No Idle Tale

 

A Sermon Preached at
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Millsboro, DE
Pentecost X - July 28, 2024
*Transferred Feast of the Philadelphia Eleven (/9/29)

• Exodus 1:15-21
• Sirach 1:4-15
• Galatians 3:23-29
• Luke 24:1-11

Preface of Baptism

 

They didn’t believe them.

According to St. Luke, there were at least three of them whose names were known: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James; and then there were “the other women”. They had come with Jesus from Galilee and, after the crucifixion, came to the tomb, prepared to perform the ancient rituals of burial that women had been assigned for centuries.

It has ever been thus. Women have always been present to help when a person comes into the world. We see that in the first lesson from the Book of Exodus when the two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, deliver both Hebrew and Egyptian women of their babies.

Women have always been present at the incarnation of birth and at death, and now, when we see them together in the tomb, we ought not to be surprised that they were the first to be present at the resurrection. But, the Eleven didn’t believe them. Scripture tells us that they said their words seemed “an idle tale and they did not believe them.”

Tomorrow marks the 50^th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women in The Episcopal Church. Eleven brave women who had already been ordained deacons presented themselves for ordination to the priesthood at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, PA. Four bishops, three retired and one active, agreed to ordain them.

The story of their journey to ordination is no idle tale. The struggle of their stories to be faithful to their vocation is reflected in the stories of those women in those early years of the ordination of women in The Episcopal Church. The resistance was sometimes dramatic and cruel; other times, the resistance was very sophisticated and nuanced and even scholarly. Sometimes it was both, depending on the source and the circumstance.

My own favorite story of the sort of sophisticated, scholarly resistance is one I personally experienced, but I was certainly not the only woman who heard these words. For me, it came from the man who was Canon Theologian in my diocese - which was Maine. I was a member of the Cathedral and he was on the Diocesan Staff. We had worshiped together for several years. He had witnessed the ministry I had there, at the Cathedral, and knew my story.

He said he did not doubt the sincerity of my sense of call. It was not the sincerity; it was the authenticity. You know, as if I were simply telling an ‘idle tale’ but with great conviction. Still, he said, he could not support my ordination.

Why? Well, hold on. I’ll say it slowly, as he did to me, and loudly, the way some people speak to a person from a country foreign to you because, if you speak loudly, they are certain to overcome the language barriers. You know, like when you are in a different country and you don’t speak their language so you yell “Where is the bathroom?”

The Canon Theologian said to me, his nose in the air as if he had caught a whiff of a bad odor, “I believe you have ontologically insufficient matter for a sacerdotal ministry.”

The polite translation of that would be “You ain’t got the right stuff or ordination, kid.”

 

The more dramatic and cruel version happened when I was about seven years old. I was a scrappy, scrawny immigrant kid whose parents worked the factories and the mills but I was very devout in my faith, even at a young age. The nuns knew me because I had attended daily mass with my grandmother for as long as anyone could remember.

It was one of those times when we were ahead of our lesson plan and Sister Bucky (her name was really Sr. Bernadette but we called her Bucky behind her back because she had terrible splayed teeth and, well, kids can be cruel), our teacher, was filling idle time asking us to answer her question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The boys went first. They all wanted to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and one, I remember, wanted to be a priest. We all knew he didn’t really want to be a priest but he was a real suck up - an Eddie Haskell type for those who remember the TV program “Leave it to Beaver”. We knew he really wanted to work in his father’s hardware store and then take over the business after his father retired. He often bragged that he was “set for life”.

The girls went next. Lots of future “Mommies” answered in the group. A few secretaries and one or two teachers and nurses. I was very clear about what I wanted to be, and said so loudly.

“I’m going to be a priest,” I said. And, everyone giggled. Except the boys. They laughed. Real loud. They practically fell over each other, slapping each other on the back like it was the most hilarious thing they had ever heard.

Sister Bucky laughed with them and said, “Don’t be ridiculous! You know better than that. Girls are nuns and boys are priests.”

“No,” I said, thoughtfully, seriously, respectfully, resolutely. “No, I’m going to be a priest.”

The look on Sister’s face was enough to have soured a glass of milk. The kids saw it immediately and a few giggled nervously, looking down at their shoes. Sister Bucky was not amused.

“No,” she repeated. “Girls are nuns. Boy are priests.”

 

“I know,” I said, sensing danger but pushing through, “But, I’m going to be a priest.”

 

Sister moved closer to me and, catching me completely off guard, slapped my face. Hard. I closed my eyes and held the side of my face, trying to take in what had just happened.

When I opened my eyes, Sister’s face was inches from mine. She actually growled as she said, “Don’t you ever say that again. Girls are nuns and boys are priests. Understand?”

“Yes, Sister,” I whimpered. She told me to go to the bathroom and wash my face and then return immediately to my seat in the classroom. There would be no recess and no snack for me.

When I got home, my mother looked at the red welt on the side of my face and asked me what happened. I told her the whole story. My mother listened carefully and then said, “Well, what did you expect? You were very naughty. You come from a good family. You embarrassed your whole family today. Now, don’t you ever say that ever again. Do you understand?”

