spirit filled women

six strong women

 

SERMON PREACHED AT St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN,

and St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29^th, 2024

ORDINARY SUNDAY 26

 

 

edited excerpts from Esther 7 and 9

 

I overworked you a little last week and don't want to repeat that dose this week. But there is a bit of ground to cover – I will do my best to compensate by last week’s effort by simply floating ideas for you this week.

But you may recall in passing last week I hinted at what we should call “the force of the feminine” in our triune God. I don't want to cover that ground again, except to remind you that there have been many strong and eloquent women in the last four decades or so who have rightly reminded us, and forcefully reminded us, of the ways in which our understanding of God has been limited by the habits of maledom.

Without justification for example we have assumed male pronouns for God, yet even Jesus himself, while he speaks of God as father, also uses quite an intimate non-gender specific name for God, and even uses feminine images of his own ministry as he laments over his beloved city of Jerusalem. But more of that another time.

We have also with absolutely no excuse insisted on using male pronouns for the third person of the Trinity, she who, as we will sing later in this service, “sits like a bird, brooding on the waters, hovering on the chaos of the world’s first day.”

In the passage from Proverbs that some of us heard last week we encountered the strength of a godly woman, filled with divine feminine force, revealing the godly strength that dwells in her. We encountered too the strength of the biblical Naomi, mother of the equally stroppy Ruth, who carried in her loins, in whakapapa terms, genealogical terms, the genesis of King David and of Jesus the Christ. The women in the whakapapa of Jesus were not the sort who would take sedately the obscene and misogynistic claims for which one of the two candidates for president of the USA is infamous in his revolting boasts about conquering women with his alleged fame.

Today we catch a glimpse of one of another rare named woman who escaped the anonymity of Hebrew and Christian scriptures; the tricky, enigmatic and definitely unbowed heroin of the Book of Esther. I have used only representative slices of Esther; in the 21^st century, when we are bombarded with so many faces of violence in the world as we eat our dinner or breakfast, I don’t think it is necessary to be reminded of the brutal ways in which human beings execute each other.

But I do think it is necessary to be reminded of the strength and courage of those who stand up for justice. It is worth remembering as we glimpse a slice of the Book of Esther that not all are card-carrying adherents of our faith. The book of Esther, as I mentioned in my notes, contains no direct reference to God, yet it explores the strength and integrity of a woman who stands up in the face of evil.

We do not need to think hard or long to know that there have been many in human history. Some I could name would be controversial: I think of the young and feisty Greta Thunberg, or even more controversially Phoebe Plummer, and Anna Holland.  Others are less controversial, as I think of Malala Yousafzai, and her fight for education for young women and girls in Pakistan, Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who in her novels and public addresses has fought to defend women from exploitation and market manipulation; lesser-known Clara Gouin, a stay-at-home mom in Maryland; Donna Shimp, in New Jersey, who, like Gouin, fought Big Tobacco in the USA; Erin Brockovich who fought groundwater contamination in California; Rosa Parks, who fought for civil rights in Alabama and the wider USA.  Oh? And in New Zealand? Historically it’s hard to go past Kate Sheppard who fought for women’s voting rights, of even our own Penny Jamieson who did her best to crack the glass ceiling that women faced – and to a lesser extent still face – in New Zealand Anglicanism.

Some of these were card-carrying Christ-bearers. Others were bearers of what I might call the ethos of Christ, we might even say the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus.

And therein lies a challenge – addressed by Jesus himself, in our gospel passage today, as he proclaims “anyone who is not against us is for us.” For we as a Christian, a Christ-bearing community are challenged to speak up, in word and deed, where we see injustice, and to stand with others, regardless of faith, as they do too. We need to ensure that we, to borrow Jesus’ example, stand in solidarity with all who bear a cup of water to the thirsty, and stand in firm opposition to those who cause the weak to stumble. Finding when and when not to do that is a journey of discernment to which we are all called  to engage in prayer and discourse, so that we can bear Christlike justice and compassion wherever we live and work.