Living the Metaphor

 Living the Metaphor

A Sermon preached on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10: Headstrong Daughter

July 26, 2020 - Pentecost VIII - Proper 12-A 

It has been noted that Episcopal clergy are able to wring at least three sermons out of one metaphor without even breaking a sweat.

Some Episcopal clergy boast that they can wring six sermons out of one metaphor three times before breakfast!

This has led some to conjecture that Jesus must have known that one day there would be Episcopal priests. I mean, did you count how many metaphors Jesus has for the Realm (Kingdom) of God? (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52)

There is (1) Mustard Seed. (2) Leaven. (3) Hidden Treasure. (4) A pearl of great value. (5) A net cast out to sea, pulling in “fish of every kind” (6) A master of a household who brings out new and old treasures.

There are AT LEAST 12 sermons in that one passage. I’m exhausted just considering the possibilities. But, I’ll demonstrate some good Anglican restraint, and only give you two possibilities in one sermon, one ancient story and one modern.

I suspect you know that I couldn’t resist continuing the story of Abraham and Sarah’s offspring, Jacob, one of the twin son of Isaac and Rebekah who stole his brother, Esau’s, birthright and tricked his father into blessing him.

You might also remember that Isaac’s birthright as the “firstborn son” has been, is, and forever will be, held in contention with his brother Ishmael, who was his father’s firstborn son with his wife’s servant and surrogate birthmother, Hagar.

That piece of trickery and deception in the family pattern finds continuation in Jacob’s life. As we pick up the story after Jacob left home, he seeks work with his kinsman, Laban, who has two daughters, Leah and Rachel.

Just as Isaac loved Rebekah, Jacob loves Rachel. But, Leah is the eldest daughter and, after working seven years for Laban to make her his wife, Laban tricks Jacob and send in Leah! So, Jacob has to work seven more years so he can make Rachel, the woman he loves, his lawfully wedded wife.

Of such is the Realm of God: It is like a man who, even though he is deceived, labors to repay his debts and twice as long for the one he loves. It is like balancing the scales of justice to compensate for and right the wrongs of the past.

The modern story has to do with a very special anniversary in the life of The Episcopal Church. On Wednesday, July 29, we will observe and celebrate the 46^th Anniversary of the ordination known as “The Philadelphia Eleven.”

If their title makes them sound like a band of criminals and desperados, that wouldn’t be unintentional. 

“The Philadelphia Eleven” were eleven women who had been duly ordained to the diaconate, who were now seeking ordination as priests in The Episcopal Church.

I know. I know. It sounds like such a reasonable request. Now. Forty-six years and a few boatloads of misogyny and sexism later. The reasonable request these days is for ordained women to have equal opportunity in church employment and equal compensation for equal work. Which they don’t yet have across the church.

But, I’m getting ahead of the story.

Here’s a very brief context for the event that poet and one of the Philadelphia Eleven, Alla Bozarth, called “The Earth Moving Day”. 

The Lambeth Conference, a meeting every decade or so of the bishops of the Communion, had, in 1968,  found no theological argument against ordaining women. In its first meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, a representative body from each church in the Communion, had also come to the same conclusion, in response to a request from Hong Kong.

The Episcopal Church, for all its vaunted “progressive” “liberal” image, had only allowed women to serve as Deputies to its ruling synod, the General Convention, in 1970. Women regularly began sitting on Vestries only in the 1960s (though a few dioceses began to allow them before then). I person know several churches where today, in 2020, no woman has ever held the position of Sr. Warden.

In 1970, the church also determined that women could be ordained deacons (not “lay deaconesses” as had been the case since 1889). When that happened, it implicitly approved the ordination of women to all three orders of ordained ministry. So, some argued, either God calls, or does not call, people to be set apart for this ministry or the ordained to the rest of the Church.

Resolutions to the 1970 and 1973 General Conventions to permit women to be ordained to the priesthood failed, and the church “fathers” ordered up another batch of ‘Anglican Fudge’ (as in ‘fudging the answer’) and voted, instead, to “further study” the issue of whether or not women could be ordained. 

Or, as one bishop expressed it, whether or not women had “sufficient ontological matter for sacerdotal efficacy.” In other words, did women have “the right stuff” to preside over the sacraments. I’ll leave it to your creative intelligence to determine what that “sufficient ontological matter” that women were missing might possibly be.

The church had been studying the issue of the ordination of women for decades. Some felt the time for action was now. The Vestry of the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, PA, voted to open its doors to the ordination service of these women in what was later determined to be a “legal but irregular” service of ordination.

The Senior Warden of that church also served as the Crucifer for the ordination service. Her name was Barbara Harris, who later became the first woman to be consecrated bishop in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.

The Philadelphia ordinations were meant to be a prophetic act, not prophetic in the sense of telling the future but rather declaring God’s Word to the powers-that-be. 

The immediate reaction was outrage and anger. Some churches flew the Episcopal flag upside down. Clergy and churches threatened to leave; some did.

Emergency meetings were called where there was much wailing and rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, and also much letter writing. Indeed, in the days before email and social media, gallons of ink were spilled in an attempt to express the outrage experienced by many who loved God and Jesus but were not at all willing to admit that ordaining women just might be the work of the Spirit.

The act of ordaining women priests was, like all sacraments, the action of God’s Word and, since the beginning, the decision about who could preside at the sacraments has been solely the right and realm of men.

Never mind that Mary Magdalene had long been considered by church fathers as the first evangelist and “The Apostle to the Apostles”. 

Never mind that scripture is filled with the stories of women who took risks to do God’s will and obey God’s word – women like Judith and Jezebel, Ruth and Ester, Hannah and Jehosheba, Deborah and Ester, Priscilla, Phoebe, Lois, Lydia, Martha and Mary and all the unnamed women known only by their persistence and determination and courage.

Of such is the Realm of God: It is like a woman who hears the call of God and overcomes every barrier to bring the Word of God to everyone, that they may be nourished and fed in this world and the next. 

Here’s the point I think Jesus was trying to make about the Realm of God:

The Realm of God is very near. 

It happens when we understand that we are living the metaphors of our lives.

It’s as near to you as the ordinary person sitting next to you who has an extraordinary story to tell. 

This is especially true when that ordinary person sitting next to you does not look or think or sound or pray like you. You only have to ask. And, listen.

The Realm of God can be seen when those who love the Lord work together for the good of all. 

You know you have come near to it in those who wear masks and keep social distance and wash their hands in the midst of a pandemic. 

The Realm of God can be heard in sighs too deep for words and felt in the firm conviction that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation – even ourselves and or the worst of our family patterns – will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Amen.