And, I never did. Not until I was in my late twenties, by now a young, divorced mother who had found spiritual refuge and comfort and sustenance in The Episcopal Church. I had heard about the Philadelphia Eleven but I wasn’t really certain what to think about it. I had never met a woman priest so it was not a reality for me. Like a lot of other things in my life, I found it easier to just shut down emotionally and spiritually and just get on with my life. I understood the assignment and was obedient to it: Never talk about it ever again.

One Sunday, home from church at the Cathedral, I sat down to read the NY Times, which, in those days weighed about two pounds, all folded into “Sections”. (Remember?) The NY Times Magazine Section fell out and there, on the floor, on the front cover, was a picture of The Reverend Martha Blacklock, rector of St. Clément’s Episcopal Church in the Theater District of Lower Manhattan. There she was, sitting on the church steps with her little Jack Russel terrier, wearing jeans, sandals and a black, short-sleeved clergy shirt and a white Anglican collar.

I remember looking at the picture and bursting into tears. There it was, despite what Sr. Bucky and my mother had said. Proof. Women can be priests. And that was the start of this amazing journey which has led me, 38 years later, to the enormous privilege of serving you, in this church, in this pulpit, at that altar, today.

It's probably hard for you to imagine that my story is real. I don’t blame you, really. It’s hard to imagine - even for me with all I have been through, with all so many of my sisters have been through -  that such a thing could have ever once been true. It’s hard to imagine, since there are now so many of us in The Episcopal Church, that there was once a time when there were no women who were priests, much less bishops. Or, in fact, acolytes or crucifers.

Pew Research estimates that today, 40% of priests in The Episcopal Church are women. The House of Bishops reported last month that about the same percentage - 38% - of bishops are women - at least 15 of those women are women of color.  And yet, here we are, trying our best to live into the words of St. Paul that we are “all children of God through faith.” And that “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

The ordination of women is not an idle tale, but a cautionary one for the rest of the world which does not hold the value and worth of a woman’s life equal to that of a man or even a tiny cluster of cells. For those of us who believe in Jesus, who strive to follow his teachings, who believe in the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, well, we take equality of personhood a thing not to be taken lightly or inadvisedly. We are, as Jesus commanded, to love one another as He loves us - unconditionally, beyond gender or social status or age or race or sexual orientation.

For those who believe in the Incarnation of God in Christ, who believe in the freedom of the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the gift of the resurrection, the question of the man who spoke to the women in the tomb rings in our ears, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

For if we are alive in our faith, then we - like the ancient midwives of Egypt, Shiphrah and Puah, and the women at the tomb, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “the other women,” and the Philadelphia Eleven: Alison (Cheek), Alla (Bozarth), Betty (Bone Shiess), Carter (Heyward), Emily (Hewitt), Jeannette (Picard), Katrina (Swanson), Marie (Moorefield Fleisher), Merrill (Bitner), Nancy (Hatch Wittig), and Suzanne (Hiatt); and the courageous bishops who ordained them, Daniel (Corrigan), Robert (DeWitt), Edward (Welles), and Antonio (Ramos) - we all will find the courage to hear, trust and follow the Holy Spirit wherever she may lead, that the gifts of all of God’s people may flourish throughout the earth, through Christ our Savior.

For the story of the resurrection of the church, like the resurrection of Jesus, is no idle tale.

Amen.

 

 *Propers transferred with permission of the Bishop Diocesan

*PRAYER FOR THE PHILADELPHIA ELEVEN: Jesus our brother and friend: we rejoice that your Church raised up, prepared and supported the eleven women ordained as priests in the Church of the Advocate on the Feast of Mary and Martha of Bethany. We pray for those known as The Philadelphia Eleven: Alison (Cheek), Alla (Bozarth), Betty (Bone Shiess), Carter (Heyward), Emily (Hewitt), Jeannette (Picard), Katrina (Swanson), Marie (Moorefield Fleisher), Merrill (Bitner), Nancy (Hatch Wittig), and Suzanne (Hiatt). We thank you for the bishops who ordained them, Daniel (Corrigan), Robert (DeWitt), Edward (Welles), and Antonio (Ramos). Thank you for calling these women to priesthood, and for giving them the resolve to answer. As Mary and Martha brought diverse gifts to your service, so may we choose the better part, seeking to serve you in all orders of ministry, for the sake of the Gospel, the good of your Church, and as a gift to the world. We pray as you have taught us, in your life-giving name. Amen.

PRAYER FOR THOSE WHO DIED: Holy God, author of life, you who love those who are in the world, love us to the end; we thank you for the lives of those first women to be priests in The Episcopal Church, who have passed from this life to the next. We remember them and call out their names into the universe: Alison (Cheek), Suzanne (R. Hiatt), Jeannette (Picard), Betty (Bone Schiess), Katrina (Wells Swanson). Inscribe the witness of their deeds in our hearts as you have written our names in the palm of your hand. May they rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.

(* Adapted from a prayer from the DioLA)