50th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Ordinations
Exodus 1:15-21; Sirach 1:4-15
Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 24:1-11
The Rev. Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain
July 28, 2024
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mary Magdalene and the women in our Gospel story lately. Last Saturday, I attended the 175th birthday of Trinity/St. Peter’s church and the readings were from the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. And then on Sunday at Holy Innocents, we celebrated Mary’s feast day and so I heard them again. As a result, I had the opportunity to really internalize and think about – Mary. I thought about her grief, her deep faith and dedication to Jesus, and her absolute and unresolved belief that he had been resurrected. I thought about how she must have felt to tell the disciplines – men who held power and status and authority over her – what she had seen.
And then in today’s Gospel story, I resonated with Mary even more – and this time, also, with the women who were with her – Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women (not named in our story.) They were at the tomb, working together with the spices they had prepared. They were terrified upon seeing two men in dazzling clothes who told them that Jesus had risen. And did they doubt? – no. They believed. And they told the disciples who ----- surprise, surprise ---- didn’t believe them. The words seemed to the disciples like “an idle tale.” I have to tell you, that irks me.
And it reminded me of a story that my Grandmother told me when I was a little girl. It’s not a story about Jesus and resurrection and apostles. But it is a story about faith and about the degree to which we humans are able to hear or believe one another.
A bit of context – my Grandmother was known to us as Grandma Betty. She was the quintessential grandmother. She loved us unconditionally, she was kind and cheerful and she had beautiful deep brown eyes and white hair. She told great stories. She always wore a dress and with her outfits came a matching handbag and shoes. She had her hair done in the beauty salon every week. (Anyone remember that kind of grandmother?)
Grandma Betty often told us stories about what the Great Depression was like in Flint, Michigan. That’s where she and my grandfather were raising my father and his two sisters. My grandfather, like many men at that time, was struggling to support his family. Nobody had much of anything. Grandma Betty told us about the victory gardens that were created during that time, at the encouragement of the federal government.
She told us that the women in the neighborhood were given the responsibility for planning the local victory gardens. My Grandma Betty and her women friends departed from the usual script when they planned their gardens because they didn’t think it made sense for each family to try to plant everything they would need to eat. Instead, they thought it made sense to collaborate – to share - so that one family would grow poll beans, one corn, another potatoes, another tomatoes, another berries, and so on. My Grandma Betty had chickens so she was in charge of eggs.
Grandma Betty told us that the husbands in the neighborhood thought this whole idea of sharing what came from the gardens was misguided and naïve and even “un American.” They weren’t supportive. They thought each family should be independent and grow their own food. My grandfather told my grandma that she should sell the eggs, not share them. But from what Grandma Betty told us, the women preserved. They insisted on sharing veggies and fruit and eggs and the result was that all of the families in the neighborhood were fed. They worked as a community. They helped one another. They had faith that it would all work out.
Which brings me to our gospel text.
In this Gospel story, the women faced the same obstacle that my grandma Betty and her women friends faced centuries later. They had a deep belief in something that was counter cultural – in the case of the women at the tomb – a belief in resurrection – in the case of my grandmother and her friends – the belief that people could come together in times of great need and help one another. These generations of women, spanning over time, faced the reality that the people around them – the men who represented power and authority – did not listen to, believe or respect them.
This is a challenge that relates to men and women - and it goes beyond gender too. Because sometimes –even when we humans are trying really hard to meet each other in the middle – sometimes we fail. We can’t quite understand one another. We see the divisions between us rather than the things that unite us. And so - We freeze. We panic. We fear one another.
In our church, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordinations of the Philadelphia Eleven – the eleven brave women who were ordained as the first female priests ever in the Episcopal Church - on July 29, 1974. It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time this was a very big deal. It’s also hard to believe that it was 50 years ago! The church was divided about whether women should be ordained, there was spiteful speech and hate mail and much ugliness about whether the ordinations should even take place. It was a very divided time.
I read a history about the Philadephia Eleven in preparation for this sermon, and I was struck by the official statement made by the “regenade” bishops just before the ordination, on the Feast of the Saints Mary and Martha. The statement is a bit long, but I think it’s worth hearing in full. So bear with me. This is what the Bishops wrote –
“One of the chief marks of the Church is its being the community of the Resurrection. Ours is a risen Lord. He was raised in the power of the Spirit so that we might participate, however inadequately, in his triumph against sin and separation, proclaim the good news of his victory, and occasionally ourselves walk in newness of life. His spirit is the Lord of the church. Hearing his command, we can heed no other. We gladly join ourselves with those who in other times and places, as well as here and now, have sought obedience to that same spirit.
This action is therefore intended as an act of obedience to the spirit. By the same token it is intended as an act of solidarity with those in whatever institution, in whatever part of the world, or whatever stratum of society, who in their search for freedom, for liberation, for dignity, are moved by that same spirit to struggle against sin, to proclaim that victory, to attempt to walk in newness of life.
We pray this action may be, as we intend it, a proclamation of the Gospel – that God has acted for us, and expects us, in obedience, to respond with appropriate action.”
There are so many phrases that stand out to me in this statement. That we are a community of resurrection. That we are called to proclaim the good news, to triumph over sin and separation, to walk in newness of life, to have obedience to the spirit, to search for freedom, liberation and dignity. To proclaim the gospel.
And there is a through-line here across the generations too, in these words which I’ll repeat – “We gladly join ourselves with those who in other times and places have sought obedience to that same spirit.” This makes me think about the women at the tomb, and about my grandma Betty and her women friends during the Great Depression.
And when I think about what this message means for us today – in our time – in this community of faith – I am drawn particularly to our reading from Galatians – “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Jesus Christ.” For me, this is kind of the perfect complement to what the bishops wrote in 1974.
Just as was the case for the Philadelphia Eleven 50 years ago, we are facing challenges and divisions and hatred and fear in our world. There is no doubt about that. A part of me wonders, then, who the next Philadelphia Eleven will be in our world – will they be our trans and non-binary siblings who are being called to be leaders in our faith communities but who are blocked from doing so in so many parts of our country? Will they be the people of color who might like to join our churches but don’t feel welcomed? Will they be the poor, who sense that they might be invited to visit our food pantries but not our sanctuaries? Or will they be our neighbors who long for community but don’t know how the church can be a resource for them?
All of this causes me to think - How will we be present for a world in deep need? How will we live into the words of the wise bishops in 1974 who ordained eleven brave women – all of them people of vision who believed that our world can be one of freedom, liberation, dignity and love? How will we overturn the “usual way of doing things” like my grandmother and her women friends in the Great Depression who insisted on sharing with one another rather than retreating into individualism? How will we keep our deep faith and dedication to Jesus, like Mary and the women at the tomb? How will we do this in new ways?
I don’t pretend to have all – or perhaps even any – of the answers to these questions. What I pray for us is that we continue to work together, in community, as God’s hands and feet in the world. I pray that we have the courage to do things differently and to remember that Jesus taught us to not be afraid. I pray that we have the creativity and commitment to share the gifts that we have, believing in one another and in God’s beautiful dream for our world. Amen.
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