Sermon from July 28, 2002

In mid-summer, 1996, I spent nearly two weeks at the Passionist Fathers Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, CA. I studied, slept, ate and walked around there as part of a doctoral study on Christian spirituality, offered by Fuller Seminary and taught by Dallas Willard, a Prof. at USC.

My bedroom had a single bed, small table, bathroom and closet. It looked out on to a very noisy air conditioner and, as compensation, to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, which came right down to the road behind my room.

Twenty of us sat round tables in a circle for Dr. Willard's lectures and our conversations. Every day, I sat to the left of a woman, who was a Lutheran pastor from Minnesota. Fuller Seminary advocates and practices complete equality of men and women in Christian ministry.

During breaks, she and I occasionally talked about life as pastors in local churches. Every exchange was cordial. We may have learned from each other. We were understanding and solicitous about the issues that each raise. At no time in the two weeks did the issue of women's ordination to ministry come up. No doubt, she assumed that I had no problem with it. No doubt, I assumed that without sufficient cause, it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

I would certainly have expressed my convictions, if I had been called on to do so. I felt no urge to instruct her in the finer shades of my theological understanding about ordination. I took her with absolute seriousness. I did not inwardly sneer or feel superior. I admired much of her work, as she described it, and told her so and meant every word of it. And I think the Lutheran Church in America is wrong to ordain women.

If you ask how or even why I did that, it was because scipture says, Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know (1 Cor. 8:1b-2). It was more important to love my neighbor as myself than to insist on my formulation of the doctrine of women in the church. That woman was not trying to prove anything by being a Lutheran pastor. She was seeking to serve Jesus Christ and His Church. She was His servant, not mine.

It goes back to something I said last week. I don't feel any need to offer you (or her) the final answer to these questions about the role of women in the church. I had a lot of final answers twenty years ago that don't seem so final today. It is a great relief. The inner liberty that gives me makes these two sermons a blessing not a burden to me. It made possible a cordial relationship six summers ago with that Lutheran pastor.

If she and I had had a conversation about this question, I know that I would have said to her some of what I am saying to you in these two sermons. Last week, we tried to get some historical perspective on how the Church comes to consensus on the great doctrines of our faith. We also considered some of the relevant biblical data.

Today, we need to think about the influence that culture has on how we understand the biblical data. This keeps us rooted in present realities but not confined to present realities. Finally, we need to consider precedents in church experience and their impact on a church's decision-making. So, let's look next at cultural influences.

I want to start you off with a scriptural window on to the habits of the Apostle Paul. Those habits illustrate how cultural factors can lead to different (some would say, contradictory) behavior under different circumstances. Look at 1 Corinthians 9:20-23.

To the Jew I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

We know, for example, that under one set of circumstances Paul required that his protégé, Timothy, be circumcised, so that there would be no scandal among the Jews to whom they preached the gospel. We know that under a different set of circumstances Paul made sure that his protégé, Titus, was not circumcised, so that Gentiles would not be required to submit to circumcision as a prerequisite for becoming followers of Jesus.

I think most of us find that part of life works like this. Some behavior is right under one set of circumstances but wrong under a different set of circumstances. Just to keep the record straight, let me say also that some behavior is wrong all the time, and other behavior is right all the time. Christians are not relativists; we believe there are absolutes that guide human behavior in every situation. But we also know that for much human behavior there is not a set of rules that applies to every situation. The Bible bears eloquent witness to this complexity and also to our need for discernment.

Here is one of my favorite illustrations of this complexity. Proverbs 26:4-5.

     Do not answer a fool according to his folly
     or you will be like him yourself.
     Answer a fool according to his folly,
     or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Which advice do you follow? Well, it all depends on the circumstances, doesn't it? Often, when people say that part of the Bible is culturally conditioned, they mean that the part in question was written in circumstances that caused the writer to say what he did. We imply that if the circumstances had been different, he would have written something quite different.

This, at least, is often what people say, who wish to discount the force of those passages of the Bible that seem to prevent women from having access to ordination and Christian service that is equal to what men have. They will say, for example, that the Bible was written in a patriarchal culture that denied women the same rights as men. If the apostles had been writing in our culture of liberal democracy, they would have granted women equal rights. Now, how do they know that? Aren't they being presumptuous to claim to know what people from the first century would say today? Before you and I draw too many conclusions about the impact of culture on our understanding of scripture, we need to consider three important questions about culture.

First, can we simply dismiss biblical data that we don't like as culturally conditioned and therefore irrelevant to us? We, who cherish Scripture as a revelation of the mind of God, cannot do that. If we did, people could pick and choose what they wanted to use from the Bible and dismiss the parts they did not like on grounds of different cultural influences. The Scripture does reflect ancient cultural influences that affect the way we receive the Bible's statements about women, but we have a lot of work to do before we decide what has been affected and how. For example, we need to ask my other two questions.

