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What do we look for in our church leaders?
Sermon for Street Parish Church 25 June 2006
The reading was:
2 Corinthians 6:
"We don't want anyone to find fault with our work, and so we try hard not to cause problems. But in everything and in every way we show that we truly are God's servants. We have always been patient, though we have had a lot of trouble, suffering, and hard times. We have been beaten, put in jail, and hurt in riots. We have worked hard and have gone without sleep or food. But we have kept ourselves pure and have been understanding, patient, and kind. The Holy Spirit has been with us, and our love has been real. We have spoken the truth, and God's power has worked in us. In all our struggles we have said and done only what is right."
What do we look for in our church leaders?
The Episcopal Church in America, the equivalent of the C of E there, has just elected a woman to be presiding bishop, the equivalent of archbishop, and some people are ecstatic while others are distressed. The people who are pleased, including the ones who waved banners reading "It's a girl!", see the election as another step in the emancipation of women. Dr Katherine Jefferts Schori has broken through the stained glass ceiling, as someone put it. Some of the people who are displeased are opposed to women priests on principle, and so naturally dislike women bishops, let alone an archbishop; but others are worried because of Dr Jefferts Schori's support for church blessing of same-sex unions, and the appointment of practising homosexuals as bishops.
How difficult it is to reach a reasoned Christian position on this. At least I find it so. Let me try to share some of my thinking with you.
First let me deal with women as priests and women as bishops. The Church of England has decided that it is right to ordain women as deacons and priests. I served as junior curate in Downend parish with a woman as senior curate. One or two people refused to received the Holy Communion from her, but for most church people their attitude to her depended not on her sex but on how they got on with her as a person - just as happens with a male vicar or curate. Interestingly, she herself said that although she had defended the rightness of ordaining women, she had doubts about whether her own ordination was right. This seems to me to illustrate well how our feelings get mixed up with our Christian convictions.
I remember my father, way back in the 1940s, quoting someone: "I can see no possible theological reason why women should not be ordained to the ministry - but I wish I could." And my mother, towards the end of her life, in her nineties, said something similar: "I don't see any reason why a woman should not be rector of Locking (where she lived); but I hope it happens after I am gone."
Opponents of women priests point out that Jesus chose 12 men to be his apostles. That is perfectly true. Others say that our Lord was being practical: it would not have been possible for women in the Roman world to have undertaken the leadership roles and the missionary journeys that were necessary. They say that Jesus chose as he did just because society was as it was. It was not an eternal principle. After all, Mary Magdalene was the one who brought the news of the resurrection to the apostles, and so was 'the apostle to the apostles'.
Opponents, again, say that the priest represents our Lord, particularly in the Communion, and so must be a male. The question presents itself: Is it Jesus as a human person that the priest represents (if he or she does), or more narrowly as a male person? And what about the New Testament description of the whole company of Christian believers as the Body of Christ, the respresentative of Christ on earth? When we say "Christ has no hands but our hands", are we limiting the work of Christ to males?
You may guess that I incline to accept the ordination of women as a right and proper development of church practice in our present society. I see clearly that it is a change from the custom of the Christian Church throughout the centuries, but I see nothing in the Bible to forbid it. You may quote to me "Let women keep silence in church." All right. Remove all women from the rota of lesson readers. Let us have an all-male choir. Why should St Paul's words apply particularly to the Elders? It is likely that St Paul was irritated by the Jewish Christian women who chattered during worship, as I am told Jewish women tend to do in synagogue still!
Now, bishops. The Church Times last Friday wrote: "The way in which the Church of England has handled the issue of women bishops is embarrassing. 12 years after the vote to ordain women as priests, 6 years after the commissioning of a detailed report on the theology of women bishops, two years after the report's publication, one year after a vote in the General Synod to set in train the process of removing legal obstacles to women bishops, six months after another Synod voted to explore Transferred Episcopal Authority, the Church finds itself almost back at square one."
Now I see no theological distinction between priests and bishops. I believe that the learned 19th century Bishop Lightfoot of Durham was quite correct when he studied the New Testament in great detail and concluded that New Testament writers, and the early Christians, used the Greek words presbuteros, elder or priest, and episcopos, overseer or bishop, interchangeably. So I believe that in saying yes to ordaining women as priests, rightly or wrongly, the C of E has said yes in principle to consecrating women as bishops.
