Selections from the Epistles 1 Peter 3; 1 Corinthians 11 & 14; 1 Timothy 2

Sound dry and boring - maybe a bit scholarly and not really applying to every day life? Well, with topics we've picked, it won't be boring! We start today with some of the teachings we find in the Epistles about women. Then we'd like to tempt you to return for future topics such as: God Commands Wars and Killing, Jesus Says He Is the Only Way to Get to God, Weird Laws and Commands, the Bible Predicts the End of the World and What Will Happen to All of Us! Should be fun and hopefully helpful as well.

So on to today's topic, The Role of Women. This past week was an exciting one for women as Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first female Speaker of the House and as the highest ranking female elected official in the Federal Government third in line for the Presidency. And, a woman just might make a run for the Presidency, and earlier this year our brothers and sister in the usually traditional, fairly male dominated Episcopal church nationally elected their first female Presiding Bishop. Exciting! But it hasn't always been this way. Let us listen to some of the early church teachings regarding women.

Ralph reads the scriptures and Carol takes the actions indicated.
1 Corinthians 14
God is a God not of disorder but of peace.   (As in all the churches of the saints, ³⁴ women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. ³⁵ 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.

1 Peter 3
Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives' conduct, ² when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. ³ Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing; ⁴ rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight. ⁵ It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by accepting the authority of their husbands.

1 Corinthians 11
² I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. ³ But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. ⁴ Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, ⁵ but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head?it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. ⁶ For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. ⁷ For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. ⁸ Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. ¹³ Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? ¹⁴ Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, ¹⁵ but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?

1 Timothy 2
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. ¹² I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, not "Amen." Not the end. God was at work. God was still speaking. God did not leave women silent. Women did not let God down by remaining silent.

I thank God for those who have gone before you and me. Who listened to the winds of the Spirit breathing life and power into all God's people.

I thank God for Priscilla, who, along side her husband Aquilla were co-workers for God. Priscilla, working with Paul, founding churches, teaching, leading, following the call God gave her as an early church leader.

God is still speaking . . .

And I thank God for Marcella and Paula, 4^th century women studying the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, assisting Jerome as he translated the Bible in to Latin. Paula, who eventually traveled to Jerusalem with Jerome, settled there and founded convents, a monastery, and a hospice shelter for pilgrims, orphans, the sick and elderly.

God is still speaking . . .

And I thank God for the great mystical teachers, for Hildegard and Julian of Norwich, the and many unnamed, unknown, unsung, women who assured that the faith was carried on and acted on.

God is still speaking . . .

And I thank God for Antoinette Brown, the first woman ordained in the United States. In 1853! A Congregationalist!

And I thank God for the women on whose shoulders I am honored and grateful to stand. Rosaria DiBiasio, Anoinette Zanolli DiBiasio, Polly Lewis, Jean, Audrey and Virginia Bell, Isabell Rogers, Kay Turner, Sandy Flannigan, Danette Wineberg . . . the list goes on and joins to the one you can make for your life.

God is still speaking . . .

Not long ago, at a Presbyterian Church in Weyawega, Pastor Sue was sitting on the steps with the children for their time together in worship. It was a children's message similar to the one Ralph gave today. She was telling the children that they could be anything God called them to be and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. One said a firefighter, another a teacher. Then Scott said he wanted to be a pastor which elicited an exclamation (and a punch in the arm!) from Jenny who declared, "You can't be a pastor, Scott, you're a boy!"

God is still speaking . . .

For I am confident the Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. It was one of our founders in the Congregational Way, John Robinson who spoke those words in his farewell remarks to the Pilgrims as they set sail for this land in 1620. For I am confident the Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word.

To understand the words of God as dynamic, alive, growing, revealing, active, waiting to be discovered in deeper and wider ways, this way of looking at the Bible is in our very roots as congregationalists.

God is still speaking . . .

When we limit God to certain words on a page, interpreted in certain ways, backed by certain beliefs, based on certain understandings, when we limit God like that we make God something less than God and make ourselves something more than we ought.

Oh, it's a bit messy, this idea that God is still speaking. There is a certain comfort in certainty. You and I may hear different messages as we listen. We may have to rethink long cherished beliefs and ideas, we may have to admit we were wrong about something. But it is exciting too. It is energizing to ride the winds of the Spirit of God, holding on to faith, not in words on a page, but faith in the actions and leading of the very One who created us and all the universe!

God is still speaking . . .

This is a belief we hold as we gather at this table today. We gather not at the funeral of a dead God, we gather at the joyful feast of a God who is alive. A God who speaks to and through you and me. A God who is Risen, who is the Host at this table and has something to tell us. Listen, can you hear it? God is still speaking! Amen.