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God in Your Grace, Transform Our Witness
In Isaiah 43: 19, we are told, “I am about to do a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” There is no doubt that God is doing a new thing in the Women’s Division and United Methodist Women. The Holy Spirit has brought many new surprises, and frankly, the whirlwind of excitement, activity and challenge has been at times breathtaking, which is another way of saying both exhilarating and challenging. More than once in recent months, I have meditated on the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which is described in Acts 2:2 as a rush of violent wind that fills the entire house.
A rush of powerful, forceful wind stirring things up for God can be fairly disconcerting, except that the other constant theme in the life of the Women’s Division recently has been prayer. I have been deeply moved by how many of my encounters since our meeting in October of last year have centered on prayer. Tonight I will focus on two: prayer shawls and the Assembly of the World Council of Churches.
Prayer Shawls as Mission
The most powerful encounter with prayer on a daily basis is simply watching the delivery of mail to Linda Douglas’ office, which is quite close to mine. Large and small boxes began arriving this winter, and by late February, Daryl English, the gracious and good-humored delivery person, was bringing large carts stacked high with packages, all containing prayer shawls made by United Methodist Women for the Anaheim Assembly. Linda carefully examines each one of the more than 1600 we have now received, together with the loving notes that accompany them. She enlists other staff to help display a few, changing them every couple of days. She then packs most of the shawls away in boxes that now fill every corner of every office and, truth be told, also spill over into hallways, desktops, and any other space we can find. We hope to get them shipped out to Anaheim before someone calls the fire marshal.
What an amazing ministry! What a remarkable witness! All these shawls carefully, lovingly, and beautifully crafted by United Methodist Women to wrap someone in special need of prayer! Each one I hold feels so good. I know that every person who receives one will feel the love and care embodied in it. Although those of us with offices near Linda’s admit to and joke about some considerable temptation as we drape shawls around our shoulders every day, we staff are very clear that every single one will go to Anaheim for display and then be carefully transmitted by United Methodist Women in the five jurisdictions to someone who needs the special, loving prayers sewn, knitted, crocheted or woven into these shawls.
I don’t think I can fully convey to you how personally moving and wonderful this has been for many of us. At a time of tough challenges combined with exciting new opportunities, I look at these shawls – I touch them and hold them close - and remind myself that United Methodist Women all over the country also surround those of us in the staff and board of directors with prayer all the time, as we do them. What joy! What comfort! What a powerful, palpable presence!
The World Council of Churches Assembly
Prayer also shaped the life of the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which several of us in the Women’s Division attended in mid-February of this year. The theme of the Assembly was a beautiful entreaty, “God in Your Grace, Transform the World.” Lois Dauway, who served on the planning committee for the Assembly, helped shape the program around this theme. She subsequently was elected to continue serving on the WCC’s board of directors (the Central Committee) and will, I am sure, continue to give powerful leadership there.
The worship life of the Assembly was extraordinary, no doubt in part because it was coordinated by a United Methodist elder who is dean of the chapel and religious life at Emory University, Susan Henry Crowe. It featured music led in part by our own Jorge Lockward, who is helping us transmit some of the power of those services into our meeting tonight.
Besides opening and closing worship, services were held each morning, noon, and evening. The theme of the Assembly was adapted each day to bring a fresh emphasis. We began with “God in your grace, transform the world,” and moved to “God in your grace, transform the earth;” then “God in your grace, transform our societies,” and then “transform our lives,” “our churches,” and we ended the Assembly praying, “God in your grace, transform our witness.” “God in your grace, transform our witness.” What a prayer!
This was the fifth Assembly I have attended as a delegate of the United Methodist Church, but it was the first where I refused almost all requests to play a leadership role. I didn’t even expect to attend this Assembly and was surprised, honored and quite humbled when the Council of Bishops named me as a delegate. I was in very good company, as you know. Randy Day and Lois Dauway were also delegates, and it was great fun to see the four Women’s Division directors scurrying here and there across the beautiful campus where we were located.
