St. Luke 10:38-42
A Sermon Prepared and Delivered by James E. Norton, Guest
Preacher
First Presbyterian Church, Fairmont, WV
July 21, 2013
Last Sunday, the Gospel Lesson was that story Jesus
told about the “Good Samaritan.” Today’s
Gospel Lesson tells about Mary & Martha.
Those of us who grew up in the church have probably heard both stories
as many times as the number of years we spent in Sunday School classes. Consequently,
being so familiar, whenever we hear them again, we might catch ourselves
yawning and thinking, “Ho-hum, that Samaritan yarn or that Mary & Martha tale
again, and then settling in for a much-needed nap. Good stories, however, like fine works of
art, always have the potential for new insight, for seeing something in a
different way, something we hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps that might be possible today.
Possibly last Sunday you recognized that the Good Samaritan
account was about racial prejudice. The
hatred of Jews toward the Samaritans was ferocious. Think of the absolute worst names you have
heard applied to members of another race, and you may come close to the
intensity of the hostility that Jews harbored against the Samaritans in Jesus’
day. Jesus, by casting a Samaritan as a
hero, was scandalously shoving the faces of his fellow upright, decent Jewish
citizens in the mud of their violence toward another race.
That’s called prejudice, that is, prejudging or profiling people
on the basis of stereotypes rather than facts.
Prejudice can lead to atrocious injustice and devastating destruction of
human life, as we have witnessed so dramatically in our nations recent history.
Today’s story is also about prejudice, but this time
directed toward gender. The details of
the story are relatively simple. Jesus visits
two sisters, Mary and Martha. While
Martha is engrossed in the many details of her social responsibilities as
hostess, Mary is sitting with Jesus listening to his teaching rather than
helping Martha. The usual meaning we
derive from this story is that Mary, unlike Martha, was free from the prejudices
that women are totally responsible for the housework and seeing to the comfort
of the males in the household. She was
also free from the prohibition that restricted women from receiving a Rabbi’s
teaching. Women in that day were
forbidden to receive an education or even to come near the Torah, the law of
God. One saying among the Jewish people
of the time was, “Better to burn the Torah than to let a woman see it.” A prayer that still appears in the Jewish Prayer
Book, prayed by Jewish men not only in Jesus’ day, but by some even today, goes
like this:
"Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile."
"Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a slave."
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a woman."
Prior to my retirement as a United Methodist pastor, one of my more enjoyable responsibilities was working with junior high youngsters in confirmation classes. One activity I usually arranged for the participants was a visit to a Jewish synagogue or temple. Such visits gave the youngsters a chance to become more familiar with the Jewish roots of our Christian heritage, and in every instance Jewish congregations were gracious and hospitable.
During one such visit, when the Friday evening worship service was over, the rabbi spent time talking with the confirmation students about the symbols and architecture in the temple. Then he gathered the teenage boys and took them to the tabernacle (where the Torah scrolls are kept under lock and key), and removing one of the scrolls, rolled it out and began to show the boys how to read in Hebrew. The woman who co-taught the confirmation class with me, in an attempt to better see and hear what the rabbi was explaining to the boys, moved toward the area were the scroll was rolled out, and evidently got too close. Before she could get so close as to be within reach of the scroll, the rabbi hurriedly rolled the scroll up, placed it back in the tabernacle, and promptly slammed the doors shut and locked them. That was the way things were about thirty/forty years ago. But in more recent times, when making such visits to temple worship services, rabbis have been far more inclusive, allowing both male and female class members the opportunity to examine the Torah scrolls up close. Things are changing even if it is some 2000 years since Mary was regarded by Jesus as worthy of learning.
A dear friend and colleague, a woman who grew up in our
neighboring community of Monogah, was a trail blazer in helping the people
called “Methodists” in West Virginia to break out of some of their patterns of
locking people into traditional (and sometimes oppressive) roles. Back in the fifties before anyone hardly
considered the possibility of women becoming ordained ministers, Elizabeth was
convinced that she was called into the ministry. She began the process of meeting the
educational requirements and the other steps necessary to become eligible for
ministry in The United Methodist Church.
The first time she applied for a “License to Preach,” she was turned
down flat. The District Superintendent
who chaired the committee responsible for granting licenses said, “There is no
way a woman can make it in the ministry.”
But Elizabeth knew herself to be called by God. So she stayed in school and continued to
complete the steps toward ordination.
One year later she applied again for her license. Again she met before that same Superintendent
and that same committee. When the
Superintendent picked up where he left off the year before in grilling
Elizabeth, even going so far as to question her sanity, Elizabeth responded:
“Dr. Shaffer, there are two things I cannot change—one is that God made me a
woman; the other is that God called me to be a minister. No matter what, those are facts that I will
have to carry with me to the grave.” Dr.
Shaffer’s response was blunt: “Give her her license!”
