St. Luke’s United Methodist Church
“The Leadership of Men and Women:
In the Power of the Spirit"
Galatians 3: 26-28
June 12, 2005
Janet L. Forbes

Next week, the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference convenes at the Denver Renaissance Hotel near the Stapleton development. Eight of us from St. Luke’s will be attending. Bishop Warner Brown will preside. Warner and Minnie worship with us frequently. Spiritual conferencing is a means of grace for the people called Methodist. We pray, worship, vote, ordain, and visit!

I look forward to renewing friendships, welcoming new clergy to the South Denver Cluster. We will welcome Rev. Steve Warren to Hope United Methodist Church. He moves to Greenwood Village from Montrose, Colorado. Heritage United Methodist Church will welcome Rev. Doug Slaughter who is moving to that church from Ogden, Utah. Mack Lovvern, the co-pastor at Smoky Hill United Methodist Church will retire. His wife, Marty Zimmerman will become senior minister.

Our delegates will be busy. Betsy Keyack, as Coordinator of Volunteers in Mission for this three state region, will give leadership to a global village. Brad Laurvick, president of the Young Adult Council and the National Student Forum, will greet the young adults. Katie Johnston, who serves on the Conference Council on Youth Ministries, will host the youth delegates. Pam Rowley will be attending her first Annual Conference in anticipation of her licensing as a local pastor this fall. Rev. Dave Money will keep his Blackberry PDA handy, in constant communication with his law office. Being bi-vocational, he will wear both hats this week, attorney and local pastor. Dave Cupp and Laurie Gilbert will take our loose change offering for well water in Angola.

All of us, Janet, Pam, Dave, Brad, Katie, Betsy, Dave, and Laurie, will discover that we are not isolated from the whole ministry of the church. When new disciples are blessed in Loveland, the faithful in Highlands Ranch and Colorado Spring cheer. When the new church in Green River pays off its debt for land, an architect from Denver counsels their building committee. When Christ Church in Casper burns down, regional bell choirs give a benefit concert. Though miles of mountain, prairie, and desert separate us, our love for God and neighbor connects.

In anticipation of the gathering of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference, my imagination stirs. I am studying the community of men and women that Jesus gathers as he proclaims the new reign of God. I am reading the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters to the missionary house churches that blossom in the years following Jesus’ death and resurrection. I am thinking about the counter-cultural leadership of men and women that surfaces in spite of the patriarchal society of the Greco-Roman world.

One of the most helpful classes I take in seminary at Vanderbilt University is the Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. I am encouraged to use “imaginative reconstruction” look through and under and behind the texts to see different realities, to ask questions of the people themselves, rather than of the traditions that developed years later.

So, through these imaginative lenses, wonder with me about the ministry of two men from Jerusalem somewhere around the mid-first century. James, the brother of Jesus, and Peter, are both leaders in the Jerusalem-based, Jewish Christian church in the years after the death of Jesus. What if James and Peter, like our Bishop Brown, hosts the first Annual Conference, in the year of our Lord, 50!

These two church leaders want to invite the men and women who are instrumental in continuing the movement initiated by Jesus in Palestine. They also want to reach out to those missionaries who are expanding ministry among the non-Jews in neighboring regions of the Mediterranean.

First James, ever the administrator, would have to decide what location in Palestine would interest others as much as a room overlooking the front range of the Rocky Mountains would interest me. Tiberius, on the Sea of Galilee, would be lovely with its hot springs and intellectuals. From Tiberius, people could visit Capernaum, have lunch with Peter’s family, and worship in the synagogue where Jesus taught.

However, James also knows that many of the missionaries will travel to the Conference by ship from countries around the Mediterranean. Maybe the beautiful coastal resort of Caesarea by the Sea, with its theater and international market, will attract the colleagues.

Some danger exists in this port city, as it is the Roman provincial capital. Pontius Pilate lives there. However, Peter’s preaching brings Cornelius to faith in Caesarea, the first gentile, non-Jewish, convert. This city will be a good place to draw the two movements together. James has the invitations printed.

Peter, always, the diplomat…setting an agenda for the Popes who follow him, knows that the political unrest between the Hebrews and Hellenists, between the Jews and non-Jews will have to be overcome before the missionaries will trust either him or James.

Everyone will remember when the Hebrew leaders force seven Greek preachers from Jerusalem. Oh, the argument begins simply enough with the questions of who will do the preaching and who will serve at table. But Peter knows that James and the others from Jerusalem are not yet convinced that Greek-speaking gentiles even belong to Christ!

