The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford and St Gabriel's Pitsea this morning:

This story of Mary and Martha has often been interpreted in terms of being and doing (Luke 10.38-42). The Wikipedia entry on the story of Martha and Mary summarises the usual way in which it is interpreted: “Mary chose listening to the teachings of Jesus over helping her sister prepare food. Jesus responded that she was right because only one thing is needed, “one thing” apparently meaning listening to the teachings of Jesus… To simplify, this is frequently interpreted as spiritual values being more important than material business, such as preparation of food.”

Yet, Martha had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples and providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture.

Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females.

Tom Wright notes that: “To sit at someone’s feet meant, quite simply, to be their student. And to sit at the feet of a rabbi was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself. There is no thought here of learning for learning’s sake. Mary has quietly taken her place as a would-be teacher and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Jesus affirms her right to do so. Jesus’ valuation of each human being is based on the overflowing love of God, which, like a great river breaking its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates those parts of human society which until now had remained barren and unfruitful. Mary stands for all those women who, when they hear Jesus speaking about the kingdom, know that God is calling them to listen carefully so that they can speak it too.”

Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha, Ayla Lepine suggests, “wrapped up in the anxieties of hospitality in relation to rank and status, is ‘distracted by many things.’ Jesus tenderly invites her to dare to offer loving attention that is not transactional – Jesus expects nothing in return for the wisdom and love he offers.”

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8.1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

As a result, Tom Wright suggests: “We would be wrong, then, to see Martha and Mary, as they have so often been seen, as models of the ‘active’ and the ‘contemplative’ styles of spirituality. Action and contemplation are of course both important. Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship. And no doubt some people are called to one kind of balance between them, and others to another. But we cannot escape the challenge of this passage by turning it into a comment about different types of Christian lifestyle. It is about the boundary-breaking call of Jesus.”

This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us the value of welcome, hospitality and service. The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; and engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain.

May we be inspired by their examples and also by all women who have followed in their wake as saints and leaders, and more recently as priests and bishops. May we be inspired by saints such as, in our/my Parish, Catherine, who bravely debated with scholars, philosophers, and orators and was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. Also, Our Lady Mary, “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity” remembering that “every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

We can add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches or Deanery, [in our team, women such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe] [such as your own Jacqui Moss and elsewhere Trudy Arnold, Carol Ball, Ruth Dowley, Margaret Fowler, Christine Williams, Karen White and Sue Wise]. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. Each are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell / Pitsea.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and at the same time may we support all those women who lead us so well within our churches currently, recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

Bring us to life - transforming society

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is ‘My Bed’ an installation by Tracy Emin was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles. A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Sometimes our lives feel like that installation. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead. Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain a few years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them. Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline and the Church of England continues to deal with major conflicts that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In our Gospel reading (John 11: 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Through his ministry, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so. He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. Each of us can do the same as Jesus through our work and community involvements and we need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us, through those involvements, to transform parts of our society and culture.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus was saying and doing. He wanted them to see how God was at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They kept looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus went back to Judea then he would be killed, if Lazarus was asleep then he would get better, and so on. Jesus wanted them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he drew out of them the commitment to go with him even though they might die with him.

Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helped Martha move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helped all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural. Throughout, Jesus was challenging all the people he encountered to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this afternoon? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life? Will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are? 

As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence: Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Parish Quiet Day: Balance in our lives

 

We had a wonderful day at the Diocesan Retreat House in Pleasley today enjoying the stillness there during our annual Parish Quiet Day for the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry. We were reflecting on Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord and, although I was the one reflecting on Lazarus, I was also reminded of an earlier reflection that I prepared about Martha and Mary - see here.

Our theme for the day was balance in our lives. This is what I shared regarding Lazarus (which is adapted from David Eiffert):

Fyodor Dostoevsky was a famous and talented author who was born in 1821 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and died in 1881. At 27, he became involved in a group of authors who got together regularly to discuss ideas. The ideas they discussed were considered treason. They were all arrested and imprisoned.

At Peter and Paul Fortress, Dostoevsky and his book club were sentenced to execution by firing squad. This was actually a mock execution but they didn’t know that. They were brought out, told they were going to be executed, taken to the spot, blindfolded, their crimes read out, the command was given, and the rifles were raised. Then, at the last moment, the execution was stopped and their sentence changed to four years hard labour in prison in Siberia and then four years in exile. Dostoyevsky writes a lot about this; how life was given back to him, how he had thought he was seconds away from being executed.

He was put in chains, put in a sleigh, as it was winter, and travelled to Siberia. He suffered with severe frostbite and for the rest of his life would have scars from the chains. As he was going into the prison, he was given a little New Testament. So, the only thing he had to read for four years was this New Testament. He read it over and over, especially the gospel of John, especially the story of Lazarus.

