Videos: (Click to view)
Role Reversal
from License to WedHow do couples relate in changing a tire or anything else?
A Great Idea
from My Big Fat Greek Wedding
What is going on here? Different ways men and women relate. Funny or tragic or both?
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John 4:1-30, 39-42
Gender Roles and Why Men Shouldn't Be Ministers
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Transcribed by Marissa Hoover and Mary Lu Ramsey
Bulletin title: Truth Will Makes Us Free
On the front of our bulletin is a picture of an actual poster from Thailand of how to ride an elevator. In all the pictures there are normal stick figures except the last one. That one has a skirt and a smaller stick figure. It’s obvious from the poster that women are to care for the children. Is this the way we roll? Role differences. This would be an appropriate sign if the last picture didn’t have a skirt. They put a skirt on a stick figure to say caring for children is women’s work. We know that isn’t true. Today we don’t think twice about fathers caring for their kids.
It was a little different when my daughter was younger. I was at home taking care of our daughter while Bette Lynn was working. I’d take my daughter to the grocery store and I’d take her to the doctor’s office. It never failed; everywhere I went they’d take the baby from me. They were absolutely horrified that I was trying to take care of a baby. Some of you have met my daughter, Rachel. She came out screaming and hasn’t really slowed down. The child was very vocal and she would let you know what was going on. She would scream and I’d spent enough time with her that I knew what the screams meant; whether she was hungry, needed changed or tired. So, we were at the doctor and she started the “ I- really-don’t-want-to-be- here” cry. The women were going on and on. I told them she was just crying because she’s upset and they’re telling me to feed her. I told them that it wasn’t her hunger cry and they looked at me like I had just grown antennas. So, they tried to give her a bottle and she kept screaming. So they thought she was just wet and they changed her. She still kept screaming. That’s what I was trying to tell them. They just wouldn’t listen.
I found an update for a list that first came out in the mid ‘90s of Ten Good Reasons Why Men Should Not be Ordained in the Church.
#10) A man’s place is in the army.
#9) When men have children, their duties might distract them from their responsibilities as a parent.
#8) Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.
#7) Man was created before woman. It is, therefore, obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
#6) Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games or watching basketball tournaments.
#5) Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshippers.
#4) An ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled then men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
#3) Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
#2) Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.
#1) In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.
This is just a flip of what has been talked about with women’s ordination. Previously in our church and still in other church bodies, women are not to be in positions of leadership. There are just as many good reasons if you look at it the other way. In John, we have a story that we may not see as unusual, looking at it from our prospective. Back then, though, it was an amazing thing that Jesus spoke to the woman. She came to the well in a very traditional role; a subservient role; a role that is still prevalent throughout much of the world today: women are in charge of getting the daily water – going to the well, filling up the pots and taking water back home. That was women’s’ work. Jesus talks to her and engages her in that role. He asks her for a drink. That’s another huge event because Samaritans and Jews didn’t use the same utensils, they didn’t talk to each other and things were very racial. Did you notice what happened after her encounter with Jesus? It says that she left the water jar there and went back to the village. She told them, “Here’s a man who told me everything I’ve done. He couldn’t be the Messiah, could he?” She left the traditional women’s work of carrying water, of providing, cooking, and cleaning – she left the jar there but took with her the good news of the Gospel. Here in John is the first place where Jesus reveals himself saying, “I am Christ.” In a tremendous upsetting of roles, the Samaritan woman is now entrusted with the Good News and goes home to spread the good news. She may not have done it as forcibly as we would have thought, but she was effective and brought people to Jesus Christ.
How much in the church have we missed because we put men and women in different places and don’t allow them to exercise their gifts and callings the way that Jesus did in this Scripture. How often do we look beyond the way people present themselves, as to whether they are man or woman, or as to what their gifts or callings are? Jesus wasn’t like that. He was up against a lot more male domination and traditional roles then we will ever imagine. Yet, he still found a way to bring out the gifts of men and woman. The first scripture reading we had was so powerful. It packs into it so much. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female – we are all one in Jesus Christ. Jew and Greek. We have religious, cultural and ethnic differences? The Bible says there are none in Jesus Christ. When you are in Christ, your ethnic background and identity is not as important as your identity in Jesus Christ.
There was a huge division in the early church between the Jews and the Greeks. Remember, the Christians were still meeting inside of the Jewish synagogues. They were like a little club – “The Jesus Club”. They started bringing in their friends, some of them Greeks, and the Jews at the synagogues said the Greeks had to be Jews and follow all the Jewish laws which caused a big fight as reported in Acts. We find, in Galatians, there is no Jew or Greek. It’s the same way we also see a division between economic status, between classes, between those who work with their hands and those who work with their heads, those who are retired and those who are still working, those riding the bus and those with their own transportation, between all of the economic classes, between slavery and the free – there is no slave or free in Jesus Christ. We are all one. Finally, there is no male or female in Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or that there are no differences any more than we lose our ethniticity or heritage. It doesn’t mean we lose our social status and our place in life when we say there is no slave or free. It does say that those differences are not important when we’re in Christ.
