October 6, 2024 ☩ Proper 22

Some 2000 years after Jesus’ time on earth and we are still trying to figure out what He meant.

          If we consider Mark, the Gospel writer often portrayed by a Lion with a sort of rough-and-tumble style of writing, we can understand how he wants us to understand Jesus.  Jesus was a ‘down-to-earth’ Messiah.  (That colloquial phrase ‘down-to-earth’ takes on a bit of an extended meaning with Jesus.  Perhaps its more like ‘down-to-earth from heaven’.)  The Jesus in Mark’s Gospel isn’t afraid to be on the level with people, get his hands dirty as when he spat and made a mud to heal the blind mute after sticking his fingers in his ears.  This Jesus isn’t afraid to touch and connect with people who otherwise would be considered low on the social scale. 

          And when Jesus gets pitted in conversation against the Pharisees, He side-steps the direction they are moving to bring to light a greater wisdom – one we are still trying to understand and put into practice some 2000 years later.

          In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees test Jesus with a question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” [Mk 10:2]  For us, the question we might hear is: “Is divorce ok?”  Yet, that is not what the Pharisees conveyed.  First, the Pharisees are testing Jesus against the Law, which references the first five books of Scripture – also called the Pentateuch.  Second, they are raising what apparently still seems to be a delicate issue of concern for their time.  Third, and most importantly, they are pre-supposing the patriarchal society in their question because they only ask if a man can divorce his wife. 

The question approaches women as though they were property of the man.  Moreover, the man is the only one with agency, or the power to make a decision, in the question.  It is because of this premise that Jesus strives to lift up the socially marginalized women.  Jesus says that in marriage the two become one.  He does not say the woman gets subsumed by the man or vice versa.  The two are one, equals in the whole.  I believe there is an undertone of knowing that any separation or divorce could yield pain in separation when Jesus explains marriage in this way.  So, as Jesus explains adultery, we can see that Jesus makes it a point to express that a man can commit adultery AND a woman can commit adultery. 

Now, in our age, we understand dynamics that may necessitate such a separation for safety, among other reasons.  Jesus is not delving into that because His focus is truly upon women having equal agency as men, and equal responsibility for personal actions just as men.  The socially marginalized women are actually empowered in this conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees.

The second part of the Gospel sounds very disparate or separate from a discussion on marriage.  However, when we consider how Jesus was very adamantly striving to raise up the socially marginalized, he expounds upon that theme by discussing children – an extremely marginalized group with little social power of His time.   Jesus desired all the children to come to him, without reference to gender but equally.  Jesus came to bless those with least power in society without discrimination.  Jesus did not operate in the customary way the patriarchal society functioned.  He responded in opposition to it.

So, 2000 years later, we are still trying to understand what Jesus means.  Even though women led the way in service to the community, building nursing programs which provided the foundations for hospitals to become a resource we enjoy today; women orchestrated the first notion of church school which became the foundation for a system of public school education.  And yet, though women dominantly help to run and sustain many of our parishes and congregations, we still see evidence of a patriarchal society. 

Yesterday, Emilia S. organized the viewing of the documentary The Philadelphia Eleven.  This documentary was a powerful expression of the painful path women took to become ordained in the Episcopal Church.  Eleven women were “irregularly” ordained by 3 brave bishops in Philadelphia.  Today, we look back with simple joy and say with ease that women became ordained in 1974.  The explanation is just not that simple.  These women shared a faith that would also be worthy of the same emblem of Mark – the Lion.  Though becoming deacons, they endured years of being told their call to the priesthood was unacceptable.  Those who told them so were male leaders in the church and even lay women who, like many lay people, did not want to upset the status quo of the church.

These women genuinely felt a call from God to serve as priests, but men said no.  In the documentary, interviews from that time were shared.  Those eleven female priests and the male bishops and priests who supported them received violent responses to their actions.  Letters from congregants and clergy conveyed more than just displeasure about the undertaking, but also even death threats.  Their ordination day was overlayed with fear of violence erupting.

When their ordination was complete, their endeavor to live out their calling was far from it.  Most were not allowed to celebrate the Sacraments at the direction of their bishops.  Fewer churches had willing priests and congregations that were willing to allow a female priest to serve as the Celebrant. 

So, women were clearly held below men in the Church.  Men ran the Church to create a new way to maintain the status quo from millennia earlier.  They did not read Mark 10:2-16 understanding the Markan Jesus.

What struck my heart in the documentary was amidst the constant justification of their ordination, these women sought to simply live out their call which was bestowed upon them by the traditional Apostolic Succession on July 29, 1974 at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia.  In September of 1975, more than a year after the ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven, four more women were ordained in Washington D.C.  The continuation of what were initially deemed irregular ordinations showed a movement was underway.  The next four to be ordained not only supported the initial eleven, but this furthered the cause for justice and equality to serve God.  Their continuation of ordaining women demonstrates that the road for equality was long, arduous, stressful, filled with controversy, debates, demeaning name-calling, threats.  It breaks my heart to know it is so difficult for people to accept Jesus’ message for acceptance and ready participation in God’s kingdom, that baptized believers would resort to such lengths to uphold an imperfect system without due consideration.  Still, these women did not respond in like manner, they responded with grace and faithfulness and became exemplars of followers of Jesus.

This morning’s Gospel message of lifting up the socially oppressed was one lived out in the faithful undertaking of Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeanette Piccard, Betty Schiess, Katrina Swanson, and Nancy Wittig to become ordained.  This morning’s Gospel message was also supported by Bishops Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, and Edward Welles, II.

Thus, for 2000 years, we are still learning what Jesus meant by lifting up marginalized social classes.  In what other ways do we uphold systems that oppress others today?  The first part to recognizing when this happens is when we cannot explain why things are a certain way with clarity.  If there is no explanation, then we are simply perpetuating a way because it is how we always have done it.  Let’s forget about ‘how we have always done things’ and start doing things Jesus’ way.

Amen.