He came to believe in Jesus and, in his writings, he compares himself to Lazarus having a chance to live again. All his novels after that contain in some form, his Christian faith. Richard Harries notes that “He wrote that his faith had come ‘through a furnace of doubt’ and was focused on a deep attraction to the person of Jesus Christ.” “He entered deeply into the atheism of his age” so that, as Malcolm Jones has written, “in reading Dostoevskii we are in the presence of a genius wrestling with the problems of rethinking Christianity in the modern age.” 

His most famous novel is ‘Crime and Punishment’, a novel written in 1866. People say that ‘Crime and Punishment’ is a poor translation and that the title would be better translated ‘Crime and Consequences’.

The novel centres around the main character – a young man – named Raskolnikov who is a young intelligent, college student, very poor, and living in St. Petersburg. He is an atheist who believes that ‘exceptional men’ are beyond good and evil. Normal laws of morality do not apply to such men. He gives the example of Napoleon; a man who killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, but is regarded a great man because he’s exceptional. Ordinary laws of morality didn’t apply to him. Raskolnikov believes he is an exceptional man and, to prove it, murders two old woman who are sisters. Obviously, he is a very lost young man.

Most of the novel is spent inside his head, as he is “locked up in a mental prison”. Ultimately, though, it’s a book about redemption. In the end, Raskolnikov - the murderer, the atheist, the man who convinced himself that he was beyond good and evil – finds redemption. He finds redemption in a young woman named Sonya, who has been forced into prostitution through poverty and to provide for two orphaned children. She is like Mary Magdalene, having found redemption and meaning in Christ.

In one of the most moving scenes, which is actually “the turning point in the book”, the two are together. Raskolnikov has not confessed his crime to Sonya, but will later. She has a bible laying on her table. Raskolnikov picks up the bible and asks, “Where is the part about Lazarus?” She flips to it and reads him the story of the raising of Lazarus, tears streaming down her face as she reads. Afterwards, he says “Do you believe this?” She replies, “With all my heart.” He’s not asking if she believes in the story, what he’s really asking is: “Do you believe there’s redemption for someone like me, a murderer?”

The closing sentence of this scene reads as follows:

Sonya says “That’s all about the raising of Lazarus.” she whispered. The candle was flickering out and the battered candlestick casting a dim light in this destitute room upon the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book.

They are two lost souls on the road to redemption reading about the raising of Lazarus.

Eventually, Raskolnikov confesses his crime to Sonya; that he’s murdered the two older women. One of these women was Sonya’s close friend, Lizaveta. In fact, it was Lizaveta who gave the bible to Sonya. Sonya’s response to Raskolnikov is, “What have you done to yourself?” and she cries. She gives him her cross, which was also given her by Lizaveta, and urges him to confess in public and give himself up for arrest and punishment. Eventually, he wears her cross, goes to the police and confesses. He is convicted and sent to Siberia to prison. Sonya travels with him, to be near him and to visit him in prison. She is a picture of Christ, who doesn’t forsake him.

The closing paragraphs of the book read as follows:

Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took the book out. It belonged to Sonya, it was the same one from which she had read to him about the raising of Lazarus. At the beginning, he had thought she would hound him with religion, forever talking about the Gospels and forcing books on him. But to his great amazement, she never once spoke of it, never once even offered him the New Testament. He had to ask her for it himself.

He had not even opened it yet. Nor did he open it now, but a thought flashed in his mind: “Can her convictions be mine?

Here begins a new account, the account of a man’s gradual renewal, the account of his gradual regeneration, his gradual transition from one world to another. It might make the subject of a new story—but our present story is ended.

So, the “reading of the Lazarus story to Raskolnikov and the wearing of the cross bear fruit as the novel proceeds.” “Raskolnikov’s state is effectively death; and the significance of Christ’s command to Lazarus, ‘Come forth!’ is obvious.” That is what happens to Raskolnikov as the novel proceeds. “The divine words addressed to Lazarus – ‘Come forth’ – have been heard” and Raskolnikov stumbles out of the death of his mental tomb.

Dostoyevsky who became a Christian because of the New Testament, especially the story of Lazarus, then wrote a book about a murderer finding redemption through the New Testament and the story of Lazarus. Neither Dostoevsky or Raskolnikov die physically, but their experiences lead them to a place where they see themselves as having been given new life in Christ. Their old story ends and a new story begins. That is what the story of Lazarus promises; when we’re scared and feel defeated – caught up in our despair, sorrow, anger, guilt, or shame, Jesus comes and brings redemption into our stories. That is what the story of Lazarus is about and that is how we regain balance after trauma, grief, imprisonment, shame, guilt or whatever. Dostoevsky knew this in his own life and described it in depth in the story of Raskolnikov.

• I wonder whether you have ever been locked in a mental prison and how you got free.
• I wonder what Jesus’ words to Lazarus, ‘Come forth’, mean for you.
• I wonder whether there is a story in your life which needs to end, so another can begin.

