January 24, 2016

Helen Jacobi

Epiphany 3     Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10     Psalm 19     1 Corinthians 12:12-31a     Luke 4:14-40 (extended reading)

72 years ago today deaconess Li Tim Oi was ordained a priest in Zhaoqing in China by Bishop Ronald Hall, Bishop of Hong Kong. He ordained her for work in Macao where the congregation was cut off due to war time restrictions. He was aware he was doing something groundbreaking – ordaining a woman as a priest for the first time – and wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, after the fact! Despite many protests from England Bishop Hall refused to take away Li Tim Oi’s licence and she continued to work as a priest until the Cultural Revolution. Many years later in retirement she would resume her priestly duties and eventually moved to Canada where she died in 1992.

About the day of her ordination Li Tim Oi wrote

“God had brought me through many dangers to this place, it strengthened my belief that it was his will that I become a priest. Here was I, a simple girl wishing to devote my life to his service. The wider issues of the ordination of women were far from my mind as I entered the little church.” [1]

Years later after all the more formal debates and processes women would be ordained priest in Honk Kong, USA, Canada and New Zealand. The first woman was ordained because her people needed and wanted the sacraments. Quite straightforward really.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, writes about the church as it was emerging in his time. He gives the Corinthians an image – the image of the body. We have used that phrase “the body of Christ” so many times we don’t hear the impact of what Paul was saying. The church in Corinth were following normal Greek and Roman custom and operating on class and hierarchy lines. Everyone in their place. The rich first, then the poor. Men first, then the women. Free first, then the slaves.

The body was an image used in writing at the time – but it was used to reinforce the hierarchy. [2]

Paul instead “uses the figure of the body to advance a rationale for diversity and interdependence.” [3]

If the foot would say ‘because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. (12:15) The eye cannot say to the hand ‘I have no need of you’ (12:21).

So slave and free, Jew and Greek, all belonged. And not only did all belong but no one had the right to ask another to leave because they were a hand and not a foot.

The institution of the church for 2 millennia has done its best to not follow Paul’s guidance. Every century in every culture people have been excluded from the body because of culture, race, gender, disability, belief, sexual orientation, education, poverty. Think of segregated churches – black and white – in the USA; think of parish churches charging pew rents in England; think of the Inquisition and the Crusades; think of people who are divorced being excluded from communion. Think of gay and lesbian people being denied the sacrament of marriage.

Every age has its time of shame and we look back and we think – how could that possibly have happened? 2016 has started with such a time of shame for our church. The Primates of the Anglican Communion; our leaders, our archbishops, have met in England and deliberated and decided that those who offer the sacrament of marriage to all couples equally (the Episcopal Church in the US) will be excluded from some of the life of the Communion.

As they read this passage from Paul today – which they will be – I wonder what they are thinking and preaching? Hazarding a guess – I think they will be holding their recent meeting up as an example of Paul’s teaching. They have all been saying all week how marvelous it is that they all stayed at the meeting; stayed in the same room; didn’t walk out (except that is for the Archbishop of Uganda). How they listened and prayed and heard each other’s pain. Well that probably is quite an achievement but at the end of the day they still decided that because the Episcopal Church was a hand and not a foot – they had to be asked to step back from Communion activities. But Paul says The eye cannot say to the hand ‘I have no need of you’ (12:21).

Like the ordination of Li Tim Oi 62 years ago, the Episcopal Church has responded to the needs of its people. Bishop Hall saw his people needed communion. In the US the faithful have asked for the sacrament of marriage and they have received it. Canada is likely to follow – they got away with no exclusions this time because their processes are not yet complete. They like us are awaiting a General Synod. Will we follow? will we offer the sacraments to people who want them? Well, that remains to be seen. For our NZ church we have a working group who have been deliberating for the last year and they have not reported yet; I am sure when they do they will have similar reports of how marvelous it was that they all stayed in the room.

Shift now with me for a moment from Paul and the Corinthians to Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus is home, he goes to worship with the folks, as you do when you are home, and they asked him to do the reading. Nice. He reads from Isaiah, chapter 61. A passage familiar to the congregation, believed to announce the coming of the Messiah. All good so far.

But Jesus stops in the middle of the passage, sits down, and says this scripture has been fulfilled today in your hearing. And the people are amazed and then angry. What is he talking about? and why did he miss out the next bit from Isaiah 61 – the part about how the Gentiles (non Jews) will be the servants of the Israelites when they reclaim their homeland. (Isaiah 61:10) [4]

Jesus here is doing some editing and commentary on scripture. And then he responds to the congregation’s anger by telling two more stories from scripture – how Elijah, the great prophet helped a Gentile widow, and how Elisha, the next prophet healed a Gentile general. Now they are really mad – because he is telling them that Gentiles are loved by God too – and he is saying that he is the one who is the Messiah and who is going to bring them close to God. In their eyes very wrong on both counts – so they go to throw him over the cliff – the punishment for blasphemy. Mysteriously he just walks away.

But they would exclude Jesus from their congregation because he was telling them all are included, all are loved by God. All parts of the body are needed – Jew and Gentile – hands and feet. So much for the homecoming of Mary and Joseph’s boy who made good as a preacher.

Following the example of Jesus and of Paul we will continue to call for the full inclusion of everyone in our church and equal access to the sacraments for everyone. We are left though with a challenging question – do we want to be in the same church, the same worldwide communion, with those who would exclude our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Do we want to be in communion with the Archbishop of Uganda who walked out of the meeting early and who has pretty extreme homophobic views. [5] Do we not want to say to him – your views make you a hand – and we are feet – so we have no need of you.

The church of Uganda is more than its archbishop. And there are thousands of gay and lesbian Ugandan Anglicans who need our support and solidarity. If we walk away we abandon them. But we say loud and clear we will not accept views that encourage homophobia and in the case of Uganda even violence and imprisonment.

And closer to home this week we have been forced to trespass some of the people who have been sleeping in our porches and abusing passersby, being violent and damaging the building. They had never wanted to come to a church service – but if they did they would not now be able to do that. We have excluded them. That is a reality for us this week as we hear the words of Paul and Jesus.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, women or men, gay or straight, Maori or Pakeha, Chinese or Ugandan, with a disability or non-disabled, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:12-13).

[1] Much Beloved Daughter Florence Tim Oi Li 1985 Darton, Longman and Todd p 45

[2] p278 Lee C Barrett in Feasting on the Word Year C Vol 1

[3] ibid p 280

[4] as explained by Kenneth Bailey Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes chapter 12

[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/stanley-ntagali-anti-gay-law_n_5648648.html