The progress of the Gospel has often been held back by closed-minded religious people who block the doors and keep others out. The outcry when women were to be ordained in the church was fearsome to behold. If women were going to be ordained, the whole Christian movement would go to hell in a handbasket. Yet, today most mainline Protestant denominations have ordained women.
Two of the kinder arguments used are that Jesus didn’t ordain any women, that women cannot be a likeness of Jesus. Well, technically Jesus didn’t ordain any men either! This notion came much later in the history of the church. Jesus called women as well as men to be his disciples. Luke tells us of the women and men who travelled together. The Book of Acts tells us of the women who led churches. The first witnesses at Easter were Mary Magdalene and her friends. Genesis, in the creation story, says both male and female were created in the image of God, and it’s interesting that the Catholic Catechism also says that both men and women are made equally in God’s image.
In 1921, Archbishop Jan Maria Michal Kowalski began the Catholic Mariavite Church of Poland. In 1929 Izabela Wilucka Kowalska was consecrated a bishop. As Polish nationalsim grew, the group was persecuted by the mainline Polish Catholic Church, with the support of the Polish government. Innovations such as the endorsement of marriages between priests and nuns, and later the ordination of women as priests and bishops, took this group out of fellowship with the Catholic Church altogether. The group is led by a female bishop, and while considering itself the true church, the theology is very liberal.
During the 12-13C CE, the Cathars, also called Albigensians by Rome, lived in the area of Languedoc, in southeastern France, bordering on Spain. The Cathars rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary lives, and an inner group of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led ascetic lives, but worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Men and women were regarded as equals; there was no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the majority religion in the area, supported by the nobility as well as the common people. Not only did many Catholics, priests included, defect to the Cathars, but the group refused to pay tithes to Rome. Accusing the Cathars of heresy, Pope Innocent III instituted a Crusade against the Cathars, and by the end over 500,000 people, Cathar and non-Cathar alike, had been killed.
Jumping back to the current times - many of us remember the debates over the admission of gays and lesbians to ordained ministry in the church. I would find letters on my desk at the national office, accusing gays of having sex with animals, that anyone who supported gays was outside the church, that the Bible specifically prohibited homosexual behaviour. At a meeting of General Council in Camrose, Alberta in 1997 - bags of dog poop were left on the chairs of people who were either suspected of being gay, or supported gay ordination. These things were always done either overnight, or early enough in the morning that no-one saw who it was. Walter Wink, who is Professor of Theology at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, as early as 1978 put together a paper which managed to debunk every argument against homosexuality, and point out that the constant ethic in the Bible is love, and inclusivity.
Well, less than 20 years after Pentecost, Paul and Barnabas faced pretty much the same challenges. As long as there are institutions, and churches, and societies - there will always be arguments about who is in and who isn’t. Acts 15 records the most controversial and pivotal event in the life of the early church, because it called into question whether or not the church was a Jewish reform movement, a sect, or was becoming a wider movement where all racial and cultural barriers had been removed. Following his conversion, Paul had visited Jerusalem, met Peter and James, caused a stir there among the Jews, been shipped off to Caesarea and then home to Tarsus. He spent the next eleven years in Cilicia and Syria. Around 40-41 CE rumours of Greek converts in Antioch went around, and the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to check it out.
Barnabas got on board, and together with Paul became pastor of a new church which was young, dynamic, and mostly Gentile converts. But the church in Jerusalem was strongly Jewish, and steeped in the Jewish traditions. The church leaders in Jerusalem thought that any Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus had to become Jews first, by being circumcized. They could buy the idea that proselytes to Judaism like Cornelius could receive the Holy Spirit, for he was already a "God fearer", but accepting out and out pagans was another matter. Its wasn't long before matters came to a head.
On the first journey Paul and Barnabas witnessed to Jews and Gentiles alike. They founded churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe in the Southern region of the province of Galatia. Again, and increasingly, it was the Gentiles who believed. The Jews got jealous and incited the rabble, and the authorities, to throw the apostles out of each town, one after another. When the dust had settled, and their visas were running out they turned round and worked their way back to the coast visiting each of these newly formed churches, and appointed leadership teams. Eventually they returned to home base, Antioch in Syria, tired but fully convinced of the rightness of their strategy. The hostility of the Jews, the responsiveness of the Gentiles, and the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit convinced them that it was the grace of the Spirit, not law or text, which decided.
In today’s first text, Paul prays that love will increase in knowledge and depth of insight. In the second text, the words of some believers who were Pharisees insisted that new believers must be circumcised and require to obey the Law of Moses. Peter points out that God made the choice that the Gentiles would hear the message; that God had given them the Spirit, and that God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And Peter asks “Why do you put God to the test?”
If we are followers of Jesus, then we are in fact followers of the most radical and inclusive way. Everyone receives wisdom and Spirit, regardless of race, language, age, gender, or sexuality. If God makes no distinction, we cannot either. If all are acceptable to God, then all are acceptable to us as well. There is no “in” and “out”. Our churches are open to all, recognising the gifts of the Spirit given to all. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Sermon by Rev. Stephen Sizer, www.cc-vw.org/sermons/ibsacts15.htm
2. www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk/old-site/against.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Mariavite_Church
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