Staying Out of God's Way

Staying Out of God&#= 8217;s Way!

Luke 13:31-35

Philippians 3:17-= 4:1

= ;

After almo= st 45 years of doing this, Sunday after Sunday, I have come to believe that the w= ay to be most pleasing to God, is perhaps to stay out of God’s way! It is not that I have become cynical. It is a real assessment of the behavior of = the Church. We often behave as though we know the mind of God. There are groups= of Presbyterians plotting now to leave the denomination. They are sure they kn= ow the mind of God. They claim to know who God would want ordained to Christian Ministry in the Presbyterian Churc= h and they seem to know with even more certainty who should not be ordained.=

In the New Testament prophesying and preaching are gifts conferred by the

Holy Spiri= t. These gifts come with our formation by the hand of God, and are affirmed in our baptism. When we pray with people of all ages in baptism in the Thanksgiving over the water, we say: “We praise you that in baptism you give us yo= ur Holy Spirit, who teaches us and leads us into all truth, filling us with a variety of gifts, that we might proclaim the gospel to all nations and serve you as a royal priesthood.”

“Tha= t we might proclaim the gospel…”

I am not a= ware that at anytime in our history we only prayed that prayer over boy babies. = The standard rather, is a family’s commitment to the faith and a pledge to nurture their child in the faith. Another standard is the commitment of a congregation to provide nurture, religious education, and the embrace of the love of God as the child grows and matures. We want every child to discover= the gifts God has shared, and achieve that image of God created in his or her i= nner being, and the call of God to be God’s person. Thus they become “good news people,” proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ!

But the be= havior of the church often gets in the way. How dare we get in the way of God shar= ing gifts with women, people of color, or people of differing sexual orientatio= n. Or, people who are challenged physically, spiritually or mentally. there is significance of life beyond what we experience and see. Surely we cannot claim to know the mind = of God.

Paul reminds us that our real citizensh= ip is in heaven, and it is from there we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he will transform our bodies to be like him. As Paul offers in other scripture, we will not all be made male or female, Jew or Gentile, an= d I would add, white or gay or straight. We experience the wonders of a wildly diverse humanity!

What Paul = is saying here is truly important. He is saying that we do not wait to get to heaven to experience that citizenship. Heaven is coming to earth, in Jesus = our Savior to transform our whole being to be like his. And it is the transformation of the body! G= et rid of that Greek idea that the soul is somehow separate from the body and flies off to heaven. Get rid of that fundamentalist construct that has no basis in Scripture that we will be caught up in “the rapture” and transported to heaven. This transformation is now; it is here; it is God’s gift shared with all who will receive it. The gift of love and compassion; the gift of living our lives “inside out” for other= s is where we become like our Savior Christ.

Look at ho= w many years the church ignored the full gifts of women. We have just concluded in 2005 and 2006 the recognition of the place of women in the Presbyterian Chu= rch: the 100^th anniversary of women being ordained as deacons; the 75= ^th anniversary of women being ordained as elders; the 50^th annivers= ary of women being ordained to the office of Word and Sacrament. This congregat= ion is an important part of the story. You were one of the very first congregations to offer full ministry = to a remarkable woman, the first to be ordained in our denomination, Margaret Towner. I imagine it wasn’t all that difficult to embrace Margaret as= one of your pastors when you came to know her; her gift of faithfulness to Chri= st; the gifts she shared with you; her abundant skills and talents, and the gra= ce with which she weathered the doubts of many in the wider church and perhaps, even in this place!

It really = all started in 1872 when a Quaker minister, Sarah F. Smiley, was invited to spe= ak at the Lafayette Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, N.Y. The congregation was rebuked by the General Assembly for allowing this to happe= n, citing a Pastoral Letter that had been sent to Presbyterian Congregations 40 years earlier, stating: “To teach and exhort, or to lead in prayers a= nd promiscuous assemblies, is clearly forbidden to women in the holy oracles.&= #8221; (General Assembly Minutes, 1832, page 348). The church might just as well h= ave stayed out of God’s way. For in 1955, when the measure finally went to the Presbyteries for a vote, it was 204 Presbyteries in favor and 35 agains= t. On October 24, 1956, Margaret Towner was ordained. In her baptism, God deif= ied her nature, as he has ours, by making us his own inseparable habitat= ion. As Ernesto Cardinal wrote: “= ;We do not know that at the centre of our being we find not ourselves but another, that our own identity is in another, that turning inwards and finding ourse= lves is to fall into the arms of another.” - that “other” being our Savior Christ. It happens in the baptism of all. You see, identity at the baptismal= font!

All of the= se women, the first deacons, elders and clergy have been called the “good news women!” For years Presbyterian women studied scripture together, and they knew that women were key leaders in many of the churches Paul established around the Mediterrane= an world. And women could not study the Gospel of Luke without realizing that = the good news of the birth of Christ was first revealed to women, and the good = news of the resurrection was first revealed to the women. And these women were on the run to tell the good news they had experienced. They were exhorted to preach! Sure= ly it was not God who was in the way!

Not that w= e have made our peace with God in all of this. The last figures I have are from 20= 02 when there were 468 congregations with a membership of 800 or more. Only te= n of them were swerved by women. I personally knew three of them. They are engag= ing preachers and teachers; and good parish administrators. I have been with in ministry with quite a few women through the years, and I have learned from = them all. They taught me to be more collegial in ministry from serving the congregation as peers to coming together to discern the claim of preaching texts upon the life of the congregation. Men tend to work solo. I have found them to much more relational in their ministry, and quicker to minister to = the vulnerable in our midst. They are often attracted to scriptures that deal w= ith vulnerable people, while research shows that men are more attracted to the powerful in scripture. I know they also had to work harder and smarter to f= ind their way into the church. Carol Miles, professor of preaching at Austin Theological Seminary, says that when she thinks of that she is reminded of a famous line about the women who danced on screen with Fred Astaire. One when Astaire was being praised for his sheer artistry, someone quipped, “Y= es, but what about his partners? = they had to do everything he did, only they did it backwards and in high heels!”

Our whole = culture has miles to travel in gender equality. The Christian Century, in a recent issue, reported that some very conservative evangelical Christians are now espousing an ancient heresy that Jesus the S= on is subservient to God the Father, denying the church’s tradition hold= ing up Jesus the Son, as the Nicene Creed states, “of one substance with = the Father. Out of this new and a= ncient heresy, they then justify their holding women as being subservient to men.<= o:p>

We continu= e to get in God’s way. But God will not be put off. Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, and ult= imately the cross is encountered by some Pharisees who come to him and say: “= Run for your life! Herod’s = on the hunt. He’s out to kill you!”&n= bsp; Jesus never loses his focus. He will not be put off. They will not g= et in his way. Jesus replied, “Tell that fox I’ve no time for him = now. Today and tomorrow I’m busy clearing out the demons and healing the s= ick; and the third day I’m wrapping things up.”

And he will. And he will.