Seen and not heard

I have always loved the Southern Baptist Convention.

I grew up glad to be part of one of the most effective organizations ever to take on the task of spreading the Gospel of Jesus. You see, that was reason for the founding of the SBC - for congregational churches to share resources and support. It was never intended to be a confessional church. The details of each church were left up to that church. The point was that together they could accomplish more than they could alone.

From the beginning of the SBC, there were women - active, involved, working and sacrificing to spread the Good News. The International Mission Board's Christmas offering is called the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, named after one of the most influential women in SBC history. Her letters back home detailing her experiences in China motivated Southern Baptists at home to give beyond measure to send more missionaries and to see the possibilities for evangelism. In 1912, a famine in China took a tragic toll. Miss Moon had shared all that she had with the Chinese people she had loved so dearly, and was starving right along with them. In December when she was too weak to put up a fight, she was forcibly evacuated by other missionaries, but she died Christmas Eve 1912 on a ship in the harbor at Kobe, Japan that was bound for America.

Annie Armstrong was the first Corresponding Secretary of the Woman's Missionary Union. The purpose of WMU is to do missions education, to promote mission action, and to encourage support, both financial and spiritual, for the missionaries and missions efforts of the SBC. Miss Armstrong was a tireless crusader for spreading the gospel at home and abroad. She crossed racial and ethnic lines long before it was fashionable or respectable. She had strong convictions about what was ladylike and what was not, but she was not afraid to challenge the social conventions of the Victorian Era if it advanced the cause of Christ.

These are only two examples of the women from the early history of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mom was the Associational WMU Director for many years and a Divisional Vice President with Georgia WMU. She brought many of these godly motivated women into my life and they showed me that doing the work of God had nothing to do with your chromosomes. It was first and foremost a matter of unwavering and unquestioning obedience to God alone.

My Dad has always been a strong supporter of missions and WMU. He taught me to believe that I was personally responsible for what I heard from the pulpit. He taught me that while everything that is said from the pulpit should come from God, not everything does, and that it is my responsibility to compare what is said to what God has said in scripture. He taught me that that it is a dangerous thing to accept what one is told by any authority figure as truth simply because it was said by one in authority.

Unfortunately for today's SBC female members, there is not as much hope and the examples are dwindling. The trend within the SBC is to delete women from any position in the church. In some SBC churches, women may not teach adult men, and in some SBC churches they may not teach males at all except in primary grades. In some churches, I could not even teach David in Sunday School whether I felt God's call to do so or not. Recently, a female professor of Hebrew at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was denied tenure and later released from employment because the administration did not want a woman teaching a man. Her gender was the only reason ever given for her termination. The divisions in the SBC over the role of women are deep and painful for many people, because while many SBC churches find this sort of thing appalling, the ultra-fundamentalists are driving the educational and administrative arms of the church. And of course, women have an extraordinarily limited venue for making objections.

Now whether or not you believe that women should be pastors is not the question. As an Episcopalian, I don't have a problem with it. Actually, I believe that if God calls you and you don't do it, well, you'll have to answer to Him for that one yourself. I have other friends who hold to a strict interpretation and who don't believe it is scriptural for women to pastor. That's fine, too. There's room in God's house for all of us.

My problem is with the teachings that women should be seen and not heard. It implies that women are lesser creations, and sets up problems for women in society. I am also concerned about the fact that women are only valued and only have a voice through their husbands.

And, unfortunately, it is a short ride down the slippery slope to excusing emotional, financial, verbal, and physical abuse.

You have no authority to teach men in church.
You have no right to speak out in church.
I am better than you.
You have no right to disagree with me.
You are bad if you disagree.
I can treat you as I want because you are bad.

I am concerned that they are teaching boys that Mom can say nothing they have to heed. After all, if Mom can't teach them spiritual lessons at church, why should they listen at home?

I am concerned that they are teaching our daughters that apart from a husband they have no voice in the church, that they are second class humans.

What about the widows? What about the Navy wives who husbands are gone half the time?

What about the women who choose a religious vocation and remain unmarried in order to offer more of themselves undistracted to God?

What about the women whose husbands are unsaved and abusive? How far does their doctrine of wifely submissiveness go?