When I started out in Presbytery 25 years ago, it was right about the time the first women were being ordained. When Presbytery met we’d have about 100 ministers and elders attending -- all men. At the worship service, we’d sing as a huge male chorus. It was an amazing thing. Gradually more and more women joined in leadership roles as elders and ministers. Now when you go to Presbytery it sounds just like church. It sounds like all of God’s people singing praises to God. It’s not that we lost anything or that we’re doing anything better – it’s that we have grown, become more inclusive, working together in Jesus Christ. We are all singing the same song praising God. We have great things to offer people.
It’s in the scripture about how many husbands the Samaritan woman had. Some discuss why it is she had all these husbands. We automatically assume the worst. We think of how she must not have good morals. Why? What if there were other reasons? What if her first husband was a drug addict and she left him? What if her second husband beat her? What if the next husband was elderly whom she married to care for until his death? What if one of her husbands was gay and she married him thinking she could change him and make him all better? What if one of her husbands cheated on her with her best friend? That kind of changes the story. It helps us to understand why she doesn’t want to set herself up for hurt #6. Back then a woman had to be with a man for any kind of life or economic status. Our church can be a place where we don’t discriminate against gender or have a double standard, either.
Also in the gospel of John, Chapter 8, is the famous story of a woman caught in adultery. It says in John 8:3-4 that she was caught in the act of adultery and there was a man involved. However, only the woman is brought before Jesus for punishment. Perhaps that is why Jesus is lenient. The church needs to be a place where there is safety and acceptance of gender, without double standards. We can offer a good and safe space for the community and an example for our world of how we treat one another, realizing that in Christ there is no male or female. Amen.
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When Getting Better not Getting Even is the Goal
| Fourth graders need to know how to be in line quietly and patiently. This is difficult for some.
At one school several teachers punish the whisperers, wigglers and wanderers by having them "sit out" recess. They get benched while others have play time. One teacher however, doesn't punish. She has "line practice" after school. She believes that they can behave, they just are out of practice. So every now and then, for 15 minutes after school you will see her leading a line of silent, subdued children through chaotic halls full of friends, relatives, parents, siblings and neighbors. |  |
The children are very motivated to get "being in a line" right so practice can end and, forgiven and redeemed, they can be restored to the after-school crowd. Sometime it takes a village to calm a child.
One of the reason we have church services is to practice being in line with the positive peer pressure of those who walked this way before. Such folks are the communion of saints, whether living among us now or officially recognized by the church over the eons.
I hope you experience church community not as a punishment when God seeks to get even for getting out of line, but as a practice so we get in line with God and others and so are free to join in our common joy.
Line up for Blessing...Not Blame
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.' And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.- Mark 10:13-16
Bible quotation from The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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SCRIPTURE Acts 8:26-39 Numbers 12:1-15
(Click for scripture.)
Videos: (click title to see video)
Obvious Differences
from Star Trek (The Original Series) found on YouTube
Star Trek has the first beer summit over racial issues
Note the confusion of the “mono-colored” officers
___________________________________________________________
What’s the Difference?
from Hotel Rwanda clip on YouTube.
Before the Genocide .
Racial Differences are created by outsiders
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Late Night Run
from Remember the Titans
The football team is in Gettysburg, PA learning a lesson from the coach.
Still fighting the Civil War – PC(USA) split then & reunited in 1983
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Numbers 12:1-15
Acts 8:26-36
Working Through Issues of Race
| This message is available as a podcast recorded live at our worship service. Click the podcast image to listen now or right click the image and choose "Save As" to save this message in mp3 file format on your computer for playing later. | |
Transcribed by Marissa Hoover from a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey on Sept. 20, 2009, Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church, Akron, OH
Numbers 12: 1-15:.… Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he’d had married….
In Numbers we have a leader of the people who, because of race issues, gets criticism about his leadership. Thank goodness we’ve come far from that today! It’s a very interesting scripture in Numbers 12. The interesting part isn’t the race issue, not that Moses’ own family – Aaron and Miriam, his brother and sister – objected to a mixed marriage. We need to remember that a mixed marriage, back then, was pretty serious because, not only was she not of the Hebrew people, but she was a Cushite – an Ethiopian, of dark skin. Aaron and Miriam, his family, were the most upset among all the people. Don’t we see that today? You’d think that the families who love them would be the most accepting, but they are the most condemning. Look what happens and how God handles the situation. The author of Numbers says straight out it was because of race, but that’s not what Miriam and Aaron say. They don’t say, “Look at him. He married this black woman.” They made a very correct statement. They formed it in a question. They say, “Does God talk to Moses only? Does he not also speak to us? It was true; God had spoken to Aaron and Miriam. God handles this by actually speaking to Aaron and Miriam. God addresses their concern. “Yes, I have spoken to other prophets and yes, Moses is special and these are the reasons. I speak to him clearly, not in riddles. I speak to him face-to-face. He sees my form and not a dream like others. Then he leaves. The Lord answered what was said about Moses being special. He seems a little annoyed that it was brought up, but he addresses it. “Why did you not fear speaking against Moses? Why did you not fear and respect my prophet?”