I have been involved in leadership in the World Council of Churches for about 30 years, and for some time, I have believed that I should step back to give others an opportunity to lead and for me to move into new arenas of ministry. Yet, when called upon to go to Porto Alegre, I agreed; but this time, I decided I would immerse myself in the experience of the Assembly itself, not the inner workings of decision making and tough negotiations over people and programs for the future. Think about the politics of General Conference multiplied by 340 different churches from over 100 countries and you’ll get the picture of what I sought to avoid this time. Randy and Lois, together with others in our church, could handle all that, I decided.
Having an Assembly for the first time in Latin America added a terrific flavor and dynamic for the meeting and lots of new things to explore. Moreover, being more relaxed at a WCC gathering was like being at a family reunion where I could catch up with a rich array of remarkable people, Christian leaders from all over the world, some of whom I have known for decades, some for less time. The vast majority of delegates were new to the WCC, which was a wonderfully refreshing dynamic in the meeting. Those few of us who have been around for four or five Assemblies had fun commenting on how we have grown up together and, in fact, are now growing old! Much has changed about us personally, but also about the Council. One pronounced difference is the leadership of women in the Council.
Women’s Leadership Worldwide
Two women from Germany produced a DVD on female leaders in the ecumenical movement. You helped to fund it with a small grant. You have seen one segment tonight, and as you witnessed, it features the intergenerational character of ecumenical leadership, including me and another woman about my age, but also one a generation older and two younger.
In the interviews they conducted with me, the producers requested that I briefly mention my experience of sexual violence, something that would not have been possible a decade ago in such an audio visual. This is a subject which is still taboo in many churches, and the producers wanted a gentle, personal means of helping women across the world acknowledge and address the realities of the deep wounds they carry and the healing presence of our sisters in the faith. So, I did. The reaction by women who saw the DVD in Porto Alegre was deeply moving for me. Throughout my stay, women attending the Assembly came up to me and thanked me or simply shook my hand. Many had tears in their eyes. To speak of how we as sisters and brothers in Christ help each other find healing and wholeness in our faith journeys has always been and will always be a powerful part of our Christian witness, no matter what the source of the pain inflicted upon us.
-- God in your grace, transform our witness.--
This Assembly was my first as Deputy General Secretary of the Women’s Division. A number of people from many parts of the world sought me out to thank the Women’s Division for the support of their ministries and projects. They wanted me to convey the depth of their gratitude to you, and you have heard reports already in the International Ministries Committee about some of the fruits of your work in Brazil and other parts of the world. We “mission mamas,” a nick-name some around the world call us, are famous for spreading Christ’s love and grace in many countries across many years.
This Assembly was also a watershed for me because it represented a remarkably positive culmination of some of the toughest work I have ever done. I want to tell you a bit about this because I think it has a bearing on our work in the Women’s Division. From 1999 to 2002, I served on a Special Commission to try to heal divisions between Orthodox and Protestant churches in the World Council of Churches. The WCC had been the only place where all the Orthodox churches met each other, that is, the Russian, Greek, Romanian, Ehiopian, Syrian, and other orthodox churches all were members of the WCC.
Ruptures and deep divisions surfaced between these Orthodox churches and Protestants in the WCC after the fall of communism, particularly when Slavic Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe found themselves able to voice their faith perspectives in new ways. In their new-found freedom, Orthodox churches began expressing their differences with Protestant churches more vigorously than they ever had done before. Some threatened to leave the WCC and brought their grievances to the 1998 WCC Assembly in Zimbabwe.
In response, the Council established a 60 member commission, half Orthodox, half Protestant, to address these issues. I was one of six women appointed to this commission. Because of the preponderance of Orthodox churches in Europe, half of the participants were from Europe. Therefore, unlike any other WCC group with which I had been associated, I found myself on a so-called global body dominated by European men. In our first meeting, Orthodox leaders stated that their basic disagreements with Protestant churches revolved around several issues, two of which were the ordination of women and the use of inclusive language. Furthermore, some who came representing monasteries encounter women so rarely that they could hardly bring themselves to greet me or shake my hand, much less have conversation with me.
This sounds shocking to us as United Methodists, and across my 30 years experience in global ecumenism, I have rarely been so shocked. For many Christian churches around the world, however, this is more normal than we would like to admit. The reality of our faith tradition is that most Christian churches around the world exclude women from full participation and leadership, whether or not they ordain women. As United Methodists, we’re in a distinct minority on this one.
