Lydia the Unlikely

May 9, 2010 – Mother’s Day

Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5 and Acts 16:9-15

“Nothing worse could happen to the church than feminization.” So said Ethelbert Warfield, in 1929. Then he added, “This is peculiarly true of the Presbyterian church.”

Granted, that was prior to all the clergy abuse scandals, gay rights battles that many feel unwanted, the current round of denominational infighting, or TV preachers with floppy Bibles, big hair, and too much make-up. (And I’m just talking about the men!)

But was Warfield right, even then, that “Nothing worse could happen to the church” than for women to be allowed into leadership roles?

Sigmund Freud, in his 70s by then, might have found the matter “verrry interrresting” – or just laughable. I’m no psychoanalyst; but Warfield’s repressive view of women may stem from bad feelings toward his own mother … for naming him “Ethelbert.”

Warfield served at the time as President of Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA. So we might ask how the students took his words – especially since enrollment at the Presbyterian-related school was then (and is now) entirely female. Did they share his opinion that feminization of the church was a dastardly danger? Or did they find irony in his effort to grant young women greater opportunities through higher education while simultaneously blocking them from using those opportunities … in church?

By the way, that Warfield quote comes from an article on women’s ordination, co-written by our own John Krugler and David Weinberg-Kinsey (American Presbyterians, Journal of Presbyterian History, 1990). So I extend my thanks to them.

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By the 1920s, debate over the role of women in church ran hot and heavy. And no wonder! Women had won the right to vote at the start of the decade. They were using their individual abilities and cumulative powers in new ways. The first female elder in our denomination would be ordained in less than a year – June 1930. (Some of you know who she was and where.). Dr. Warfield must have believed then that his words were prophetic … and timely.

On another scale, though, he was centuries late. The so-called “feminization of the church” began not in his time (or over his dead body) but over Christ’sdeath … and resurrection – if not before. The report of Lydia praying, being baptized and extending Christian hospitality, is proof that women’s involvement in church began early – and was not “the worst thing that could happen.”

From the outset, the so-called “feminization of the church” was cause for celebration.

So what I want to do on this Mother’s Day is name a few women, like Lydia, who are metaphorical “mothers” to our faith. A list might include any number of “powerhouse” women who helped shape, inspire, nurture and bless the church and world. But this is my list, and I hope it will motivate you to create your own.

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Before I go on, though, I want to point out that the path for women in church has not been a straight line. At the start of today’s passage, Acts tells how Timothy and the Apostle Paul went on a zigzag course into various parts of the world. At times they were directed and led by the Spirit to particular cities and destinations. Other times, that same Spirit blocked and detoured their journeys.

That’s true as well for women in various forms of ministry across the ages – they were led by the Spirit … but also thwarted by the Ethelbert Warfields of the world, and by societal expectations and limitations.

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My list begins with Eve, who was created by the same God that also calledSarah along with her husband Abraham to be a blessing to the nations, and who gave Miriam reason to sing after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. You might notice that Moses did not lead the first worship service in freedom. His sister did, equipped with tambourine and a poem.

In time, Deborah distinguished herself as a judge over Israel. And Ruth not only pledged herself to mother-in-law Naomi but became the great-grandmother to King David, and an ancestor of the Messiah, though she herself was not Jewish.

The company of New Testament women is rich too, even before Lydia. There’s Mary, of course, the mother of Jesus. Townsfolk gossiped and reviled her for getting pregnant without having a husband. Yet the Magnificat she sang after receiving the angel’s announcement of Christ’s coming brims with confidence in God to lift up the lowly and cause the downfall of evil.

And what of Mary Magdalene, scorned through the ages as a prostitute and sinner, though not a shred of evidence for it exists in the Bible? Why has the church hierarchy over the ages given her a bad rap? Did they worry about the “feminization of the church,” when she was the first person to find the empty tomb and tell others about it?

Let’s not overlook the sisters either, Martha and Mary. One had an active faith, always doing for others; the other was contemplative, studious and prayerful. But both were beloved by Jesus. And the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus with expensive oil and wiped his feet with her hair – no male disciple ever do anything like that for him!

Luke is the most generous Gospel writer in relation to women. He’s also the only one to point out (in 8:3) that some women gave financial support to the disciples as they traveled with Jesus.

Compared to Luke’s openness toward women, the Apostle Paul’s reputation is like Ethelbert Warfield’s – not friendly at all. New Testament letters attributed to him tell women to be silent in church and be subject to their husbands. Yet in the last chapter of his most important letter (to the Romans), Paul greets someone named Phoebe and calls her a “deacon” – or minister! – of the church. Prisca (also known as Priscilla) appears in that chapter too, receiving thanks for “working with [Paul] in Christ Jesus,” risking her neck “for my life.” These women in the Bible aren’t wimps! And the church would not have survived without them.

Not least, Paul affirms a little-known apostle named Junia. But since Junia was a woman’s name and the church frequently felt scandalized by the idea of female apostles, her name appears in some ancient manuscripts as Junias – a man’s name!

