The Bible and Women - Reflection on the 9/30 message

Many reflections came to mind from Sunday's sermon - including gratitude for the great women pastors who have shaped me.  But what impacted me most were the stories of women who heard the call to ordained ministry as God's call to further growth into the image of Jesus Christ.  It wasn't that ordained ministry was super great - it was just the specific call from God for these women.  And they had to persevere through a glass ceiling where "biblical" ministers were male, not female.  And perhaps even more painfully, they had to face situations where male ministers were simply "preferred".  Ouch. 

The message addressed the question of whether the Bible on the whole prefers men to women.  The short version of the response is that, though in Christ all is restored, sin led to the dominance of one gender over another.  The reign of sin in the world saw to it that instead of completing the image of God in one another, men and women have competed.  And when we compete, we ask "who has it better?"  

This question has been fodder for humor over the centuries and I'll indulge it briefly.  It is what one character in one Garrison Keillor's fables wonders.  Though he isn't speaking of the spiritual life, all the same, he wonders whether men or women have it better on the road to maturity.  And if you are wondering the character's gender, your first instinct is probably the soundest:

“Girls had it better from the beginning, don’t kid yourself.  They were allowed to play in the house, where the books were and the adults, and boys were sent outdoors like livestock.  Boys were noisy and rough, and girls were nice, so they got to stay and we had to go.  Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns going kksshh-kksshh, fighting wars for made-up reasons and arguing about who was dead, while girls stayed inside and played with dolls, creating complex family groups and learning to solve problems through negotiation and role-playing.  Which gender is better equipped, on the whole, to live an adult life, would you guess?” (from The Book of Guys by Garrison Keillor, p. 12)

Humorous generalizations aside, neither men nor women “have it better” when it comes to God. 

Apart from God’s grace, none of us are equipped for drawing near to God at all.  Christ completes us now.  We all need Christ to gather us into his new life through giving us the gift of faith.  Men and women both need this.

For every Christian, man or woman, Jesus has come to us in our life situations.  Women and men alike have called him friend, savior, shepherd, Lord, and many more.  They know him.  Yes, Jesus was a man.  But Jesus gives his new life to women.  And men can become like his mother Mary – inviting the Spirit to bring forth the life of Jesus within us.  As men and women, we are all redeemed sinners who, God willing, will be presented as fully mature when this life ends.
 

As women grow in Christ and feel the Spirit may be calling them to leadership in ministry, we want to remember that God is busy forming them.  We want to encourage Christ’s life in them to grow more and more, whether ordained ministry is its destination or not.  What matters is the growth in Christ in character and morals, into increasing joy and devotion to the author of life who gave his life.  The job, ministry, city, or even country where this life gets played out is up to the God working in us.

There was a quote from the great novelist and theologian Dorothy Sayers in the bulletin last week that bears repeating.

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.  They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another.  A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them; who never treated them either as ‘The women, God help us!’ or ‘The Ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without (demeaning) and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend.” 

So who has it better?  We both have it best.  Though men and women bicker in this life, though we know isolation from God and one another, Jesus completes us.  He restores to every one us - men and women - whatever dignity the world has neglected to give us.

Reflection Questions

1) Has anyone ever limited you in ways you could grow as a Christian?  Have you limited yourself?

2) Who first showed you what it could mean to be a Christian?  What attracted you about Christ that you wanted to follow him?
3) Do you experience the church to be a place where both men and women can grow into the fullness of Christ's call?  Why or why not?