By Dawn M. Frankfurt
Glory to the Holy and
Undivided Trinity;
God who is Three in One and
One in Three; Who is beyond us, among us, within us;
Who was, and is, and is to
come, world without end. Amen.
At first, when somebody gets ordained, they get to do
lots of things for the first time. I’ll
never forget the first time I said the blessing “of God Almighty, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, be amongst you and remain with you always.” It is a breath-taking thing to do. It is like an incredible wave of love for
you running right through me. A
stunning, thrilling, scary and incredibly humbling experience.
In addition to the really important things which happen,
like celebrating the Eucharist and pronouncing the forgiveness of sins, there
are things which happen for the first time after ordination which are somewhat
less monumental. There’s the first time
you fasten the collar at your throat, and the first time a stole hangs around
your neck. And there are the more
trivial things which happen for the first time. You get a piece of mail addressed to: “The Reverend.” Overnight, your wardrobe choices are
completely simplified, and you realize that as you’re driving down the road
with your clericals on that committing road rage is not an option.
A couple of other firsts in this vein have happened to
me here in Staunton, where I was ordained.
Once, I went into the UPS store on Greenville Avenue with my collar
on. One of the guys who was working
there literally stared at me, seemingly without breathing or blinking, the
whole time I conducted my business. As
I turned to leave, he got up his nerve and called out after me, “Uh, are you a
priest?” I said: yes. He was very concerned. He said, “Um, what church do you go
to?” I said: Trinity Episcopal
Church. For a second I saw an
expression on his face which said he was computing facts, and then he smiled
brightly and asked, “Oh, so you’re not Catholic, right?” No, I’m not, I said. He was totally relieved.
Then there was the time I was at Kroger, with my
clericals on, and standing in the check-out lane with several items in one of
those hand-held baskets. I looked over
and saw a guy standing in the check-out lane next to me. An average looking guy. Then my line moved and it was my turn to
start unloading the contents of my basket onto the conveyor belt. When I turned around to set the basket on
the floor, the guy had walked over from the other lane. He stood real close to me and said in a
shaking, quiet voice, “Will you pray for me?”
That was the first time that ever happened to me. I said: of course I would, and I asked him
what his name was. “James,” he said. It was a powerful moment for me. I still pray for James, I’m doing what I
said I would do, and at the same time I remind myself of my stupefying
responsibility.
I have learned that on a somewhat regular basis somebody
will come up to me with a tone of incrimination in their voice and say
something like, “Hey, haven’t you heard, women aren’t supposed to talk in
church! Isn’t there something in the
Bible about that?” The first few times
that happened to me, it was pretty surprising.
You don’t hear people in many other instances going up to somebody they
don’t know and accusing them of being repugnant to the Word of God. I have stumbled around trying to come up
with some sort of zinger or pithy statement which I could use as a validating
one-liner. As yet, I haven’t come up
with the perfect little response which acknowledges, addresses and refutes in a
simple number of words. It’s not that
easy.
In
fact, in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter fourteen, verses 33-35,
Paul does write: “God is a
God not of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, women
should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but
should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire
to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to
speak in church.”
There are several ways to talk
about what this might mean in its historical context. Yet, when someone relies on a single verse or two to interpret
the Bible, this tool of God’s communication with us, we’re faced with
difficulties. Has the person who uses a verse as a proof-text to support their
argument or belief, read the rest of the Bible? Are they like protestors who hear something about a film and
begin boycotting and marching against it before it is released?
Understanding the spirit of the Bible is our
responsibility as Christians. We ARE
people of the book – the whole book. We
are NOT people of a single verse. The
life of faith cannot be reduced to explanation in a single verse. The story of God can’t be told in a sentence
or a paragraph. The Bible, which isn’t
a single book or two, but a compilation containing almost 70 books, is a
document which contains all of the stuff we need to know for salvation, and yet
it can’t begin to give a comprehensive archive of all there is to know about
God.
If we have
read the Bible, will we say: “If you are who you say you are (in my case, a
valid priest), then prove it. If you’re
authorized to serve God, then show me your credentials.” When did Jesus start checking passports and
turning away undocumented people?
Interestingly,
this is something like what Satan is doing to Jesus in the story we heard from
Matthew a few minutes ago. He wants
Jesus to prove who he is. We all get
the point of the story – that Satan is doing something wrong. He’s tempting God. One of the ways he is doing it is by plucking a verse out of the
Hebrew Scriptures and throwing it in Jesus’ face. Even two thousand years ago, Jesus was dealing with
proof-texting!
When the tempter approached Jesus and said, “If you are
the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” And on the mountain said, “If you are the
Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels
concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not
dash your foot against a stone.’” And finally,
the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms and the splendor of the world, and
asked Jesus to worship him in exchange for dominion over all that he saw.
Jesus responded to the devil based on principles true to
the spirit of God, not simply the letter of the law or a carefully chosen
verse. Jesus said, “It is written, ‘One
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.’” Who could know all that was
written by the prophets and still put the Lord to the test? The point of many stories, including the one
about a golden calf, is the is to illustrate the first commandment about
worshipping God, and serving only him.”
Jesus knew God and the spirit of God. He knew the whole story. And so do we. We know how the story goes.
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he didn’t pray to God that everyone
should be taken care of EXCEPT the people who persecuted him. When the criminal being crucified beside
Jesus asked for forgiveness in a way that sounded like he was looking for an
insurance policy, did Jesus turn him down?
Jesus included everybody.
When did Jesus tell us to leave people out? When did he say: Never-mind about the
Gentiles or Samaritans? Where did he
say, or even imply, that we don’t really need to worry about taking care of the
poor, the downtrodden, widows and orphans?
Where is it written that he said, “We’ve been working hard. Let’s take some time off. Let’s forget about the tax collectors,
women, Pharisees and sinners?” When
Jesus told his disciples to feed his lambs, did he make any exceptions? Did he say: “Oh yeah, all except for the
lepers, don’t feed the lepers, they’re bad for public health.”?
If we say that based on a verse in Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians, women are forever silenced in the Christian church, are we in
keeping with the spirit of the Gospel?
We can’t send someone back in a time machine to our
teenage years where they could hear us in an angry moment tell Mom or Dad that
we hate them. Then come back to the
present thinking that the whole of your childhood could be summed up in
this single incident. The story of our lives is composed of a
million moments. No single moment tells
the story, but when you live the whole thing, you know how somebody can say
something terrible in an instant, yet love dearly in the grand scheme of
things.
If we know anything about the spirit of the Bible, we
know that loving our neighbor as ourselves is paramount. The spirit of the Bible, and particularly
the spirit of the New Testament, is concerned with love, forgiveness and
inclusion. Who should we de-value?
Who should we tempt into believing that God doesn’t love them?
“Do not put the Lord your God
to the test.”
“Worship the Lord your God
and serve only Him.”
AMEN!