May 2008
It was on the
evening of October 30, 2005 that I was grilled by the members of
Sammamish Hills at a special meeting of the congregation. The
toughest question I fielded that night regarded the ELCA’s stance on
homosexuality and how I as a Christian and a prospective leader
Sammamish Hills would respond to any future decisions made by the
wider church. I realized I was standing in a minefield, but the
words of Paul came to mind as I formulated my answer.
The words were
from Romans 16; they were words of thanksgiving. Paul was greeting
and thanking all the people who were so instrumental to his ministry
and the name that came to me that night was Phoebe. She is the first
person thanked in Romans 16 and Paul calls her a deacon and
benefactor.
Why did Phoebe’s
name come to mind after that question? Because for too long
Lutherans did not allow women to be ordained. For too long women
were treated as not worthy to be pastors. What was the reasoning
behind excluding women from the clergy roster?
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a
man. She must remain quiet.
(1 Timothy 2:12)
There it is—in black and white. This section of scripture (which was
according to most scholars not actually written by Paul, but by one
of his followers) is the reason why today there are no female
Catholic priests or female pastors in the ranks of our Missouri
Synod Lutheran brothers and sisters.
What changed that
we now encourage women to seek ordination? The fact is nothing
changed. We as thoughtful faithful Christians dug into scripture and
saw that this statement in 1 Timothy flew in the face of Paul’s
experience and practice. We looked at how Jesus treated the women in
his midst. We remembered Phoebe.
I was not eloquent
in my answer and I rambled about a bit, but in essence I said, “We
need to be attentive to God’s Spirit and we need to be diligent in
studying God’s Word when we make decisions to keep policies in place
or when we decide to change them.” After finishing my answer, I
waited. The response I got was simple— “Good answer.”
Pr. John told me
it took him two years to get a “good answer” response and here I got
one before I had even been called as pastor.
That night you
voted to call me as your pastor and I’ve been striving to walk
faithfully among you since that night. As part of that walk we will
spend the next couple of months studying the book which provided the
substance for my answer more than two years ago. We are going to
really dig into Romans. Please read this wonderful book and come to
church with your questions and your convictions.
If you would like
more time to discuss Romans or anything else, please call or email.
I love to visit with you.
Peace, Pr. Will
|