So am I among the ecstatic about the appointment of Dr Jefferts Schori? No. Nor is the Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote, beginning pleasantly enough:
" I send my greetings to Bishop Katharine and she has my prayers and good wishes as she takes up a deeply demanding position at a critical time. She will bring many intellectual and pastoral gifts to her new work, and I am pleased to see the strength of her commitment to mission and to the Millennium Development Goals."
But then, in the most tactful and roundabout way possible, he suggested that there are problems:
"Her election will undoubtedly have an impact on the collegial life of the Anglican Primates; and it also brings into focus some continuing issues in several of our ecumenical dialogues. We are continuing to pray for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church as it confronts a series of exceptionally difficult choices."
In other words, her election is going to cause great difficulties, and may result in a complete split in the Anglican Church worldwide. The US Church has taken no notice of the guidelines agreed at the last Lambeth Conference of bishops from all over the world, and that may be catastrophic.
Bishop Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, who used to be the CMS General Secretary, was much blunter:
"The divisions between conservatives and liberals are so big that a split is inevitable. Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes, but I think this is a matter of such seriousness that fudge won't do. Nobody wants a split, but if you think you have virtually two religions in a single Church, something has got to give sometime."
More important than the sex of bishops are their sexual activities. The BBC says that the problem is the consecration of 'openly gay bishops'. I don't think the BBC has got it right. It isn't a question of being open about their sexual inclinations; it's about being sexually active outside marriage. The US church last Thursday acknowledged this, and a motion was proposed offering a moratorium on consecrating bishops "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church." The motion was defeated. People who indulge in sex outside marriage will still be consecrated bishops.
Now sexual sins are not specially important, although journalists try to make us believe they are. Greed and cruelty and dishonesty are just as important and destructive. What makes sexual attitudes a touchstone is that people seem to be saying "I shall continue to behave in this way. I shall continue to live with my lover." If they said "I shall continue to lie to you" or "I shall continue to make the lives of my clergy a misery" people would object.
So let's take a step back, and see how St Paul regarded his own Christian leadership.
"We don't want anyone to find fault with our work, and so we try hard not to cause problems. But in everything and in every way we show that we truly are God's servants. We have always been patient, though we have had a lot of trouble, suffering, and hard times. We have been beaten, put in jail, and hurt in riots. We have worked hard and have gone without sleep or food. But we have kept ourselves pure and have been understanding, patient, and kind. The Holy Spirit has been with us, and our love has been real. We have spoken the truth, and God's power has worked in us. In all our struggles we have said and done only what is right."
Well, that's St Paul's standard - one he claims to have lived up to. We know about his being beaten and put in prison and hurt in riots. And we have no reason to distrust him when he says he kept himself pure, and been understanding and patient and kind. As for his love being real, well that shines through his letters. And before anything else, St Paul puts the effect that his way of life will have on people who are wondering about the Gospel, wondering if it is real and if it works.
"We don't want anyone to find fault with our work, and so we try hard not to cause problems. But in everything and in every way we show that we truly are God's servants."
In our own day we are used to public figures being built up by the gutter press, just so that they can knock them down with some scandal or other. It is a great tribute to Her Majesty the Queen that even the Australian-turned-American anti-monarchist Rupert Murdoch's newspapers have not been able to find scandals to beat her with. St Paul has the same integrity, that makes him able to say: "In all our struggles we have said and done only what is right."
It takes total dedication to Christ to be able to make such claims. In an intimate moment St Paul wrote to another group of Christians whom he loved, "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." It isn't "I follow Christ - so long as he doesn't interfere with my freedom to take a lover." It isn't "I follow Christ - so long as he doesn't stop me getting richer and richer." It's "For me, to live is Christ."
That's the dizzily high standard we expect of our Christian leaders. We must pray for them. But each one here represents Christ, represents the Christian faith to our friends and family. Each one of us needs to show the same total commitment. Jesus first. We must pray for ourselves, and pray for each other. We too should be able to say:
"We don't want anyone to find fault with our work, and so we try hard not to cause problems. But in everything and in every way we show that we truly are God's servants."
God help us - and our leaders - in this high calling. Amen.
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Thursday 28th of August 2008
