09-05 - Community Church of the Monterey Peninsula

COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA

P. O. BOX 222811

CARMEL CA 93922

(831) 624-8595

https://PRAY-WITH.US

Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor

Independent and United Church of Christ

May 9, 2021

Dear Friends,

Happy Mother’s Day!

The ROSE GARDEN TEA was a smashing success! The roses were in full bloom, the day was perfect with the warmth of the sun and, most important of all, we had a good turnout of church people, some of them with friends. It was great to see people we deeply care about, but haven’t seen in person for more than a year. A big THANK YOU to Pam Klaumann and our Women’s Association for this grand jump-start to our reopening!

Thank you, Heidi, for the beautiful flower arrangements on the tea and cookie tables at the Rose Garden Tea.

A full edition of Beyond Sunday will be coming out for the months of June and July. Carole will be accepting articles for the newsletter up to and including May 23rd.

Stay Safe, Take Good Care,

And Always Remember that Jesus IS Emmanuel – God WITH Us,

Pastor Paul

WORSHIP SERVICE FOR MAY 9, 2021

INTRODUCTION

Catherine of Siena, 1357-1380; Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

CONSECRATED

All has been consecrated.

The creatures in the forest know this,

the earth does, the seas do, the clouds know

as does the heart full of

love.

Strange a priest would rob us of this

knowledge

and then empower himself

with the ability

to make holy what

already was.

Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582; Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

CRAZY

From a distance all want to enter His house.

Once near, watch out for the guard dogs –

Both four-legged and two.

Some of them are

crazy as

hell.

SUGGESTED MUSIC: When Love Is Found – John B. Miller

24sharper You Tube

OPENING PRAYER: Angela Ashwin, Contemporary

Thank you, God,

that you are tender as a mother,

as well as strong as a father.

You give us life,

and care for us

like a mother who will not forsake her children.

We pray for our mother’s today,

putting them into your hands

for time and for eternity;

and we ask your blessing on all our relationships,

in the families of our homes,

our churches,

and our communities.

Amen.

LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father,

who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth

as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

SERMON: MARY OF BETHANY – DISCIPLE OF JESUS

Rev. Paul Wrightman

(The underlining indicates what I would emphasize if delivered orally.)

In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought it would be fitting to revisit one of the first women disciples, Mary of Bethany.

Today’s Scripture text is a good example of how crucial a role context often plays in the correct understanding of a particular passage from the Bible. So before we get to the heart of the matter – which is Jesus’ radical affirmation of women as disciples equal to men – let’s begin by taking care of some preliminary issues.

First of all, this story is not a put-down of Martha. In many other places in the Gospels Jesus acknowledges differences in personality and temperament. Jesus is well-aware that Peter is impetuous, that Peter’s brother, Andrew, is thoughtful of others, that Thomas is questioning by nature, and that James and John are quick-tempered.

If anything, the group of male disciples that Jesus puts together is as diverse in terms of personality types and political viewpoints as can possibly be imagined. Jesus celebrates human differences and enjoys the challenge of forming a community that embodies unity in diversity and diversity in unity.

So in today’s Scripture reading we can assume that Martha is not being corrected because she is what we would call a practical, down-to-earth person who has the gift of hospitality and enjoys preparing a good meal for Jesus and his disciples.

We know from the larger context of Luke that at this point in the narrative Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). In other words, Jesus is well-aware that he is journeying to his death. He is in a somber, reflective mood.

From this we can surmise that what Jesus was hoping to find at the home of his friends in Bethany was some peace and quiet, a place of retreat where he could prepare himself for what lay ahead. Instead, he encountered a person who was caught up in a blur of activity and determined to throw a lavish party for him and his disciples.

I suspect that we have all been there and done that – tried to impose our will and our need on a friend or a spouse who desired something very different from what we wanted to give them at the time.

One of the great challenges of any close relationship is learning to discern the real needs of the other and responding to those needs – instead of trying to convince them that we know what they need better than they do themselves. For example, dinner out and a movie may be what we want, when what our friend or spouse really needs is a quiet night at home.

We can see something like this dynamic going on between Jesus and Martha in today’s Scripture reading. Jesus wants a simple meal and quiet time with close friends, and Martha wants to throw a party. Jesus certainly knew how to enjoy a good party – the Gospels are full of descriptions of them – but this is neither the time nor the place.

In terms of having a personal relationship with Jesus, which is an essential part of being a disciple, it is crucial for us to remind ourselves that real friendship is a two-way street. Jesus is finely-tuned into our needs. Are we growing more and more tuned into what he needs from us in terms of friendship?

In Luke’s Gospel the parable of the Good Samaritan occurs immediately before the story of Martha and Mary. There the emphasis is on action. A lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25). Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the despised Samaritan is the only one of three who stopped to help a person in need.

The parable concludes with Jesus asking the lawyer “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (Luke 10:36). The lawyer answers correctly, “The one who showed him mercy,” to which Jesus replies, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

We could say that what Jesus needs from us in terms of the parable of the Good Samaritan is action.

In terms of the story of Martha and Mary, which immediately follows, we could say that what Jesus needs is not action, but attention, someone to listen to him pour out his feelings in terms of his imminent engagement with the religious and political establishments in Jerusalem.

