Men and Women Serving Jesus Christ
Galatians 2:27-28, Luke 10:38-42
Pastor Charles Ragland First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Claremore, OK
The sermon today (July 27, 2008) is one requested by a member who responded to my survey last spring asking you what topics and Scriptures passages you’d care to hear a sermon about. The question the member asks is, “What does the Bible say about women in leadership roles in the church?”
As that is the topic, I want to point out that all the words to our hymns in the traditional worship service today were written by women.
Over 200 bishops of the Anglican Communion, led by the Church of England, have boycotted the Church’s meeting of Bishops this month. That means almost one-fourth of that Church’s most influential clergymen disagree with how the Church is interpreting and applying the Bible to the practices of faith! One major disagreement concerns the boycotting bishops’ understanding that the Bible says women should not be pastors and church leaders.
Our denomination, on the other hand, has been led by a woman since 2005. Our General Minister and President is The Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins, former Senior Pastor of Disciples Christian Church of Bartlesville. If you’d care to know more of her, go to www.disciples.org and click on her link.
Well, I need to come clean here. I have already decided about this moral issue. (And make no mistake, the leadership of the church by women is a moral issue for millions of Christians.) In 1981, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) ordained Laurel Ragland the Rev. Laurel Ragland just yesterday, on July 26. And I was there. And I was ecstatic, as was her home congregation, Central Christian Church (Disciples) in Denver.
But this is not new in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We began ordaining women to the ministry in the 1890’s.
And we as a congregation have encouraged women to be leaders. Our 1928-29 church telephone directory lists the Deacons and among the men there is named a woman. And much more recently, we sponsored our own Carol Low to attend seminary and be ordained to the ministry.
Still, many Christian traditions do not ordain or allow women to lead in all parts of the church’s life. One of my clergy colleagues in the Ministerial Alliance this month said to Laurel, “Welcome, Pastor Ragland--not in my tradition, but in yours.”
So, for many Christians in 2008, the leadership of women in the church is a moral issue.
What does the Bible say about women as church leaders?” is still a good question! Before we get to it, let’s ask more questions.
1.Does the Bible say anything (useful and interesting) at all for today?
One possible answer that many give is “No. It’s a white elephant. Obsolete. Ridiculous! Perhaps useful once, but irrelevant, so first century—and older! Hard to understand. So non-visual. The Bible is just an interesting relic.” An answer like that makes for a short chat with Scripture, doesn’t it?
Another possible answer is, “Yes.” That answer invites us into the living room to sit down with Scripture for a conversation.
We could ask then, “New Testament, how do you speak to 21st century people?”
One answer can be, “Literally, with equal weight given to all passages.” Do you know personally a Christian who understands the Bible this way? If you do, then they always use wine for the Lord’s Supper.
The other way the New Testament speaks is through thoughtful and heartfelt interpretation. Alexander Campbell, one of our Disciples founders, insisted that all Scripture must be interpreted if it was to have meaning for the present day. He laid down some common-sense rules for doing so. One of his rules for interpreting was that we need to find out, as best we can, what the writer of the passage meant and also what the passage meant to the original hearers of the scripture passage.
Scripture had to make sense to the Jews and the early Christians--in the Hebrew and Greek languages, and with their customs and concerns taken into account. In other words, the words of Scripture were filtered through the culture of the times.
However, Christians have a second and, I believe, the most important tool for interpreting the Bible. This tool is like the lens of a magnifying glass that helps us see things most clearly. This over-arching method of interpreting all the Bible is the living word of God, (John1:1, 14) Jesus Christ. A little more of this later.
By far, the most widespread interpreter of the Gospel is the Apostle Paul. So, let’s consider several things Paul wrote and implied about the morality of women leading in the church. He taught several things to several first-century churches. These teachings were situation-specific that addressed issues of interest in that time and place.
“Women should be silent in the churches,” we read in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 14:28. In what is known as Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, we read, “I permit no woman to teach men.” 1 Timothy 2:28.
In both these instructions, the congregation is being directed to accommodate itself to the customs and expectations of the society. Women around the Mediterranean Sea took a back seat in the dominant first-century Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures.
So, we may interpret these instructions as being applied so the earliest Church would have credibility with potential converts. In other words, the letters advise the congregation to conform to the stereotypical social pattern of its 1st century Mediterranean neighbors. These church directives placed women in a subordinate role and that, in part, was because of the Church’s mission to evangelize. The reasoning goes, “If the Church is to influence others to accept Christ, then it must be seen by outsiders as upholding traditional 1st century family values.” This would give it greater credibility with potential converts.
However, this accommodation to the dominant culture is in tension with what Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good, acceptable, and perfect.”
This seems to be the same note Paul sounds in his earlier letter--to the Galatians, which we already heard this morning—“There is no longer, Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” New life in Christ, literally makes a world of difference!
When we are baptized into Christ, we are freed to see that before God, the old social distinctions no longer count. Although the external social conditions of the Church did not change overnight, the new identity in Christ Jesus did change relationships within the Christian community where Paul worked side by side in the Church with Jewish men, slaves, non-Jews, and women as equal partners in the Christian mission. Among the women were Priscilla (Romans 16:30), Phoebe (Romans 16:1), and Junia, whom Paul names as an “apostle” (Romans 16:7).
- So then, what does the lens of Jesus Christ and the Gospel Story show us?
We read that Jesus violated strict custom—conversing with a woman in public (John. 4).
In today’s Gospel reading, we see Jesus again violating strict custom and teaching Mary, relating to her as one of the called disciples.
Finally, there is that unusual note Luke makes in chapter 8:1-3. “Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, Chuza, and Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.” In other words, Jesus accepted financial support for his ministry from women who travelled with him and with the disciples. The fact that Jesus allowed women to travel with him in the company of the men would have been shocking in the first century.
These are some ways, I believe, that Christians can see Jesus opening the door and making room for women to enter into the life and ministry of His Church as equal partners.
So, may we re-frame our original question as: “What does the Gospel of Jesus Christ tell and show us about women in church leadership roles?”
I believe the short answer is this. By the way Jesus treated women, spoke to them, allowed them to accompany him with his male disciples, Jesus implies that women were fully his disciples as were Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
Both Testaments were written and understood by people living in a society in which women deferred leadership positions to men. This cultural reality makes what Jesus and Paul did and said so much more remarkable. They planted the seeds in a patriarchic society for women and for all God’s people to exercise their gifts and talents as leaders within Christ’s Church!
The challenge for the Church in 2008 AD is the same that it was in 108 AD-- to spread the Gospel and to help all people connect with God. The best way we do this is by our example as Christ’s Church--including how we lead, and are led by, each other.
By the way we treat each other, the Church shows the world how God’s world is going to be. That is what Jesus came to show and tell God’s repentant, forgiven, and free people. And we are most truly his body on earth when we act in Godly, “good news” ways to help all men, women, and children be fully and completely the royal children God has created each one to be!
Updated: Saturday, August 02, 2008
