Prophets and Gifts

The 50th annivesary of the "Irregular Ordinations" in Philadelphia came and went on July 29th. For me, and the many thousand of women clergy in the Episcopal Church, this was a big deal. What those eleven women (and then the Washington Four in 1975) went through was hell. Their bravery challenged the institution of the church. That's no small undertaking. 

And the more I think about what they did, the more I see it as a prophetic act. 

So I give thanks for the Revs. Carter Heyward, Allison Cheek, Merrill Bitner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeannette Piccard, Betty Bone-Schiess, Nancy Wittig, Emily Hewitt, and Katrina Swanson for stepping up to be the firsts. 

Text: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

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Last Sunday… a few of us sat here in the nave and watched the film “The Philadelphia Eleven.”

It’s a documentary that tells the story of the eleven women who were Episcopal deacons that felt called to be priests in the church.

But in 1974…The Episcopal Church hadn’t come to a consensus on allowing women to be priests.

Only four years earlier…the first group of women delegates were seated at the General Convention.

They made the case for women’s ordination and came very close to getting it passed. But when women tried to press the issue again at the 1973 convention…there was tremendous push back.

And so the women deacons met.

They developed a strategy.

They had the support of some male bishops…the vice-president of the Episcopal House of Deputies…and the rector of the historically black Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia.

And on July 29^th 19-74…50 years ago…they defied the rules of the Episcopal Church and were ordained as priests.

While not exactly speaking truth to power with words…these women did speak truth to power with action.

It wasn’t easy.

They received death threats…hate mail…and harassment.

In many cases they weren’t allowed to function as priests.

And…even though the church came around in 1976 to approving the ordination of women…the Episcopal Church still allowed bishops to deny women a path to the priesthood…under what was called the “conscience clause.”

As a result…many women would have to relocate to another geographic region just to follow their call and hope to find a bishop who would be favorable to allowing them to be priests.

An almost identical scenario would play out later with the ordination of LGBTQ priests.

We’ve come a long way since 19-74…both as a church and as a society.

But it doesn’t happen without those willing to stand up…speak up…shake things up…and call out the sins of those in authority when necessary.

It takes being willing to be a Nathan approaching a King David.

Nathan didn’t have an easy task.

We need only look at what happened to John the Baptist when he chastised Herod to know that those who enjoy having power over people will not take kindly to those who challenge their actions.

I can only imagine what must have been going on in Nathan’s head.

In the same way that an earthly powerful King David sends people off to war…and command the presence of a woman in his court.

God as a source of power is telling Nathan…”Go tell King David…you ain’t right!’

Now…Nathan has to contrive a way to break this news to David.

And he comes up with a plan… a very pastoral plan.

Nathan tells the wayward king a parable.  

Parables are useful tools.

Jesus spoke in parables to his followers as way of helping them understand the presence of God in ways that they could comprehend…allowing them to think for themselves.

Because each of us has the ability…with our God-given wisdom…to weigh what is right and what is wrong.

What is good versus what is evil.

And this parable of the rich man taking the poor man’s only and most beloved lamb to slaughter worked!

As Walter Brueggemann notes about this situation…David rightly understood the parable.

But he was too blind to understand how it spoke to his own wrongdoing. His guilty conscience betrayed him.

 He so quickly blusters about how this rich man in the story…” deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

“A-ha!” says Nathan! The king is busted!

David will get punished.

Nathan’s mouth opens and he pours out the words of God…laying out for David all that is about to come upon him.

The once favored will lose the child Bathsheba is carrying. His house is going to be divided…and his wives will be given to others.

I can only imagine what that must have been for Nathan to stand there and speak those words to his king.

I imagine it took quite a bit of courage to stand up to one who could easily have ordered him struck down right there on the spot.

But this is the role of a prophet.

They’re the ones who listen deeply to the Spirit…to the Wisdom of God…and even with knees knocking…voices trembling…butterflies beating their wings furiously in their stomachs…they speak the truth to the powerful.

They do so despite the risk to their lives…because the words in their mouths are not theirs but the spirit of God that is upon them.

I find that Episcopalians tend to be shy about thinking that there are still prophets of this kind in our world today.

That whole idea of God speaking through people in the way  our Biblical ancestors understood it may seem just a little too “woo-woo” for our more enlightened minds.

And yet we can still point to people who have spoken truth to power and who do it from a place grounded in the Gospel.

The late South African archbishop Desmond Tutu led the fight against apartheid.

The late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose campaign for Black civil rights in this country was not limited just to black people…but the liberation of working-class whites who struggled against the invisible caste system in our own country that keeps millions living in poverty.

And today…that mantle of speaking up for justice for those who are living paycheck to paycheck can be seen in the efforts of the Poor People’s Campaign led by Bishop William Barber and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. (thee-o-HAHR-ess)

And then there are those eleven women in Philadelphia in 1974…followed by four more women in Washington, D.C. in 1975…and their supporters the Reverends Paul Washington, William Wendt and Peter Beebe who stood with them in the breech to insist that the Episcopal Church do as it has promised to do…to trust in the Holy Spirit to guide it into all truths as Jesus said would happen…if we are humble enough and willing enough to listen and follow.

Not everyone is meant to be a prophet…we get that from our reading from the letter to the Ephesians.

But all of us have gifts…all of us have abilities…and we are all called to bring what we have into practice for the purpose of spreading more love into the world.

A love that sustains people and grows community…not chaos. 

The spirit of the Lord is upon each of us now to do the work we are given to do.

Love God…and love our neighbors as ourselves.

In the name of the one Holy and Undivided Trinity.