During the first meeting, the more I heard, the more I felt completely out of place. I was disturbed by some Orthodox pronouncements that ran counter to some of my most cherished beliefs, like the essential equality of men and women. As disturbing as these speeches were, however, I became absolutely enraged at the unwillingness of most of the male Protestant church leaders to defend such beliefs. In the face of assertive pronouncements against women by Orthodox leaders, most Protestant male leaders on the Commission remained silent.
After the first meeting, I seriously contemplated resigning. Who needs this, I thought? Why should I sit in a room full of men and be insulted repeatedly as some Orthodox leaders refused to acknowledge my experience and understanding of Christ to be as authentic as theirs and the Protestant men act like cowards? I have other ways to give my time and talent to the church and to the cause of Christian unity! Enough is enough!
I went to the second meeting for essentially selfish reasons. It was being held in Damascus, Syria, a place I had never been, and I wanted to see the country. If the meetings get too insulting, I thought, I’ll go out and be a tourist.
But during this second set of encounters, I began to realize that some of my Orthodox brothers were remarkably silent during the sessions. I began to seek these quiet brothers out during breaks or over meals. I wanted to find some sliver of hope that we might have something in common, something that draws us together in Christ. I shut out some of the angry speeches and the rude behavior in favor of listening for personal stories. Would it be possible to find the face of Christ in these men if I learned more about their particular witness?
You Are Worthy
Some of the stories were remarkable. I found those told by Albanian Orthodox church leaders to be particularly moving. Albania, as you may know, experienced one of the most brutal Communist regimes. But I also got fairly close to two Orthodox women, one my age and one much younger. They were virtually silent in plenaries but had wonderful riches to share across meals and late at night. By 2002, the younger woman finally took courage and began making contributions in the plenary discussions. I gave her lots of positive feedback, even when I disagreed with her, and I watched this cocoon of a woman become a beautiful, vibrant butterfly.
Our next-to-last meeting of the Commission ended in a stalemate when some Orthodox leaders seriously proposed that no ordained woman ever be allowed to lead worship in WCC arenas. When that happened, two male Protestant leaders finally spoke up and said that this was simply unacceptable. You cannot shut out women ordained in our churches! This response was deeply gratifying, but we all knew that finding a way forward would require tedious and tough negotiations. In the last meeting in Helsinki, Finland, I decided to take the attitude, “if not now, when; if not me, who?” Thanks be to God, a few of my Protestant brothers found their courage, and we joined efforts to represent our common heritage more faithfully and assertively than in previous gathering.
I spoke a lot during that last meeting and stayed up late every night scrutinizing every word of every document. By the time of closing worship on the last day, I was exhausted but reasonably satisfied that the report and recommendations would be acceptable and faithful to our Protestant heritage as well as meet the needs of the Orthodox. We could live with the outcomes, even if not all of them made us happy. This often is the nature of ecumenical work.
At the end of worship, as I was hugging my young Orthodox friend to tell her goodbye, one of the Albanian men came up to us. Greek is his first language, and English is, I suspect, his second, or third, or fourth. He turned to me and searched for words in what was obviously an emotional moment for him. He called me by my last name, and said, “Love, I learned that I have to listen to you. You talked a lot, but I listened to you. I think it was important that you talked a lot.” As I was trying to take all this in, striving to be gracious and view these ambiguous comments as a possible compliment, this man turned to my friend and said, “But you, you…I don’t know how to say it in English…” And then he paused, groping for words. Finally, he said, “Axios, axios!”
Axios is a Greek word. I don’t know any Greek, but my young friend does. She burst into tears because axios means worthy. Exclaiming axios is one of the highest honors one Christian can bestow upon another in the Greek Orthodox tradition. The word is usually reserved for the end of an ordination service when the newly ordained male priest is presented to the congregation. At that moment, the entire congregation shouts together, “Axios!”
