Every thursday, 10 months of the year, a group of 6 – 9 of us gather at Holy Cross for bible study. We call it verse by verse – because that’s our structure. We pick a book of the bible, and work our way through. I don’t lecture – though I usually ‘read up’ on the parts we are covering. Folks read, we talk, we share. Some of our group were cradle Lutherans and never anything else. Some have been in many denominations or faith groups, and some are a bit skeptical about this faith stuff. It is a perfect hour.
We are reading 1 Corinthians this fall. I didn’t pick it. I have never been a big fan. This sweeping letter to the church at Corinth seems to be a little on the pompous side for me – Paul, the apostle we believe wrote this letter, can write eloquently in one section, and then seems full of bombast in the next.
But reading it together, in verse by verse, we have encountered the author, Paul, in a way I have not experienced before. He writes out of his concern for a church that is having trouble. He writes out of love. And that makes sense to me. He is their Pastor, and cares about their lives. He encourages, he waxes eloquently about himself (yep, a little ego problem seems to emerge), and he chastises. As we have read this book together, it has emerged for our little group differently than I have ever thought before. Not a diatribe so much as a counseling session. Not a bunch of rules, but rather a letter with both concern and correction for the faithful in Corinth. It feels very personal the more we read it.
So, when we as a group have encountered the troublesome passages – like 1 Corinthians 14:34 34 Women should remain silent in the churches – they emerge quite differently than we had thought before. Paul brings this up in the midst of a long discourse on how stupid it is to speak in tongues in church if there’s no one to interpret those tongues so that all can understand. When we hit this passage together, we talked about it, and were amazed that this one line is so often taken out of context. This verse in 1 Corinthians is not a dictum from on high – but rather fits with Paul’s conversation about this church (Corinth) and their difficulty at the time of this writing with several issues – and it appears that besides people who are speaking in tongues being a problem in Corinth, it looks like some of the problems were coming from some women there. Our group moved right through this chapter, realizing that these are the words of a pastor to a specific group of people, at a specific moment in time. We’ve spent about 3 months on the first 14 chapters of Corinthians. And I am proud of the fact that, by immersing ourselves in the words, and the moment, they speak pretty clearly to us.
Why did I take you down this road? Because 49 years ago, the first woman was ordained in the Lutheran tradition. I never saw a woman pastor in my youth, encountering the first one in 1980. But I have children who attend the church I serve who have rarely seen a male pastor. To them, it’s unimaginable that women would be denied this calling simplly because they are women. And, if you read 1 Corinthians 14 like we did this fall, it really makes no sense at all that women have been sidelined for generations from this calling.
I hope that God calls you to work in God’s church- among God’s people, preaching, teaching, caring and praying. Whether that means in a church situation, or in any walk of life, I hope you feel that sacredness of calling. Because God has need of you. Thank you Elizabeth Platz, and all who helped us reclaim the calling of Women to serve God. And, just for the joy of it, I include a picture of the women pastors of Nigeria. Serving God never looked so good! – See you in church this Sunday, 9:30 am at Holy Cross Lutheran in Salem, Oregon. God loves you, join us.
Pastor Patricia+
