Reverend Ian Doescher

The Fourth Sunday of Pentecost

Women have come a long, long way.

The lectionary texts this week are wonderful—full of a lot of rich stories of the faith, full of interesting characters and lessons to be learned.  Let’s start with the Old Testament reading, the reading from 1 Kings that Gary read for us.  This is part of the story of Jezebel, a woman so infamous in the Bible that her name has come to be a symbol for evil itself.   Listen to the story, as told by Eugene Peterson in The Message: “And then, to top it off, came this: Naboth the Jezreelite owned a vineyard in Jezreel that bordered the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.  One day Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, ‘Give me your vineyard so I can use it as a kitchen garden; it’s right next to my house—so convenient.  In exchange I’ll give you a far better vineyard, or if you’d prefer I’ll pay you money for it.’ But Naboth told Ahab, ‘Not on your life!  So help me God, I’d never sell the family farm to you!’  Ahab went home in a black mood, sulking over Naboth the Jezreelite’s words, ‘I’ll never turn over my family inheritance to you.’  He went to bed, stuffed his face in his pillow, and refused to eat.  Jezebel his wife came to him.  She said, ‘What’s going on?  Why are you so out of sorts and refusing to eat?’  He told her, ‘Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite.  I said, “Give me your vineyard—I’ll pay you for it or, if you’d rather, I’ll give you another vineyard in exchange.” And he said, “I’ll never give you my vineyard.”’  Jezebel said, ‘Is this any way for a king of Israel to act?  Aren’t you the boss?  On your feet!  Eat!  Cheer up!  I’ll take care of this; I’ll get the vineyard of this Naboth the Jezreelite for you.’  She wrote letters over Ahab’s signature, stamped them with his official seal, and sent them to the elders in Naboth’s city and to the civic leaders.  She wrote ‘Call for a fast day and put Naboth at the head table.  Then seat a couple of stool pigeons across from him who, in front of everybody will say, “You!  You blasphemed God and the king!”  Then they’ll throw him out and stone him to death.’”  Up to this point in 1 Kings, Jezebel has already gotten a bad reputation.  She is known repeatedly as one who kills the prophets.  She badmouths Elijah and here, in today’s reading she successfully plots the death of Naboth.  Ahab gets his vineyard, and Jezebel has her thirst for blood fulfilled.  She truly is supposed to be evil incarnate.  There’s not much to do with the character of Jezebel except, as my brother sometimes jokes, to take two steps back from her so the lightning bolt doesn’t accidentally hit you on its way down.  And in a very real way, Jezebel gets her due—she gets her lightning bolt—later on in the story, in one of the most disturbing death scenes in the Bible.

So what should we say about Jezebel?  Well, friends, the good news is that women have come a long, long way.  When we turn over to the gospel passage from Luke 7 and 8 I read a minute ago, we see that the story of women isn’t bound to be the story of evil, or the story of baseness, or the story of something lesser than something else.  Because in this story, we find a woman setting an example for behavior, an example for how we should encounter Jesus Christ.  Simon, a Pharisee—not to be confused with Simon Peter—Simon invites Jesus into his house for a meal, and when Jesus sits down for a meal in the gospels, you know something interesting is about to happen.  A woman comes up—”the town harlot,” as Eugene Peterson calls her—and she pours perfume all over Jesus’ feet, weeping on them and kissing them.  Jesus’ dirty traveling feet are getting the royal treatment by this woman.  And Simon is disgusted.  He’s a Pharisee after all, and I imagine Pharisees as easily disgusted individuals.  He resists saying anything to Jesus directly, but he thinks to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.”  But of course Jesus does know what kind of woman she is, so he pulls Simon into a little parable.  Like Nathan talking with David, Jesus is about to tell Simon a parable that is going to hook Simon and convict him, but Simon doesn’t know that yet.  “Jesus said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to tell you.’  ‘Oh?’” Simon replies, “‘Tell me.’  ‘Two men were in debt to a banker,’” Jesus begins, “‘One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty.  Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts.  Which of the two would be more grateful?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.’  ‘That’s right,’ said Jesus.  Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, ‘Do you see this woman?  I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet.  You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume.  Impressive, isn’t it?  She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful.  If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.’”  In a moment, Jesus has transformed the woman before him.  She has gone from being the lowest of the low—the town harlot—to becoming a model for piety, a model for gratitude, a model for a Christian response to the grace and forgiveness of God.  Compare that to Simon’s response.  Compare this woman as a model with the character of Jezebel.  Yes indeed, women have come a long, long way.