What a moment of transformation! What a new thing God was doing right then and there! An elderly Albanian Orthodox church leader looked upon a young, wonderfully gifted woman from the Greek Orthodox tradition and exclaimed that she is worthy! Just like a newly ordained priest is worthy, this young woman, who will never be offered the opportunity to answer God’s call to the ministry in her own Greek Orthodox tradition, was being declared worthy nonetheless. All of a sudden, all the hard work had paid off. No matter what else happened, this would be a moment I would never forget, a story that will always stay with me.
The recommendations that resulted from those tough negotiations in the Special Commission were fully implemented for the first time in the Porto Alegre Assembly, and on the whole, things went smoothly. Ordained women participated in leading worship, lay and ordained women played prominent roles elsewhere in the Assembly, Orthodox leaders came in good spirits and participated with enthusiasm, and we all undertook a new form of decision making to ensure that all voices had a chance to be heard. Our hard labor bore fruit, and I came out of it all with great stories to tell for a long time to come.
--God in your grace, transform our church.--
Celebrating Clergywomen
Soon after I returned from the Assembly, I attended and spoke at the Texas Conference United Methodist Women Spring Celebration. This was the 11th time I had attended a conference gathering of United Methodist Women since becoming the chief executive of the Women’s Division, and like all the others, it was great fun. What a joy to see more than 400 women gathered to renew and celebrate their commitment to mission with women, children and youth.
Moreover, the major emphasis of the Texas Spring Celebration was the 50th anniversary of full clergy rights for women. The 1956 General Conference of the Methodist Church voted to give women full clergy rights, and now, 50 years later, around 21 percent, or 9,500, of United Methodist clergy are women. Of these, more than 5,000 are elders. Several conferences have 200 or more clergywomen serving within conference boundaries. The top five are: West Ohio, Baltimore-Washington, New England, Western North Carolina, and Iowa. In addition, our church has elected 21 women bishops, with sixteen still active. Our church was the first mainline denomination to have a woman bishop, Marjorie Swank Matthews, elected in 1980. In 1983, she became the first female bishop to attend a World Council of Churches Assembly. She retired in 1984 and died in 1986. (See http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=10717).
None of this would have been possible without the support and perseverance of United Methodist Women actively pushing the church to embrace all the gifts, concerns, and perspectives of women throughout the full life of the community of the faithful. Furthermore, the struggle for full acceptance in the church for women clergy and women bishops is far from over. The options for women of color to serve are more limited than they are for white women, and all female clergy still meet resistance to serving large pastorates as well as in the episcopacy. So, women clergy have a long way to go, and United Methodist Women have a long way to go in promoting the full inclusion of women clergy in the life of the church.
Across two days in Texas Conference Spring Celebration, twelve clergy women gave personal testimonies about their call to ministry. They spoke very honestly and passionately about the obstacles they had overcome as well as the remarkable support United Methodist Women had given them throughout their journeys. United Methodist Women offered prayers, presence, scholarships, and political support when faced with opposition to women pastors in some local churches. A noteworthy number of the twelve had left the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Church, or other Wesleyan churches because not only do these churches not ordain women, some of their leaders are becoming more actively and publicly hostile to the reality that churches like the United Methodist Church do ordain women.
If ever there was a clear sign of a backlash against women, it is in the open, often aggressive hostility expressed toward the full inclusion of women in all aspects of the church’s life by some Catholic, Southern Baptist, Orthodox, and a few Protestant leaders. Christianity is a little more than 2000 years old. Women have been ordained in significant numbers for less than a century and in reality for only 50 years or so. Already there’s a fierce backlash. If men had 1900 years or 1950 years to be in control, why not give women more opportunity, not less, to share power? Make no mistake about it, God is doing a new thing in our faith tradition, this remarkable religion we call Christianity, and if we in United Methodist Women have anything to do with it, the gifts, perspectives and concerns of women will be more prominent, not less prominent, in the years to come.
I wish I had time to recount for you the tender, touching and sometimes rip-roaring, hilarious stories that I heard from clergywomen in Texas, but I don’t. Moreover, I don’t need to. Go ask the clergywomen in your conference about their experiences, or better yet, get them in a group where they feel comfortable sharing their stories and unloading their burdens. When they get comfortable with you, they will tell you remarkable tales about extraordinary perseverance in the face of incredible challenges. Listen this year in particular, but listen every year to the gifts, graces, struggles, and wonder of witness among clergywomen. Clergywomen have a long way to go in the United Methodist Church and most especially in the Christian tradition. Lay women, too, have a long way to go to have the fullness of the life we know in Christ embraced by the church.
