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