The Book of Acts records the conversation. “Now, during these days, when the disciples were increasing in numbers, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty.’ But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Though God had been clear in a dream that no one was to be excluded, Peter wondered if such a breach, such condescension, such elitism, could ever be healed.

However, when the RSVPs begin to arrive, both James and Peter are pleased. The international community of leaders who love Christ want to come together.

(Now, remember that I am imaging this event. But the Bible tells us who might have come.)

From Jerusalem to the coast come James, Peter, and others of the twelve; Mary, the mother of John Mark; Mary Magdalene and those who gather at her house. The daughters of Philip, prophets in Caesarea, offer hospitality to those from the Holy City. From cosmopolitan Antioch, comes Barnabas. The merchant, Lydia, from Thyatira, who is rumored to be the first European convert, arrives next.

Each ship brings new guests: Tabitha, the disciple of Jesus from Joffa, whom Peter raised; eloquent Apollos from Ephesus; the minister, Phoebe, from Cenchreae, and several from the church in her house; the famous missionary partners, Prisca and Aquilla, who risk their necks with Paul in prison; from Rome came Adronicus and Junia, and the twins, Tryphaena and Tryphosa; Euodia and Clement come from Philippi. Everyone goes to the docks to meet Timothy, Silas, and Paul when they arrive. Greetings are shared, letters distributed, and news from the house churches exchanged.

In the first plenary session following worship, the missionaries across the Mediterranean tell their stories to the Jerusalem church, to James, Peter, and the others. “God did not leave Jesus in the grip of death,” they praise, ”But raised him, in power, so that he became a life-giving Spirit. The men and women whom we baptize are Spirit-filled. God gives a gift to each. Remember when the prophet Joel said, “

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy

And your young shall see visions

And your old shall dream dreams.

Yes, and on my male and female slaves

I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy

We live in the force-field of our resurrected Lord, they continue. What was promised by the prophets is now realized in the community of the baptized. Quoting Paul, they say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”

As James and Peter listen to these men and women, both cannot help but become anxious about the future. The movement that Jesus initiated in Palestine, giving freedom to both marginalized men and women, has angered Jewish religious leaders. Now, this new expression within the Greco-Roman world is in sharp contrast to the roles for women and men as defined by Greek culture and Roman law.

When new converts come to be baptized that evening, James and Peter note that the baptism confession itself is revolutionary.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

I begin to think that this kind of historical reconstruction, this historical imagination, might be fun. I am ready to conclude my wondering about this supposed first-century Conference, when I imagine the church in Corinth, Greece.

I wonder if any Corinthians will come after the scathing letters that Paul writes. After that long harangue about propriety in worship, he writes, “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a women to speak in church.”

So, I imagine that late in the second day of the Conference, a delegation from Corinth arrives. They enter the worship service with noisy commotion. Many wonder if they are drunk. Corinth is known for its hedonistic behavior, its wild parties.

Paul is immediately nervous, for he has tried to give advice to this congregation. He does not want to hinder the Spirit, but surely God is concerned that everything happen decently. Paul blushes as he remembers having to write a letter about appropriate hair styles for men and women while praying.

You see, during worship celebrations in Corinth, women prophets unbind their hair. In other religions, such frenzy is a sign of prophesy. However, to the first-time visitors in Corinth, the women simply appear mad. If the visitors have any Jewish heritage al all, they will associate loose hair with the mark of adultery.

Both Jewish and Greco-Roman women braid their hair, pinning it up to form a crown, adorning the style with jewelry, ribbons, and gauze. Paul mutters. “It would be better that these women stay silent than embarrass the whole church.” God is not a God of confusion but of peace (I Corinthians 14: 33)

Friends, we do not know from scripture whether James and Peter ever host an annual conference. We do know about the discipleship of men and women as equals. We know that a breach occurred between the Aramaic and Greek speaking division of the church that exists to this day. We do know that Paul had difficulty with the excesses in Corinth.

But an Annual Conference convening in Caesarea by the Sea in the year, 50 A.D., probably not! As among the Methodist congregations today, it would have reduced isolation, increased understanding, and built bridges. But…probably not.

It is clear that the early Christian missionary movement continues the radical community that Jesus gathered. In Paul’s letter to Rome, he says, “For the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him” Romans 11:12).

But, when the Temple is destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and Roman religious persecution increases, the original vision became harder and harder to hold.

Join me next week for…the rest of the story.