Power With Each Other-Visions of the Kingdom of God

I can’t give the sermon I thought I was going to give this morning.

I can’t because of the way this particular passage and ones like it have been interpreted.

At the beginning of the week I was going to preach about the example set by Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.

How she is an example for all of us of what our faith leads to, service.

That Jesus heals us in a variety of ways, physical, spiritually, and emotionally, so we can give our lives over to others.

The problem that I discovered as my week unfolded is that this verse has also been used to tell women their role in society and in the church.

Women were made by God to serve others, and specifically made by God to serve men.

I read an article on-line about the supposed “biblical” view of what women can and can’t do in church.

The article was clear that women were not to be any role where they were seen as having authority over men.

For example, it asked “Can women take the lead in corporate worship service?”

The answer, in part it read, “We encourage women to participate in worship services (testimony, praise, music, etc.) as long as they are not usurping authority or behaving in a domineering manner.”

For example, it is OK for a woman to play musical instruments as long as they are not leading it.

Again quoting from the text, “Since our worship style requires some musical ability, if there is no man with such ability to provide leadership, we recommend finding a man who can at least lead in vocals and give verbal direction to the overall process, even if he can’t play the instruments.

This models male leadership, which seems to be clearly the biblical picture.”

In the statement it is clear that women can serve the church, but not lead the church.

This is not a new problem, since the beginning of Christianity men have taken on leadership roles and women have been the faithful servants of their agenda.

My seminary professor, who taught Church history, used to say, “The Church is an institution of women, run by men.”

So I can’t preach a sermon where I encourage women to be servants of the others, because if we are honest they do that all the time.

And us men reap the benefits of their giving and serving.

I know what you might be thinking.

“Pastor we don’t have this problem.

We are Lutherans in the ELCA.

We have women pastors.

We have women bishops.”

We have made some progress.

But we can’t pretend that sexism is dead in our Church, because we have representation from women.

I would like you to consider in our own congregation.

We have no men that serve on the altar guild.

We have only one woman who serves on the property committee.

In other words, we have woman doing things that have been traditionally been thought of as women’s work.

And men doing things that has been traditionally been thought of as men’s work.

Is it a bad thing?

Well, I think it is because we who are supposedly enlightened Lutherans fall into the same trap as people who wrote that article about the proper place for women in the church.

We don’t say it explicitly, but we also don’t do anything that changes the facts on the ground.

I don’t know if you noticed this but I am a man.

So, it would be wrong for me to try to tell you how women feel about certain things.

But here is what I have noticed.

We are in a watershed moment.

It is not the first, and it will not be the last.

It is a moment that asks us to consider where we stand.

It is a challenging moment for men.

Because we have been used to being able to do whatever we wanted.

We are used to having our voice be the most important one.

We thought that if we were on a date with a girl we could kiss her if we wanted.

We were taught (Any romantic movie has this as part of it) that women liked to be chased after.

And now we are finding out that it is not so.

Those women have a voice, and stories to share.

That the system of men being in charge of everything has led to some very awful behavior, maybe especially in the Church.

One of the gymnasts who testified again Larry Nassar was a devote Christian.

She had to leave her church after speaking out.

She said, “The Church is the worse place to talk about sexual assault.”

Women can’t just be here on this earth to serve us.

And this leads me back to Jesus and Peter’s mother in law.

Why do you think Jesus heals her?

Is it because Jesus is thinking to himself, “I am really hungry and I need this woman to get out of bed and cook for me.”

That doesn’t seem right.

It goes against all the other things we know about Jesus.

But to hear some men talk about women in the Church that is what it seems like they are saying.

I am really glad we have all these women around to do all the cooking of pot-lucks, cleaning of the sanctuary, taking care of the altar, singing in the choir, teaching Sunday School.

Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother in law so that she could serve with Jesus.

Jesus is the greatest example of God’s intention for us here.

We are to serve together.

No one is supposed to have power over other people.

Jesus, the Son of the living God, humble himself to serve us.

Jesus shows us that he wants us to work together so that all of the fake divisions we have created will go away.

So that all of us have a voice in what happens.

No one has power over other people.

That is the vision of the kingdom of God.

This week I was visiting with one of our older members.

I forget how we got talking about it, but she was saying how proud she is of her sons that they share in the household work.

That they help cook, clean, do laundry, and take care of the kids.

That it is better from when she was a mother.

That it is more equitable.

That husbands and wives work together, and share all the responsibilities of the house and of working and making money.

In her view that is how it should be.

I think we find this in all areas of life.

That it is better if we work together.

It is better when we all use our gifts and talents in service to each other.

It is better when we all have equal power and authority.

We are more powerful, more gets done, and no one feels that they are taken advantage of.

That is the challenge to all of us.

To be healed in our hearts and minds so that we can together, with love, work to serve each other.

That is the vision that is set before us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came, not to have power over us, but to serve us so that we might know the grace and love of God.

I hope as you go about your lives that you look for ways to be equal to each other, to serve each other, and dismantle systems that insist someone has to do something simply because of their gender.

Every time we do that we live closer to the Kingdom of God that Jesus came proclaiming.

Amen