PETER AND PAUL, APOSTLES
June 29, 2008
Napa Valley Lutheran Church, Napa, CA                   “PETER, PAUL… AND MARY”

David Hamilton, Pastor                                           John 21:15-19; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18

Well, we’re going to do something a little bit different for the next ten or twelve weeks of these summer Sundays, as most of you have probably heard already.  When we asked for sermon questions and topics from you all last month we weren’t sure what we’d get, if we’d get anything at all.  And it was sort of a slow start, to tell you the truth; but eventually we got the most intriguing set of questions – some expected, and some totally unexpected – and I think it will be an interesting summer as Pastor Julie and I work our way through the questions that you asked and the topics you suggested. 

And so we begin this week with what seems to be, on the surface, a rather simple, straightfoward question:  Why do some Christian denominations not ordain women as pastors?  That’s what one of you asked.  And the simple, straightforward answer to that question would be, “Because those denominations are stupid.”  But I guess that response wouldn’t really anwer the question in the spirit in which it was asked, or in the spirit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s ecumenical commitments and respect.  So there’s a little more that probably should be said on the matter than just that. 

But first, let’s just review what the situation is.  Within Christianity, there are those who do have women pastors, and those who don’t.  Probably most obvious to us is the lack of female clergy in the Roman Catholic Church; although the various Eastern Orthodox Churches also do not ordain women.   

I was reminded of a visit we made to one of Denise’s cousins a couple of years ago in Chicago.  The cousin, who had been raised Lutheran, had married a Serbian fellow and had joined his religious tradition, the Serbian Orthodox Church.  While we were there visiting, Denise’s cousin took us to her church to show it off to us, and in the course of our little “tour” of the sanctuary, she mentioned how, when little boy babies were baptized there, the priest would carry them around to the back side of the altar and even behind the ornate screen that often separates the priest from the people during the religious service, because that little boy baby might grow up to be a priest someday  and this action at baptism symbolized the calling this boy-child might receive from God.  “What about the little girls?” I asked.  Well, no tour of the Holy Places for them; instead, after baptizing a little girl, the priest would lay her down on the steps in front of the altar, and her parents could pick her up there later.  Well, I guess that’s pretty symbolic, too.   

And then there’s our own close cousins, the Missouri Synod Lutherans, who also don’t have female pastors. 

Against that, you have most of the main-line churches, like the majority of Lutherans world-wide, and most Presbyterians, and the Methodists, and the Episcopalians, and various other Protestant groups, which do ordain women – about half the Protestant denominations in this country, and a goodly number of global churches, too.  Not exactly a “radical fringe” – but still, the ordination of women in the Church is, for the time being, still a minority position within Christianity as a whole.

So what’s the argument against it?  Let’s take the Roman Catholics as an example – although if you asked the other groups about it, their answers would generally follow the same line of thinking.  Maybe you saw the news report a month or so ago, when the Catholic hierarchy reaffirmed its opposition to women’s ordination and said that any priest who took part in an ordination service for a woman, and of course any women involved as well, could and would be excommunicated from the church for doing so.  “Where do they get that?” the member here who submitted the question asked.  

Well, if the Pope were here this morning, worshipping with us, and we asked him that question, his answer would include at least these three points:  that first of all, Jesus, in his public ministry, selected twelve individuals to be his closest followers, the Twelve Apostles, and that they were all men.  Jesus’ intention in selecting them, the Pope would say, was not only to establish the Church, but also to establish the priesthood; and in selecting all men, he set a precedent that the Church is obligated to follow forever.  Furthermore, the Pope would say, the constant practice of the Church throughout history has been to ordain only men into the priesthood, and the authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages has always affirmed and held to that practice.   

And so the simple answer to the question of why they don’t is that: Jesus didn’t; the Church throughout the ages hasn’t; and so we’re not going to, either.  Period.  End of story. 