We learn from the juxtaposition of these two stories that friendship with Jesus largely consists in our learning when he needs us to act and when he needs us to be attentive.

Martha’s sister, Mary, is presented as sitting at the feet of Jesus listening. There are two important dimensions to what Mary is doing. First, she has correctly discerned what Jesus needs at this time and place, someone to simply be with him and to quietly let him talk.

This shows how finely-tuned Mary’s relationship with Jesus is. She knows him so well that she knows when he needs the presence of a friend and not the hassle of a dinner-party.

Second, something else is going on here as well. Given the customs of that day, for a teacher to allow someone to sit at his feet listening and learning meant that he had officially accepted that person as a disciple.

In Jesus’ day it was strictly forbidden for women to be disciples of male teachers. Jesus not only allows Mary to sit at his feet, but emphatically states that she has chosen a role “which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

It is nearly impossible for us to comprehend the shocking nature of what Jesus is allowing to happen here. Imagine a culture where for millennia women were relegated to the kitchen and the bedroom. All teachers, rabbis, and priests were male. It would have been literally unthinkable for a woman to hold the status of disciple to a teacher or rabbi. To sit at the feet of a teacher meant that one had been officially accepted into his band of disciples and was preparing to become a teacher just like him.

We know from several places in the Gospels that Jesus not only accepted women as disciples, but encouraged it. In addition to the Mary in today’s text, we know that Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary the mother of Jesus were all disciples of Jesus.

One can assume that many of the women whom Jesus encountered in his ministry – such as the woman with the flow of blood, the woman who washed his feet with her tears, and the woman who anointed his head with costly perfume – also became his disciples.

The picture we get is one of Jesus doing something that no male in that culture had ever done before – accepting women as disciples on an equal footing with men.

When we put this together with Jesus intentionally breaking Sabbath and ritual laws, affirming despised Samaritans, breaking bread with tax collectors and assorted other sinners, and reaching out to Gentiles, we get a glimpse of someone who is so caught up in his vision of the Kingdom of God, and so confident in his own authority to bring that Kingdom into being, that the very nature of reality is transformed in his presence. Those labeled “unclean” are made whole, those considered unforgivable are forgiven and restored, those excluded are now included.

No wonder the religious and political establishments of the day found Jesus hopelessly subversive and dangerous and had to take him out.

Refocusing now on Jesus’ affirmation of women as full disciples, the sad thing,

indeed, the tragic thing is that the male disciples of Jesus could not handle the inclusivity of the Kingdom that Jesus preached, and soon reverted to the male-dominated standards of Middle-Eastern culture.

In the purported First Letter of Paul to Timothy – a letter which mainstream Scripture scholars attribute to a male-chauvinist disciple of Paul and not Paul himself – Paul is reported to say “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (1 Timothy 2:12). This is one of the main Scripture texts used to keep women in their place.

I think one of the main principles of biblical interpretation should be that what Jesus himself teaches takes priority over everything else.

In practice, however, what we find taking place in many churches is that statements supposedly from Paul take precedence over Jesus’ own teachings. All Scripture texts are not created equal. It is simply wrong to take the teaching of a disciple of a disciple of Jesus and give it an authority over that of Jesus himself.

It is sad that in spite of the fact that Jesus himself had women disciples, churches representing ninety percent of Christians today do not allow women to be ordained. This is a serious affront to the inclusive vision of the Kingdom of God that Jesus had in mind.

Christian women throughout the ages have been well-aware of this short-changing of the teachings of Jesus, and have protested in some creative ways. One creative way of protesting is to write subversive poetry, and we have two powerful examples of this in the introduction to today’s service.

Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila, named saints and “doctors of the church”—the highest theological acknowledgment in the Roman Catholic tradition – yet not allowed to be ordained as priests or bishops, took on the church’s all-male hierarchy with humor and anger.

Catherine of Siena, with gentle humor, writes:

All has been consecrated.

The creatures in the forest know this,

the earth does, the seas do,

the clouds know

as does the heart full of love.

Strange a priest

would rob us of this knowledge

and then empower himself

with the ability

to make holy

what already was.”

Teresa of Avila writes with white-hot anger concerning the all-male hierarchy of her church:

From a distance

all want to enter His house.

Once near, watch out for the guard dogs –

both four-legged and two.

Some of them

are crazy as hell.

As members of a local church that has affirmed the ordination of women since its inception, and as members of a local church which is affiliated with a denomination – the United Church of Christ – which has ordained women more than a century before any other – we need to stand in solidarity with women in those denominations which deny women their rightful place in ministry, we need to pray, and to pray unceasingly, that Jesus’ own vision of the Kingdom of God comes to be embodied in all churches bold enough to claim his name.

Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

Why do you think men have had such a difficult time supporting the equality of women?

Roman Catholic scripture scholars have long acknowledged that Jesus had women disciples, and that Jesus himself considered them to equal to his male disciples. Nevertheless, the Vatican remains fiercely committed to having an all-male hierarchy. Why do you think this is so?

The largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptists, does not allow women to be ordained. They base their stand largely on Bible texts such as the one we saw from the First Letter to Timothy. What is wrong with this approach?

CLOSING PRAYER: The Mother’s Union Anthology of Public Prayers

Father in heaven

let us be peacemakers:

more ready to call people friends than enemies