And give her her license they did. And along with it they gave her the dubious
honor of serving what had to be one of the most demanding and difficult charges
comprising several congregations located in one of the most remote regions of
our state. That same District
Superintendent later admitted that he didn’t expect Elizabeth
But at great cost!
Most people were unwilling to accept a woman minister. And so when she stepped foot in their churches,
she was assailed. And throughout the
active years of her ministry, she has suffered a number of indignities,
including graphic threats on her life and lewd phone calls in the dead of night,
calls from men that went so far as to give detailed pornographic descriptions
of what they could do for her to make a real woman out of her. Does one ever recover from such awful
invasions into one’s psychic sensibilities?
Nevertheless, Elizabeth proved faithful to her sense of
calling and helped the people called Methodists to be more open to the gifts
and graces that all people bring to life.
Just as Mary in today’s Gospel lesson somehow knew she could step out of
the socially and legally assigned women’s roles, so Elizabeth has helped at
least that corner of the earth called West Virginia to understand that the kind
of gospel Jesus taught calls women, and indeed all people regardless of how
they are perceived to be different, into equal membership in the circle of
disciples.
Looking more closely not only at this morning’s Bible story
but at the whole body of Jesus’ teaching, we cannot escape the conclusion that
Jesus was very critical of the tendency to think that leadership means hierarchy,
power, control and prestige reserved for certain classes or just a select few. How often, throughout my 46 years as a
pastor, have there been power struggles!
How often have there been either passive aggressive or outright fierce
fights that viewed leadership as a matter of dominance and submission (When I
get into office, I’ll make things happen the way I think they should happen),
rather than viewing leadership in terms of mutually shared responsibility. That is, viewing leadership as a mutually
shared responsibility in which all people are included as sisters and brothers
and respected for the unique perceptions and abilities that are theirs to
offer.
Remember when years ago people in churches, regardless of
who they were (doctor, lawyer, professor, pastor), referred to one another
simply as brother or sister—Good morning, Sister Elise or Hello Brother Jim;
not as Dr. or Rev. so and so? Perhaps
people in those days understood something about the essential nature of our
relationship in the church. In the
church we are not related as masters and servants, but as sisters and
brothers. Service in the church is not
an opportunity for power-hungry people to find another power trip, nor a
sanctimonious way of justifying the servitude of the enslaved. It is a new way of seeing that overthrows all
models of distinctions in relationships.
Women, as well as other classes of people sometimes considered inferior,
are called out of such second-class roles to become equals—sisters and brothers
in the community of liberated humanity.
The East Liberty Presbyterian Church, also called the “Cathedral
of Hope,” is a congregation that has learned how to be church. The church building, a massive structure taking
up an entire city block, may well be the largest church in the Pittsburgh
region. One Sunday when attending there,
the first person who greeted me was a middle-aged woman wearing a plain dress made
of flowered-printed cotton material, something many women would probably wear
when doing housework. The woman’s broad
smile as she handed me a bulletin revealed several missing front teeth. But it was the most welcoming smile I have
ever seen when entering a church as a visitor or stranger—much friendlier than
the first time I entered this church.
Then going into the sanctuary, I couldn’t help but notice the
cross-section of cultures and races gathered there: African-Americans, Asians,
Latinos Whites. Also present were
individuals whose sexual orientation was what some consider different, same-sex
couples, one of which was two young women who sat arm-in-arm, one resting her
head on the shoulder of the other, and occasionally both engaging in fondling,
and no one even seemed to notice. A
Hispanic family of four sat in front of me, and during part of the service the
oldest child, roughly ten years old, and I played a game of peek-a-boo. This is what God intends for the church and
what Jesus has in mind when he speaks about the “kingdom.”
This
is the freed and reconciled humanity that the Gospel proclaims, and which, to
this congregation’s credit, is already being fulfilled in the selection of a
woman to be the pastor and in a working relationship between congregation and
pastor that is contributing to the greater good of both church and
community. There is still a long way to
go, but a major roadblock has been torn down.
May the rest of the journey find us walking and worshiping alongside poor
and rich, African-American, Asian, Latino and White, gay and straight, left and
right, all, in this place of Christ.
PRAYERS
Eternal God, we give thanks that you call us and all people
to be your children and to share the life you give us. Keep us from retreating into a tribal
religion that makes exclusive claims on your love, from thinking that we have a
special claim on you. Save us from the
arrogance of believing that any are more deserving of power and prestige than
others, or that the free world is the world you love, or that the prosperous
are rewarded by you, or that our denomination is the one that has your special
blessing.
We ask your special presence, O God, for persons in need:
for military personnel and civilians who are in harms way in war-torn
countries; for those who are ill, especially _____; for those who are lonely;
for those struggling with severe disappointment and distressed by some tragic
turn of events; for those who mourn, particularly those closest to Rose Minnie,
Julia Heffner, Charlotte Lagoni, and Alfred Lemley, and for these specific
persons about whose situations we are concerned and for whom we now pray in
silence.
These things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior
and Brother, who taught us this prayer we now say together:
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