(Adapted from David Eiffert, ‘The God who bleeds 8: Lazarus and Dostoevsky’ - https://gospelanchor.org/the-god-who-bleeds-8-lazarus-and-dostoyevsky/; with additional quotes from Richard Harries’ ‘Haunted By Christ’ and Rowan Williams’ ‘Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction’)

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Joy Oladokun - Breathe Again.

Valuing the God-bearers

Here's the sermon I preached at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Maude Royden, Elsie Chamberlain, Isabella Gilmore, Betty Ridley, Una Kroll, Christian Howard, Monica Furlong, Joyce Bennett, Florence Li Tim-Oi, Constance Coltman, Margaret Webster. Have you heard of any of them? I found out about these women through the website of Women and the Church (or WATCH) who point out that though they were all icons in the campaign to get women ordained, as with many women’s lives, they are in the ‘hidden gallery’ of history.

To give you a very brief flavour of some of their stories: Elsie Chamberlain was the first female full chaplain in the RAF; Una Kroll famously shouted, ‘We asked for bread and you gave us a stone’ (a reference to Matthew 7:7-11) when in 1978 the General Synod refused to allow women to be ordained, creating the momentum for the Movement for the Ordination of Women to be formed; and Florence Li Tim-Oi was the first female Anglican priest, ordained during the war to serve behind Japanese lines in China.

WATCH argue that, although women have been a majority in the church, their ministries have mostly been hidden in the background, carrying out children’s work, making tea, cleaning, in the office, caring for neighbours, letting the vicar know when someone needs a visit. In other words, fulfilling the sort of role that Martha was playing in our Gospel reading today (Luke 10. 38 – end).

Martha opened her home to Jesus and his disciples. Providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on this example, the rabbis say that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them. So, Jesus’ words to Martha are not a denigration of the role she is fulfilling, which has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture, but point instead to an alternative role which has led to the point that we have currently reached in the Church of England of seeking to ordain women, not just as priests, but as bishops.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. This was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females. Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirms Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8. 1-3. Throughout his Gospel Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

This sense of the equality of men and women in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church, has inspired women throughout Church history to active service of our Lord and to leadership roles within his Church. Ultimately, this has led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops. This includes the many women whose ministries we can celebrate and remember in relation to the history and current ministry of our churches.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows all of us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us all the value of welcome, hospitality and service. Our Lady is “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity, and every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite). Saint Catherine of Alexandria was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. She was among the most venerated female saints of medieval England and is the patron saint of young girls, students, philosophers, and craftsmen working with wheels.

We can rightly add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. These, and other women (including those named by WATCH), are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain; and students, like Catherine, who bravely debate with scholars, philosophers, and orators. What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples. May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and the same time that we support all those women who lead us so well within our Team Ministry currently recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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Carolyn Arends - All Flame.

Start:Stop - celebrating and encouraging greater diversity

Bible reading

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10. 38 – 42)

Meditation

Martha opened her home to Jesus and his disciples. Providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture. Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females. Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8. 1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes. This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this has led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

We know that within the Church and wider society, including the City of London, gender equality and full equality across the diversity agenda is still to be fully realised. Here at St Stephen Walbrook we have held two events recently regarding gender diversity; a meeting of Women and the Church regarding the ongoing campaign for gender justice in the Church of England and ‘Women in the City’ an event which highlighted women’s involvement in the civic, cultural, charitable and social opportunities in the City of London and argued that gender balance on boards encourages better leadership and governance. At St Stephen Walbrook, we wish to work more fully with a range of organisations in the City to celebrate and encourage greater diversity.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practice and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practice and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

Prayer

Fathering and mothering God, you have given all peoples one common origin. It is your will that they be gathered together as one family in yourself. Fill the hearts of humankind with the fire of your love and with the desire to ensure justice for all. By sharing the good things you give us, may we secure an equality for all our brothers and sisters throughout the world. May there be an end to division, strife and war. May there be a dawning of a truly human society built on love and peace.

May we choose the better part and sit at your feet as your disciple.

Loving God, you hold us in your hands for we are all made in your image. Help us to celebrate our differences. Help us to use our diversity to share with each other the richness of our many cultures, languages and backgrounds. Challenge us again lest we wither and perish, by holding to the familiar when it has lost its savour. Help us to dissolve the barriers of difference and work for a just society in which none are despised and discriminated against on the basis of false divisions and in which each is valued for their true humanity.

May we choose the better part and sit at your feet as your disciple.

Living God, we pray for your holy people and for the Church. We ask that every member may be freed to serve you in truth and grace. You have visited us through women who have been filled with your Spirit. You have blessed us all with dreams for a common future and gifts for a common life, in all things keep us faithful to the message of your gospel, that as women and men we may together bear witness to your love in Christ Jesus. As your daughters and sons, may we be brought nearer to a new vision of your love.

May we choose the better part and sit at your feet as your disciple.

Blessing

Sharing the good things you give us, dissolving barriers of difference, securing equality, working for a just society, serving you in truth and grace, sitting at your feet as your disciple. May all those blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Eric Whitacre - Five Hebrew Love Songs.