But not so fast, my Popish friend!  As Lutherans, we would challenge that analysis on just about each and every point.  Is it historically true that Jesus picked only twelve who were over and above all the others who followed him?  And even if he did, is it accurate to say that his intention was to create from them a priesthood that would rule his Church?  Was it divinely deliberate that the twelve (if there were twelve) were all men, or was it just an accident of the prevailing culture at that time?  Is it true that women did not serve as preachers and leaders in the early Church, or is there evidence to the contrary?  And was their prohibition from leadership a later development that moved the Church away from its founder’s intentions?   

These are the sorts of questions that led Lutherans like us to decide to begin ordaining women for the ministry in 1970 – not even forty years ago; so it’s not like we have a lot of room for pride in this matter, either.  It took a long time before the Church was even willing to seriously consider the questions that were raised, and about a generation of “studying the matter,” as Lutherans so love to do, before a decision in the affirmative was made; a decision based in part on a challenge and a new look at the traditional understanding of the historical and theological record, and a willingness to say that there are some verses and themes in the Bible that trump the other ones that had been used to prohibit women from offering their gifts in ordained service.  Not every Bible verse, the Lutherans concluded, had equal weight or importance.  As one of my seminary professors used to say, John 3:16 is a whole lot more important than Leviticus 3:16 (and you can look it up!)  

It’s ironic, but not accidental, that we’re talking about this on the day in the Chuch Year – June 29 – which is set aside to commemorate the two leading men of the early church – Peter and Paul.  The texts we’re given to read this morning remind us of their deep faith and their willingness to lay their lives on the line for what they believed; and the day itself is a reminder of the profound influence that these two men had on the Church after Jesus’ death and resurrection, not just in their own day, but all the way down through history, and still today.  The effect they had on the Church, for better and for worse, will be debated probably for as long as there is a Church.  Was Peter more right when he dismissed the first report by the women of Jesus’ resurrection as “an idle tale” and thought they should just be quiet, or was he more right when he had the expansive vision reported in the Book of Acts when he came to know that all people are worthy and beloved in God’s eyes?  Was Paul more right when he wrote that he didn’t allow women to speak in the churches he founded, or was he more right when he proclaimed the essential unity of humanity:  there is now “no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free, for all are one in Christ”? 

But as much as Peter and Paul deserve to be read and studied, the story of the Christian Church actually had its beginnings with a different preacher.  It was a Sunday morning, and Jesus had been dead since Friday afternoon.  But one, or maybe more, brave souls made their way to the tomb that Sunday morning, only to find it disturbingly empty.  They left the tomb in some confusion, but one remained just outside the grave in her grief, when a familiar voice called her name.  “Mary!” And the young woman from Magdala turned, and in turning became the first witness to Jesus’ resurrection.  And not just the first witness, but the first Apostle, and the first preacher, too.  “Go,” Jesus told her – which is the very meaning of the word “Apostle” – one who is sent.  “Go and tell the others,” Jesus told her, “that I am alive and going before them” – and Mary Magdalene went to Peter and John and to all the rest and she preached the first Easter sermon ever preached.  I bet it was also the best Easter sermon ever preached; and I’m convinced that, if Jesus had had his way, women would have been preaching it ever since.  

What a loss to the Church that so many voices were silenced for so many years.  I’m glad to live in a time when, at least in some parts of the Church, women can use their gifts, right along side the men, in preaching and praying and leading, in writing and in teaching, envisioning and enlivening the life toward which God calls us all, calls all the world.  Of course, there are still more doors to open; more voices to hear from; more faithful witnesses of Christ’s new life waiting to be sent, waiting to preach an Easter sermon of their own.  Silly of the Church – or maybe stupid is not too strong a word to use – silly and stupid to silence any voice that wants to preach God’s forgiveness, that wants to proclaim Christ’s victory, that wants to give voice to the Spirit’s love. 

As those who have come to the conclusion that God’s ultimate desire is for all of God’s children to put their God-given gifts to use as God calls them to, whatever those gifts might be, we recognize and we celebrate the worth of each individual, female and male alike, and we try to live out the fundamental unity of the Church, which is the body of Christ, as the Apostle Paul wrote on more than one occasion  – many members, diverse in form, but united in the life of Jesus.   

Amen.