you will be able to take in the extravagant dimensions of Christs love" says the writer of Ephesians, and I wonder what would happen if we were able and enabled to do just that. I wonder what would happen if instead of listing our problems and rehearsing to ourselves again and again the woes of the culture that surrounds us we were to lift out eyes to take in those extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. As I wonder I have to challenge myself to enter into those dimensions afresh, to immerse myself in the possibilities of the endless immensity of God, God who considers that we are worth knowing, who knows us inside out and calls us to follow him through death and out into his wondorous vistas of life everlasting NOW!
Again I find that my task, and our task together is to remind one another of God's extravagant dimensions in Christ, to remember his possibilities, and that he is for us! That God has chosen to place his Spirit within us is awesome! We should be awe-filled in amazement and trembling with the power and wonder of this extravagant self-giving.
Todays' Gospel reading contained a reminder of how Peter both got it, and got it wrong, his vision forwho the was and what he would do Messiah was too small, for that he received a rebuke, and an invitation. When I consider my life and the life of the church I know I know that I need to receive the rebuke and respond to the invitation. I want to regain/ rekindle a passion for the Gospel. for Christ's ways, for God's immensity both in myself and those that I am called to walk with, I want to long for that endless immensity to break over me again and set me free from myself and my small imagination.
I am preparing to preach tomorrow and am pondering the Gospel passage for the nth time this week, again and again I come back to the same question; did Jesus change his mind? Let's face it he was rude to the Syrophonecian Woman, she'd come, falling at his feet, pleading for healing for her daughter and he called her a dog! There is no real way to sugar coat that is there?
Now I am sure some folk will put me right, saying things like; "of course he wasn't rude, it was said in jest...." Or maybe; "he was just trying to draw faith from her..." Or,; "well the word he used might have been translated puppy so that makes it OK.."
Well I've been pondering responses like that, and others too, things I myself have preached because I could not get my head around preaching an imperfect Jesus, but now I am wondering, and that wondering has got me thinking about the nature of God. I have pondered some Old Testament accounts such as Moses pleading for the Israelites after the "Golden Calf Incident" , although God's judgement came upon them he did not leave them, somehow Moses pleading brought about a change in the Almighty.
So I ponder, did the Syrophonecian Woman challenge and change Jesus, and the only answer I can come up with is yes. He had gone to get away, but his fame had spread, and the woman hearing that the miracle worker was nearby came to plead for healing for her daughter, Jesus response was to turn her away, not only that but he called her a dog (dogs were unclean according to the Jews, so even calling her a puppy would have been an insult|), but she was undeterred and pressed in, willing to accept crumbs if crumbs from his table were all that was on offer. He acknowledged her faith and answered her prayer, but was he changed?
I believe Jesus was changed, perhaps he had not fully recognised the scope of his calling ( we must remember the human/ divine tension here), he had come for the Jew yes, but for the Gentiles too maybe for a good Jewish boy, even the one born of a promise, God in flesh, maybe that seemed a bridge too far, until he caught a glimpse of his own likeness in the plea of the woman for her daughter. What if she reflected to him his own plea for the world. For her daughter she was willing to humble herself, to accept the insult, to beg, and to be satisfied with crumbs. What she received was more, not only the healing she sought, but a commendation of her faith. So her story is told, it could have been left out but it wasn't.
But what challenge does this story bring to us today? Jesus "grew into" the fullness of his stature, he grappled with his own identity, perhaps supremely so as he sweated blood in Gethsemane, his reward the resurrection, death defeated, evil overcome, but first there was the humiliating excruciating experience of the cross...
If the church is the body of Christ on earth, maybe we are left with questions about our own condition, how are we to grow and change and who are the ones who challenge us to listen. Who are the ones we might call unworthy; those whose lives and customs are different to our own, those with needs that seem insurmountable, those who frankly we might rather we had nothing to do with! Are we willing to hear, can we afford to block our ears and turn away, or will we dare to follow Jesus example, to turn, to receive, to respond...
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