Our wedding vows came right out of Ephesians. I don't have a problem with Paul's instruction to submit myself unto my husband as unto the Lord, because Kenny also promised to love me as Christ loves the church and give his life for me. When he does that, when he loves me beyond himself and puts my happiness and welfare first, my promise is easy to keep.

I didn't say anything about submitting to anyone else.

anything but typical

The Mask

Always a mask

Held in the slim hand, whitely,

Always she had a mask before her face -

Smiling and spritely,

The mask.

For years and years I wondered

But dared not ask.

And then-

I blundered,

I looked behind,

Behind the mask,

To find

Nothing -

She had no face.

She had become

Merely a hand

Holding a mask

With grace.

- The Mask by Helen Joseph, Saturday Review

August 13, 1932

Is there anything behind your mask?

Are you a person of substance?

Are you real?

anything but typical

God and the HMO

I am a happy camper. CIGNA finally paid the hospital for my surgery in October. Back in December, I had gotten a letter stating that the insurance company had not paid and asking if I would please see what I could do to get them to manage it or else write them a check for $23,000 and some change. After I spent a few minutes staggering from the thought that I might be in trouble here, I found that they had already paid the 2 surgeons and the anesthesiologist. I figured that if they had paid them, surely they were going to pay the hospital. I called the insurance company and found that they had needed more information, and they reprocessed the claim.

I knew that they had promised to pay the claim, because I had done everything, provided every bit of documentation and had a letter from them stating they would. But knowing my trusty HMO as only a patient can, I was praying until the check was written.

Fortunately for us, God doesn't work this way.
Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

And in John 6:37, He said," All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out."

It is my faith in him and acceptance of His sacrifice for me that makes me His - not some arbitrary "To Do" list. It's not how many times a week I go to church, although the things we do reflect our desire to be obedient. He said that if I come to him believing and trusting, He will not turn me away. He will not change His mind (like an HMO is apt to do).

Praise Ye the Lord, Allelluia!


COME JUST AS YOU ARE
© copyright Joe Sablock 1994

Come just as you are
Hear the Spirit call
Come just as you are
Come and see
Come receive
Come and live forever

Life everlasting
Strength for today
Taste the living water
And never thirst again

Come just as you are
Hear the Spirit call
Come just as you are
Come and see
Christ the King
Come and live forevermore.

Confession is Good for ... Closet Space?

I have a confession to make.

I am a Messy. I have always been a Messy and I fear I always shall be a Messy. I can't help it. It's like a demented, chaotic force of nature, as though there is some big black hole inside my head where all the neatness and order gets sucked in and cannot escape. If I leave the mirror with shirt tucked in and face made, I will arrive in the kitchen with smeared mascara, a run in my stockings, and something unidentifiable on my shirt. If I clean house, my kids ask who is coming to dinner and my husband asks if he did something to make me mad. If robbers were to come, I'm not sure I would realize the house had been ransacked.

Of course, there's always a reason. There's not enough storage. I was at work and didn't feel like doing it when I got home. I can find almost anything my family asks for, so what's the problem with stacks of papers everywhere? I'm easily distracted. I can't vacuum today because David's got a migraine and the noise hurts his head.

Well, the problem is that I can't enjoy the stuff I want to do because there's too much stuff that I need to do. Things in the kitchen expire because they aren't used when there's a pile of stuff blocking the way. I hate saying "No" to my kids having friends over because there's too much laundry on the couch. There's no room to spread out on the table to do a craft project - OK, I have to move stuff just so there's room for dinner.

So, I cleaned out a couple of closets and the pantry and now there are 5 extra bags of trash (on top of an old Christmas tree box) waiting for the nice men in the big truck to come tomorrow and haul it away. I felt much better. My dog even caught me just standing in my walk-in pantry. Did you know there's carpet all over the floor in the study? I hadn't seen it in a while.

But what about the stuff inside me? The flotsam and jetsam in my house is one thing, but the flotsam and jetsam in my soul is more serious. What kind of baggage am I dragging around in my mind and spirit? What kind of garbage is cluttering up my heart and spoiling my joy? What do I need to let go of and part with so I can have some peace?

And just like my seeming helplessness in my house, I cannot change my heart of my own accord. I can resolve to do better, but without God's help, the old habits and hurts resurge and blossom until I am no better than before.