God doesn’t stop there. The thing about God is that when you ask him one thing, he’ll tell you and then he’ll tell you things you don’t want to know but need to. God says, “You know I know what you’re going through. I know this is because of you’re upset--not because of his leadership ability--although that is a legitimate issue and I will address it. I know what’s really in your heart and you’re really upset. Now, he could have made Miriam black so she would know how it feels to be an outcast. That would have been an easy thing to do., but God made her white. He made her so white, they thought she was diseased. Leprosy back then was any kind of skin discoloration or rash on the skin. They didn’t have any sophisticated techniques back then to find out what these were. If you had any kind of skin problem you went into quarantine. God says, “You think white is so good – I’ll make you whiter than snow. God pointed out the fallacy of judging someone’s character by their skin color. “Look, you’re as white as snow. You’re not good – you’re diseased.”
Race is a big problem in America. It’s part of our heritage, our history and our legacy. Now, not every argument or disagreement in society is racial. Not every issue has racial motivation. Don’t get on that train! There are legitimate concerns. Just like God, we need to address those “legitimate” concerns at face value. We need to say to people respectfully that these are the reasons I did what I did and these are the reasons you should respect it. But we should not ignore the intensity of the objections. Why are you so mad about this? Why does this consume you so much? Both of these need to be addressed. People say it’s free speech. We can say what we want. That is absolutely true. For centuries, it’s one of the things service people have fought and died for. To quote Andrew Manis, “I believe in free speech but how long till we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, and educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review and work harder to become the President of the United States – only to threaten to assassinate them when they do.” Andrew Manis is in Macon, Georgia. He knows something about racism in our history.
What’s the answer? One answer is to see everything as race. People say if you even bring that up you’re making things worse. You’re seeing black against white. Another answer would be to say, “It’s nothing about racism. We should ignore it.” We should be like Stephen Colbert and not even see race. We should ignore it all and discount it and be upset about using the race card and never let anyone say anything is racism. Those two extremes are the problems. Either say it for everything or say it never. I believe we have to follow what God does: to respectfully talk about the issues at hand but also address the motivations that make it so passionate and important to people. Here’s a little bit of what former President Carter said. “I think the overwhelming portion of the intensity demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man. I live in the South. I’ve seen the South come a long way. I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups, at the time, particularly African-Americans. That racism inclination still exists. I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because there’s a belief among many white people – not just in the South but around the country – that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance that grieves me and concerns me very deeply.” That’s Jimmy Carter, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace closer between Palestinians and Israelis. He knows something about how people get along.
What’s the answer? The answer I think is the same as that of our friends at Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Step 1 is to acknowledge it. The first step in overcoming a problem is to say that I participated. I know that I have racist views that you cannot help when you have grown-up in America and have them unconsciously below the surface. I have to fight them and work with them. First thing we need to do it to look at it and to say what we have done and make sure we can struggle and rise above it because none of us wants to be this way. If you ask any of us, all of us want to judge one another not by what they look like, but how they act and the content of their character. First thing we have to do is say, “Yeah there’s a little bit of racism in all of us. Black, white, yellow, red, blue, green, orange, purple- we got it in all of us.” It doesn’t mean it causes everything and it doesn’t mean it causes nothing. It means just a little bit of everything. As Presbyterians, we believe that sin taints everything we do -- that nothing we do is perfect and without sin. We believe that everything we do is a little less than what God wants us to do. Yet we struggle to be better than we are every day, better than yesterday and not as good as tomorrow. We have to do that with racism as well. The New Testament lesson has a strange encounter between Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian eunuch was wrong on several counts. He was not a Hebrew. He was a disabled person – which you know back then meant you could not be a holy person. He worked for the government – which as today, is a horrible thing. All those things working against him and he asked the question that still is in front of us today. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Instead of Phillip listing all the reasons, when they come near to water, he baptizes the eunuch.
We’re working on community for this fall. One of the things we have to work on is to figure out how we can have community with people who are different from us. It seems that we are now with those churches – and I say this to our shame – that have found that we make community by gathering people who are like us together and putting off people who aren’t like us. We make our little citadels and our fortresses. We say we’re going to heaven and to hell with the rest of them. This is something we have to struggle against and something we have to repent of as a church. It doesn’t mean everything we do is color biased, but in everything we do, we have to make sure it is not controlled by bias. There is a lot of hope. The nation is grand. I look at the Armed Forces and the strides they have made when they were forced to desegregate. Look at our own work here at Goodyear Heights. We’ve become less uncomfortable with people who aren’t like us. It’s tough to do, but I believe we are trying to do it. I believe we are making progress. I believe that Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church can be an example – not only to the community – but to this town and to the nation -- to provide an example of how to welcome people that are strangers. We answer the question, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” with the answer: Nothing! – Welcome!
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