Axios! Axios! You, clergywomen, are worthy. We, lay women, are worthy.
-- God, in your grace, transform the church. --
Taking Stock of Ourselves
You and I know that it’s easy to tell tales on other peoples’ shortcomings. It’s fun to rag on others. It’s easy to see where others need to change. It’s not really a challenge to criticize others. I really enjoyed Andrea’s joke Friday night about ice cream, eggs, and sausages, didn’t you? Just when I thought that the funny part would be about men, it turns out to be a joke about all of us.
We could all spend days swapping stories about the failure of our church, other churches, and a wide range of other institutions when it comes to issues related to women. We could all also inspire each other endlessly telling about the concrete signs of hope -- of God doing a new thing, of the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit -- in the United Methodist Church, the Baptist, Orthodox, and Catholic churches, or any number of other well-meaning institutions.
The hard part for anyone, including United Methodist Women and the Women’s Division, is taking stock of ourselves, laying ourselves open for serious, careful, systematic evaluation of our own strengths and weaknesses.
Someone recently asked me to list the top ten challenges the Women’s Division is facing. You are still relatively new, she said. What do you think are the biggest challenges the Division and United Methodist Women face? This is a great question. All the work that we began with the August 2005 Symposium on Envisioning the Future and are now undertaking in Long Range Planning gives us a great start on understanding the data and an analysis with which to face the future. We will continue to take full advantage of your work in the Symposium, as well as in the two subsequent meetings where we have done serious stock taking.
When I began seriously to address the question about the top ten challenges - all of which I have discussed with you in one form or another - I was surprised, especially given the events of the last year, that money and finances was not among the top five. Neither is the relentless negativity, even attacks, by our sharpest critics. With the remarkable good work you have done here during this meeting to get a handle on our financial future, we will move forward with renewed strength, determination, and creativity. I have no doubt about it. We continue to be one of the wealthiest organizations in the church, and with all the decisions you have had the courage to make here, we are going to be fine.
I cannot tell you how impressed I am with you, your energy, enthusiasm and depth of discussion at this meeting of the Women’s Division board of directors! Sometimes I look out over you seated there and see the strong, clear signs that you as United Methodist Women are more than ready to take stock and change. You don’t dodge challenges and tough issues. You eagerly and creatively embrace them!
Moreover, every day I give thanks to God for a Staff Cabinet – Andrea, Andris, Cheryl and Lois – four of the finest, most hardworking, creative, determined and dedicated people I’ve ever met. For more than a year, you as directors, they as staff leaders – all of us together - have been faced with surprising, tough realities and difficult decisions. God is doing a new thing in the Women’s Division, and upheld by the Holy Spirit and in close community together, we can do anything God wants us to do.
Moreover, we have lots of good support across the church, including in the General Board of Global Ministries. I want to again thank the Board Cabinet, Randy Day and all our colleagues in the Board Cabinet, for their encouragement when it’s our turn to face hardship, just as we backed the board up when it faced difficulties.
We are worthy. Our witness is worthy, but most of the world does not yet welcome the children as Jesus did or the women as Jesus did. Most of the time women and children in poverty, neglected and abused women, women eager to participate fully in the life of both church and society, women wanting to heal the earth and create communities of peace, and women who want to be all that God calls us to be – all these women are not surrounded by communities shouting “axios,” you are worthy. But we do. We know all women are worthy and that’s why we will continue to be “mission mamas,” spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed.
Which brings me back to those amazing prayer shawls. We are surrounded by the earnest prayers of women dedicated to God’s mission to women, children and youth. We will renew our witness, we will build strength upon strength in this great organization, and we will be led by the Holy Spirit, sometimes blowing with winds more turbulent than we expect, to face the future with confidence and determination to do great things for God.
-- God in your grace, transform our witness. --
* Jan Love is Deputy General Secretary of the Women's Division
Date posted:
Apr 12, 2006
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