Paul said "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2: 2-6) Jesus emptied Himself of his pride and glory to do what needed to be done for the glory of the Father.

How much more should we, who have no righteousness of our own, be willing to trade away our garbage-filled minds and let our minds be transformed into the Christ-like mind the Father has planned for us?

O Lord, Maker of Heaven and Earth, renew my mind, clean out the stuff in the corners, throw out the junk, scrub me clean, and fill me with the mind of Christ.

anything but typical

Some Assembly Required

I had a great afternoon making new friends. Our church has started an Art Guild that meets a couple of Saturdays a month, and today was the day. We made cedar-filled sachets to sell at our Christmas bazaar later in the year. I like making things with my hands, but more important to me was spending a couple of hours with my daughter making new friends and getting to know other women in our church. Afterwards, some of us went to lunch together, too.

The writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10:24-25, "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."

When I was at home with my parents, I was at church for everything - and I mean EVERY thing. If there was any assembling at all, we did not forsake it. As I married and left home, I have always been active in the church. My husband and I have always been active in our churches, but the degrees to which we have been active have varied.

The last 8-9 years have been very trying for me spiritually and up until the last year, I have felt very disconnected from the Christian community like a stray thread on a sweater at risk of being plucked off and discarded at any moment, not really wanted and not really a part of the whole. It wasn't so much that I felt unwanted by God (although the thought did cross my mind periodically). I didn't feel as though I had a place in the community.

And because I didn't feel I had a place, I stopped trying. I forsook the assembling together in a different way than we usually mean. I showed up for church every Sunday, but that's not all the writer of Hebrews meant.

He said that the purpose in being together is to encourage each other, to stir each other up to do good works and to love each other. The word usually translated as "stir up" can also be translated "paroxysm" or "convulsion". How interesting the world would be if we had seizures of good works! Like an epileptic patient who could not control his episodes (after all there were not treatments in 1st century), we should be hopelessly overtaken with the need to do the work of God.

Exhortation means to encourage, and that requires that you help others to see how the power of God can be applied to their lives. To do that, you have to be a part of that life. Exhortation without personal knowledge of the exhortee is just a recitation of platitudes and motivational buzzwords. There's nothing miraculously spiritual about it. It's only showmanship and it's just fake. But if someone who knows me as an individual can help me to see how God's love and power is at work in my life, that is miraculous, welcome, and encouraging.

Anyway, to end my story, I'm making a conscious effort to make sure that I'm involved in the community that is my church, that I'm not just as observer, not just showing up for Sunday morning take-away, but I'm connected to a community of believers. And I'm loving it.

anything but typical

P.S. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!! I bet you thought I forgot.

He's Been Faithful

My daughter, Rachel, has loved to shop since she was old enough to express an opinion (which was pretty early). When she was a toddler and preschooler, she loved to get into the racks of clothes and try to hide. It was troublesome. Fortunately for me, she never has learned to be quiet so I could always hear where she was. She would call, "Mommy, find me," and giggle. I would walk around in the girls section of the store calling "Rachel," and she would call, "Mommy" like a game of Marco Polo. She never got far from me; part of the game was to see how close to me she could get and still "hide".

One day when she was almost 4, she didn't answer me. I became frantic. Her giggles quickly gave her up and I decided to teach her a lesson. I knew she could see where I was because she could see my feet from her hiding place in the rack of clothes. I whispered her name once more and stepped behind a shelf that went all the way to the ground. I could see where she was but she could no longer see me. I heard her call, "Mommy." I said nothing. She called again, "Mommy." Her head popped out of the top of the clothes rack (she's always been tall). I could see her and could see that she was safe. "Mommy?" She came out into the open and put her hands on her hips, "Mommy, I'm here waiting." A salesperson behind the counter in the store heard her and saw me put my finger to my lips asking her not to give me away. I was expecting Rachel to become upset and have a split second of feeling lost before Mommy "found" her. Rachel, however, had other ideas. Rachel marched straight over to the sales lady and said, "Mommy isn't playing with me any more. She would not leave me. Is she hiding in there with you?"

To Rachel, the fact that I didn't answer her right away didn't mean I had forsaken her. It only meant I didn't do what she expected. She knew that I would take care of her.