Last weekend, Jennifer and I had dinner with a young couple named Jenny and Terry.  Jenny and Terry have a background in the Baptist church, recently attended Imago Dei here in Portland, a large church that attracts lots of young people, and now they go to Jennifer’s church, St. Luke the Physician Episcopal Church out in Gresham.  We were over at Jenny and Terry’s house for dinner because they wanted to get to know us better and ask some questions of Jennifer as their new priest.  We were talking about various issues during dinner, and finally Terry asked, a bit sheepishly but basically plainly and directly, he asked Jennifer, “Clearly the Episcopal church thinks it’s okay to have women be clergy, so what do they do about passages in the Bible that tell women to be silent in church and not to teach?”  I can’t speak for Jennifer, but I love it when people ask us direct questions like that rather than dancing around an issue they’re wondering about.  I would much rather have someone come right out and ask me how I can believe that crazy thing I believe than pussyfoot around it or talk to other people instead of me about it.  Terry went straight to the source, he wanted the answer right from the horse’s mouth.  Jennifer and I have a very good answer to that question, I think.  The Bible is a living document, it is the primary place Christians go to find a guide for how we should live.  And the Bible tells us that women have come a long, long way.  The prophet Joel tells us “your sons and daughters shall prophesy,” several of Paul’s letters refer to deaconesses, which is the exact same Greek word as the word for deacon, but in the feminine form.  I’ve heard plenty of theories that suggest there were probably women among Jesus’ closest disciples—one fairly compelling argument I read said that the two people walking on the road to Emmaus—Cleopas and his companion—were likely to have been Cleopas and his wife.  And the gospel passage from Luke today reveals that women were among Jesus’ inner circle, if not actual apostles.  These women were, in fact, some of the biggest supporters—financially and otherwise—of Jesus’ ministry.  In the section from Luke that gets tacked onto the end of the lectionary reading this week—the three verses from chapter eight that get included along with the story of the woman anointing Jesus in chapter seven—in this little section we get to hear some evidence of women taking profound leadership in Jesus’ movement.  Listen: “After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.  The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others.  These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”  Mary, Joanna, Susanna.  These are the ancient foremothers of Betty, of Joyce, of Maxine, of Gina, of Catherine, of Gloria, of Mitzi, of Dorothy, of Marguerite, of all of the women who make this place what it is.  You see, women have come a long, long way, and today most mainline churches are predominantly filled with women.  One study I saw said that 61 percent of the people in Christian churches are women, and my guess is that percentage goes up as you get into the traditional denominations like the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Lutherans, and so on.  This is put on even starker display in most traditional African American churches, demonstrated by the presence of almost exclusively male clergy in congregations that have a disproportionate amount of women.  Black churches are run by the women, even though men are usually in the leadership roles.  And thank God—all I can say is thank God—for the women in our churches.  Where would we be without the energy, the vitality, the faith, the hope, the work, and the promise that women bring to the Christian faith?  Half of our churches wouldn’t be open, none of our sick people would be visited, and I guarantee you no one would remember to get flowers for the service on Sunday morning.  But women’s contribution to the church is so much more than flowers and cooking.  In fact, if you remember the gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection you know that it weren’t for the women, we might not even know about the miracle of Jesus’ rising.  It was the women Jesus chose to talk to first, the women who had done so much for his movement.  Jesus recognized their ministry to him and their presence among them by making them the first bearers of the most miraculous good news in the world—that God’s son was dead and is now alive, that the promises Jesus made to his disciples have been fulfilled.  It is the women who are entrusted with this precious secret, and the women who first proclaim it.

Around a year ago, Gina Walsh gave me a copy of the program from the 75th anniversary celebration of Calvary Presbyterian Church.  I was reading through it after she gave it to me and was amazed to stumble on a line that said something to the effect that Calvary was known for being pretty liberal and progressive in the 1930s and 1940s, because it had been one of the first churches that welcomed women as elders and deacons.  My eyes almost popped out of my head when I read that.  Probably many of you know that aspect of Calvary’s history, but I certainly didn’t.  This is a church that historically has recognized that women have come a long, long way, a church that has recognized the gifts and skills that women bring to Christian ministry.

It’s not every day that we say thanks for fully half of God’s creation, half of humanity.  But if the cautionary tale of Jezebel, the model of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet and the courage and dedication of the women who followed and supported Jesus have anything to tell us, it is that God’s revelation is open to all on whom God chooses to bestow it.  You’ve probably noticed that throughout this sermon I’ve been using the phrase—partly tongue-in-cheek but frankly a little patronizing—“women have come a long, long way.”  But here’s the surprise ending: the good news of Christian history is that men have come a long, long way too.  In the last half century or so we men have started recognizing the important contributions women make and have finally begun to relax our tight grasp on the power we have enjoyed for centuries.  So whether you’re a woman or a man, why not celebrate the women—even just one week before Father’s Day?  If you know a woman or if you are a woman or if you were born of a woman, why don’t you take some time today to reflect on what a gift they are to the church, to each of our lives, to Christianity as a religion.  Go ahead, celebrate the women.  Jesus did.  God does.  Amen.