Sermons

“Let All the Peoples Praise You!”

Psalm 67; Acts 16:11-15 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – May 1, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might hear your call to play our part within the Body of Christ and answer faithfully. We pray in the name of our Risen Lord, Amen.

In all my fifteen or so years of ministry, I don’t think I’ve ever preached a sermon about my right to preach a sermon. I was raised by a generation who taught me that girls and boys were free to be whatever we wanted to be. And I believed them, though I later realized that the world they were speaking into existence with that bold encouragement was one they more hoped could become real rather than the one they experienced. I think a lot of Generation X women are feeling a little confused by the current political moment, because we all kind of assumed we would be the first woman president, but now the Baby Boomers are poised to steal that from us too! I grew up in a church that had ordained women on staff from before I was born, though they only in the last decade called a woman as senior pastor. When I received a very clear and direct call into ministry at age 17, there was no quibbling or hesitation because I am female. It just wasn’t a thing.

When I received my first call, it was to a church in a small city in Alabama. They had had two women as interim ministers before, but never a female settled pastor. They had tried to call one once, but she didn’t get the vote. The search committee that called me, however, assured me that all the people who had been a problem back then had either moved on or died, which must have been true because my vote was a unanimous Yes. I moved to Alabama, not quite directly from Berkeley, expecting to get a fair amount of pushback about being a woman in ministry, but I discovered the thing people would comment on was not my gender but my young age. I’m sure there was a layer of chauvinism buried in there somewhere, since one of the most predictable ways our society diminishes women’s agency is to treat them like children, but usually people talked about my age, because somehow it’s considered a compliment to tell someone they look way too young to be doing the job they’re doing. Trust me, it never feels like a compliment, and it will not get you hired as a church secretary!

When I was having some trouble with the congregation’s moderator, a few years into that pastorate, it was actually my 55-year-old, white male Regional minister who had to point out to me that what was going on was most likely sexism, pure and simple. It simply hadn’t occurred to me, but of course he was right.

By the time I got to VLM, I was less surprised that outdated ideas about women in leadership still linger, like some drunk uncle at a family gathering that everyone wishes would just pass out already. But this is a church that not only has had women pastors, but has formed and prepared and sent women into ministry.

It is not my personal experience that compels me to bring this issue into the pulpit, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ve really been feeling so very over the patriarchy lately. This thing’s death throes have been going on way too long. So the pump was primed, and then the Year C lectionary for the Sixth Sunday of Easter gave us this story about Lydia. And the story of Lydia just makes the history of misogyny in the church look so ridiculous. It is a long and complicated history, but no matter how you tell it, Lydia is still here.

I ran across a quote from a British economist named R.H. Coase the other day. He wrote “If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything you’d like.” Sadly, we recognize this as funny because we know it’s also true for people. But more importantly for this morning’s exploration, the same thing can be said about scripture. The truth is that whatever ideas you already hold about the role of women in the church, that’s what you’re going to find in scripture. There plenty of individual verses that make clear that I should shut up and sit down, and probably put a veil on. But there are also plenty of stories like the one we just read that make clear that women are a vital part of what God is doing in our world through the Body of Christ.

It turns out that this is not a matter of proof-texting, that is, the dark art of piling up a bunch of verses from all over the Bible to make an argument. You can prove almost any point you want that way. What this comes down to is our understanding of the basic message of the gospel. Do we believe that the good news of Jesus Christ includes an emphatic proclamation of the basic worth and equality of all God’s people, or do we not? Within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), we have answered this question affirmatively basically since our founding, though we’ve struggled to live into the fullness of what it means. But the portion of the church universal that we share this conviction with has not done a very good job of bringing this transformative truth to life in our society. So perhaps it’s time that we go back to scripture and re-claim stories like the one about Lydia that we read today.

It’s just a few short verses, and yet they hold so much power. Lydia is the name character. Lydia has a career; she deals in purple cloth, which was a luxury item at the time. Lydia has a household. In the end, Lydia becomes one of the first leaders of the church that is formed in Philippi. Lydia is also part of a pattern. Through the book of Luke, and its sequel, Acts, the writer has a habit of telling stories in twos. If there is a healing, there are two healings, one of a man and one of a woman. If there is a story of someone dramatically coming to believe in Jesus, there are two faithful people, a man and a woman. Always balance, always equal.

The way Lydia didn’t just believe Paul’s message about Jesus for her own good, but also brought her whole household to baptism reminds us of the role of women as the first evangelists. It was women who discovered the empty tomb, and women who first shared that good news. They may not have been believed, but they were the ones with the scoop.

And yet, despite this world-changing good news, throughout the vast majority of its history, the church has managed to claim deep respect for the Bible while simultaneously manipulating scripture to embrace a heresy of repressing women, insisting on an exclusively male priesthood, and generally promoting a worldview that demands strict gender binaries, demonizes sexuality, and passionately maintains the patriarchal structures of the ancient world.

If we are truly going to be a church that says with integrity, “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let ALL the peoples praise you!” we need to get really clear on this point and start being a lot louder about it than we have been. My dad has a bumper sticker that puts it simply: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” It really is that simple. Women are people, and this is a church that believes that all God’s people are worthy and equal and gifted and precious. And if we believe that, then we need to start saying so, because there is a loud counter-message out there trying to pretend otherwise. Whether it’s the advertising targeting our daughters, or the silly notions of stoic masculinity being pushed upon our sons, or the wage gap, or the abduction of women and girls in Nigeria, there is a lot of garbage out there that needs to be confronted.

Now I do realize that there are likely some of you sitting here today feeling grumpy or uncomfortable with me talking about this. Some of you aren’t convinced yourself about the appropriateness of women as preachers and pastors, let alone presidents. The fact that you’re still here seems like a good sign to me. We are all shaped by the messages of our society. Gender roles are one of the things we learn earliest and most concretely. To un-learn ideas we took in so young is really hard. For you, let me review our main points. 1) If a fidelity to scriptural teaching is holding you back, remember that there is just as much in the Bible pointing toward the full equality of women as there is saying anything else. 2) Whether or not you want to claim the label of feminism, the question is whether you believe woman are fully people, and whether you believe that the gospel tells us that God loves all people equally and wants equitable opportunity for all of us.

There has been much made of what the emergence of a feminist majority within our society is doing to the role of men. When one segment of society has been privileged for so long, it can apparently feel as though something is being taken away when others are then allowed to benefit from the same opportunities. What does it mean to be a man, when women and men can do all the same things? What I don’t understand about this perspective is why anyone would want to define themselves primarily by their gender anyway. Why would you want the most special thing about you to be your maleness? You are so much more than that. The Bible tells us that the things that divide us – like sex and race and socio-economic status – are the things that dissolve and disappear when we are baptized into the Body of Christ.

That is the gospel our world needs to hear these days. It is time for churches like ours to get loud with our message of full equality and inclusiveness. Honestly, I can’t believe I’m having to stand up here in 2016 and say this, but too much of the church is trying to ignore the presence of Lydia and the witness of so many other women in our scriptures. Too many forces within our society are trying to go back to a time when women – like children – were to be seen and not heard. I won’t do it. My call won’t allow it. I hope you will join me, whether as a full-throated feminist, or as someone still tentatively moving into a new way of understanding how we all fit together in this world. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let ALL the peoples praise you!