We should have the same concept of God's presence. He may not answer as we would expect and we may not hear him answer at all. But he promised never to leave us or forsake us. Even when we don't feel His presence or think He's listening, He's faithful to us. He's faithful even when we're faithless. He's watching for us even when we're playing games or hiding from Him. He may be waiting for something from us, but he's watching and waiting faithfully.

anything but typical



He's Been Faithful by Carol Cymbalta

In my moments of fear,
Through every pain every tear
There's a God who's been faithful to me
When my strength was all gone,
When my heart had no song
Still my God has been faithful to me
Every word He promised is true
What I thought was impossible
I've seen my God do

He's been faithful, faithful to me
Looking back His love and mercy I see
When in my heart I have questioned
And failed to believe
He's been faithful, faithful to me

When my heart looked away,
Though many times I could not pray
Even then He's been faithful to me
The days I've spent so selfishly,
Reaching out for what pleased me
Still in love He's been faithful to me
And every time I come back to Him
I see Him waiting with His open arms
And I know once again

He's been faithful, faithful to me
Looking back His love and mercy I see
When in my heart I have questioned
Even failed to believe
Yet He's been faithful, faithful to me.

What kind of church are you?

Several years ago, my husband and I went to Ireland for 5 wonderful days. He was running the Dublin Marathon with the Arthritis Foundation and I had the pleasure of wandering the streets of Dublin while he ran.

I spent a great part of the time during the marathon exploring Christ Church in Dublin. (http://www.cccdub.ie/index.html) It is a beautiful church and so full of history. The first church on that spot was a Viking church built around 1030 and the gospel of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed from that spot ever since. I found myself standing in the nave with my eyes drawn toward the high altar and upward to the beautiful windows. As I looked around, I could see bits of the oldest existing Romanesque construction from the chapter house. One of the chapels in the back still has the original floor tiles that were preserved even through the renovation of the Victorian Age.

When I gone home, I wrote the following in the scrapbook:

To walk into Christ Church is to come face to face with another time. It gives me an expanded concept of sanctuary as a haven of worship and contact with God. From centuries past, people have come here to offer prayers for peace, mercy, forgiveness, and joy. The structure itself is a testament to the devotion of those who have been here. From the unnamed stonemasons who cut the blocks to the king buried in the nave to the 13th century tilemakers to the Victorian children who contributed their pennies to replace broken windows to today's mothers who meet in one of the chapels regularly to pray for their children - everywhere are outward signs of inward adoration.

It's hard for American Christians to think of churches as anything but auditoriums for preaching with attached educational space, but medieval churches were not just places for Sunday meetings. They were the life and center of the community. Life happened in the shadow and within sight of the steeple. The presence of God's community was constant. Going to the church was an every day event - not just Christmas and Easter. It was where community happened.

So what does church mean to us? Is it a place we plan to attend for Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals? Is it where we go to meet people? Is is a place we only go when necessary? Or is it our connection to the life which we find in God?

For me, my church is the place where I am grounded. It is the place where I am reminded whose I am. I pray and study and worship at home. I certainly worship in song in my car, and I am constantly aware that I am God's child. But church is like my soul coming home. Sanctuary means more to me than the space where we have services on Sunday. It is a safe haven and a protected place. It is the place I go for security. And the more often I am there, the easier it is to stay grounded in the world outside its walls. But really, it's not the building that makes me feel that way, but it is the people - my brothers and sisters in Christ - who are there. The building and spaces are just physical reminders of that deeper truth.

Now permit me please, to take this idea a step further. Jesus made it clear that His Kingdom could not be contained within walls. We, the people, are the His Church. We are the sanctuary for the world. We are to be the emissaries of safety and security that the world finds when it is looking for God.

What kind of church are you? Are you strong and solid? Are you a work of devotion to God? Have you spent the time for maintenance and upkeep? When people are around you, do they feel the shadow of the Almighty?


When Its All Said and Done by Jim Cowan

When it's all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for You
When it's all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I've done for love's Reward
Will stand the test of time

Lord Your mercy is so great
That You look beyond our Weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints
I will always sing Your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For You've shown me Heaven's my True home
When it's all been said and done
You're my life when life is gone
Lord I'll live my life for You

© 1999 Integrity's Hosanna! Music
Recorded by Robin Mark: Revival in Belfast