My second question is painful. Why are we so sure that our egalitarian culture is always right? There has never been one quite like it before, and it is barely 50 years old. What if we got part of it wrong? Two or three generations down the road, might the best and brightest look back on our time and say, "What were they thinking?" Asking this question is painful, because it is hard to get outside our own generation and look at it with a critical eye. We need help to do that. The Bible is one source that helps us to look at our cultural prejudices from a contradictory point of view. That is true of women's issues.

This second question has another twist to it. It is significant that part of our own liberal democratic culture disagrees with egalitarian practice in the Church. Which part of our own culture shall we listen to? Cultural considerations alone cannot resolve this issue, although we need to take them into account.

A third question points to another perspective that is independent of our North American culture. I raised it last Sunday. We must hear from the whole Church on the role of women, and the Church is a global reality. What do they think? In our impatience to render a final verdict Protestant Churches in Europe and North America have made pronouncements about the role of women with little or no consultation with the Churches of Asia, Africa and South America.

We have behaved in typical ugly American fashion, as if all theological wisdom resides in North American and Western Europe. Our nation may be the only political and military superpower, but that does not guarantee the finality of Western theological wisdom. We need to be patient and courteous to the Church on other continents, if for no other reason than their suffering for the Gospel. They may contribute something indispensable to the Church's final consensus about the role of women.

These cultural questions lead me to propose two conclusions for your consideration. First, just because the Bible was written in an ancient culture does not make it untrue or irrelevant in ours. There are statements from the great prophets of Israel that seem as fresh today as they did 2800 years ago. And just because something is said in contemporary culture does not make it unquestionably true and relevant for us. Abortion is quite contemporary and quite debatable.

Second, the culture card is not a trump card for either side of the debate. It has merit and must be considered in our efforts to discern the mind of our Maker, but it has nothing like the decisive force that people sometimes claim for it. Let us be cautious. This bringsme to the last part of my presentation on this important issue: precedent.

The other word for precedent is tradition. Everyone lives by tradition, and therefore everyone is in some danger. Jesus put the danger in a nutshell, when He said in Mark 7:8, "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." We can unwittingly substitute our traditions for the will of God. Every human being is exposed to that danger, just by being human.

That's why the people of God need prophets like Isaiah and Jesus to challenge our traditions. That is why this debate over the role of women in the Church is so important. It challenges all traditions. It forces us all to rethink the issue. It teaches us to love one another in new ways. It opens us up to God's possibilities that we had overlooked.

So, what precedents do we have to take into account? First, on a grand scale three out of the four great Christian communions on the earth reject the ordination of women. The Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and the Coptic Church (mostly in Egypt), hold restrictive views of the role of women in the Church.

Second, within Protestant Christianity significanly large numbers reject the ordination of women. Most Baptist denominations (including our own Baptist General Conference), most Presbyterian groups, the Evangelical Free Church, the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and many smaller denominations counter the position held by most Lutherans, Methodists, and Episcopalians.

Third, the family of churches in New Castle County and Southeastern PA that BVBC is closest to rejects the ordination of women. Among charismatic churches in this area all are pastored by men, even though some of them may in principle be open to the ordination of women. Through the years BVBC itself has taken this position of not ordaining women. I would like to offer two conclusions to these two sermons.

First, because we find ourselves in this particular tradition, let's make the most of it. Let's take part in discussions about the role of women in the church by bearing witness to the wisdom of our tradition. I doubt that our tradition has the final wisdom about this matter, but I have no doubt that out tradition embodies real wisdom from God about this matter that will be of benefit to the whole Church. Let me give you an example.

Among traditions that practice complete equality for men and women in ministry I seldom read or hear them give any serious effort to obey those scriptural cautions about the role of women in the Church. In our tradition, which is less egalitarian, I can point to many efforts right here at BVBC to give women leadership responsibility and to give women a profound voice in spiritual leadership. Our experience gives us a strong position from which to talk to churches of like mind and also to churches who disagree with us.

Here is my second conclusion. Let's participate in this debate in such a way that when the Holy Spirit some day gives the Church its final consensus on this matter, it does not leave behind the great resentment throughout the Church.

When the Church agreed on its doctrine of Christ at the Church councils in the fourth century, it announced its decisions and enforced it in such a way that sowed discord from which the Church never recovered. It particularly weakened the Church in Palestine and Arabia, where in a few short years Islam arose and found a more fragmented and weakened church.

The Church is never at her best, when she wields power over other people. We have, unfortunately, seen that in recent days among some American Catholic Bishops. God knows, we have seen our share of that power-mongering among Evangelicals. There is a more excellent way.

The Apostle Paul wrote the words, which are most pertinent to all doctrinal debates within the Church. Where there are prophecies, they will cease...where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.... Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It is hard to admit without excuse that I just don't know. It is really hard for a church or denomination to admit that it doesn't know. We constantly face the temptation to talk as if we did know. I don't want to do that. What is within reach of every person and every denomination is to love one another with brotherly affection. That means that if I get my way about something, I will seek to be kind and not boastful or rude. If don't get my way about something, I will seek to be patient, not easily angered, and keep no record of real or perceived wrongs. That has power that no doctrinal debate can ever have.