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Lydia herself was an unlikely Christian. She was probably rich, unlike most of early believers. If not rich, she at least had access to people in power, because she was a “seller of purple,” and only the elite classes were allowed to dress in that shade. That too made her different from other Christians of her era, since they were more often persecuted than in power. Neither was Lydia Christian, nor Jewish, but “a worshiper of God.” That suggests she was a kind of spiritual seeker or nomad … an open-minded agnostic, perhaps, like people today who say, “I’m spiritual, just not religious” – not tied down to any particular beliefs.

Topping it off, Lydia was European – another differentiation from any other Christian on the face of the earth at the time. Yet far from shunning her, we remember her gladly. She was the very first European convert to the faith (where would most of us be without her?). And beyond her ethnicity, race or gender, her faithfulness is seen in her prayers, baptism, and her acts of grace. (All you women who belong to the Lydia Circle can pat yourselves on the back. She’s your claim to fame.)

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Recent times have brought other “mothers” of the church to us. Miss Sarah Dickson is the first female Presbyterian elder, whom I alluded to earlier – a member of this church, where the wheels to process of her ordination were set in motion exactly 80 years ago, this month.

The Roman Catholic Church has raised up women of faith too – like Mother Teresa, who cared for the poor of Calcutta and inspired people of all faiths worldwide; and Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist social network that reaches out to the needy on American soil. Even that famously male-dominated bastion has benefited from the gifts of women.

Among Presbyterians, Margaret Towner was the first to be ordained as a pastor … though it didn’t do her much good – at least not in the first church she served, as an Associate Pastor. The senior pastor only allowed her in the pulpit one Sunday, and that was to give the benediction. (Talk about the zigzag journeys of women in ministry!)

Selfishly, I put my mother to the list too – Jane Everhart Rand. We’ve never verified it, but she and I may have been the first mother-son combination to seek ordination in the Presbyterian Church at the same time.

Recognizing that she was entering a non-traditional role for women 30 years ago, some spouses of clergy friends tried to help Dad adjust – by offering to teach him how to pour tea for afternoon socials.

Also because of Mom, a woman in the first church I served counted on her fingers and figured that if mom could be ordained at her age, maybe she too could fulfill a call to ministry she had felt but repressed for many years. And off to seminary she went. She is semi-retired now, but remains active in churches along the East Coast.

In addition to Sarah Dickson, Wauwatosa Presbyterian has its own proud heritage of female leaders. Bonnie Stafford and Marge Hildebrand were among the first to attend seminary from here and have served with distinction in various ways. Others, lacking formal training, nevertheless served as moderators or committee members of Presbytery, guiding the work of congregations across southeast Wisconsin.

Lisa Taylor, Felicia Moller, and Staci Imes have gone to seminary during my years here. Their calls to ministry are undeniable. Cynthia Holder-Rich was an Associate Pastor in the 1980s.

Kathy Weinberg-Kinsey and Gail Brown have modeled our conviction that you don’t have to wear a “pastor” label to nurture, guide, or inspire in church. What would old Ethelbert say to that? Sunday school teachers, youth advisors, and women who turn to smile at a child in the pew behind them – they too make my list of church “mothers.”

So does Shirley Abraham who changed diapers on a generation of infants and toddlers in our nursery, and Beth Parkansky who does it nowadays. I suppose old Ethelbert would have tolerated that, not wanting to change diapers himself! And our church musicians: four out of five on our staff are women. What would we miss without them!

In the U.S. alone, roughly 60 percent of the people who attend worship are women. More than half of all Protestant seminarians are female. For many years, the volunteerism of stay-at-home mothers kept churches humming. So the candidates for any list of faith-shaping women are virtually endless.

And lest we forget, in our pews and classrooms every Sunday young girls listen for God’s call. They look for female role models, and wonder where and how they will be asked to use their God-given gifts here. Would we ever tell them that “the feminization of the church” is the worst thing that could happen, or that God doesn’t need them? Hardly.

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We’ve come along way through the centuries and in the 80 years since Sarah Dickson. But the work isn’t done. In the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council declared that,

The hour is coming in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment … women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling. (Newsweek, 4/12/10, p. 39)

Sadly, the Roman Church soon backtracked on that conviction; and there’s been plenty of Protestant foot dragging too. The same “glass ceiling” that bars women from advancing in business becomes a “stained glass ceiling” in church that keeps female disciples and believers from rising to their full potential.

Yet “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” the feminization of the church (if that’s what you want to call it) continues. The Call to Worship from Psalm 67 reminds us that God has a vision for a day that is coming, a day when God’s ways are revealed “upon the earth to all people” … and all will praise God … and God’s justice is established for men and women alike.

So too in the Book of Revelation. Though exiled on an island – thwarted and alone because of his beliefs – John caught that vision in his own way: not of half of God’s people serving the church and world, but all men and women whose names “are written in the Lamb’s book of life” streaming together into the Holy City of God and walking in God’s light.

This is our vision too as people of God joined in faith under the lordship of Jesus Christ. It’s a vision of a great cloud of witnesses, male and female from all generations in as great a number as exists on the face of the earth … a vision of hospitality, grace, joy, and praise with no one left out, but all invited … welcomed … cherished … accepted … and doing Christ’s bidding.

To the glory of God.