"Women Who Have Reminded the Church of Its Calling"
I Peter 4:12-14 and 5:6-11; and, John 17:1-11
May 8, 2005 (MOTHERS’ DAY)
Dick Neelly

We are pleased to express our appreciation to God today for our mothers. As we reflect on the positive contributions that mothers have made in our lives, it is fitting to consider some women in the early church, who have reminded us of our calling in the church throughout history.

Let us reflect on how the wives of unbelievers, to whom I Peter is addressed, have reminded the church of its calling.

Sexism is wrong, that is, valuing one gender above the other. Paul wrote in Holy Scripture, "In Christ there is neither male nor female…." More seriously, domestic violence is a crime, and, as Christians, we should join all well meaning people everywhere in doing all that we can legally to prosecute those who perpetrate it, and we are obligated to provide safety to those who suffer from it. The women being addressed by I Peter, however, are not among those of whom we would speak today as being victims of domestic violence. They are women, who have made the hard choice to defy the cultural, social, and religious norms of their day in order to practice faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The culture expected of wives that they follow in the religious practices of their husbands. The choice not to do so was a provocative decision, and one fraught with risks.

The women addressed in I Peter remind the church of its calling to be as innocent as doves, but as wise as serpents, to use the words of Jesus. On the one hand, we are called to take up our crosses and deny ourselves, as Jesus did. On the other hand, we are called to do this in manners that do not unnecessarily provoke hostility on the part of others, again, as Jesus did. Truly, this is a calling to walk a narrow path.

With the innocence of doves, I Peter asks these wives of unbelievers to so live out their faith with their husbands, that is, with pure and reverent conduct, that their husbands might be "won over" to the word of God, also. At the same time, however, they should be wise like serpents, which must choose very carefully the paths on which they travel.

The texts for today suggest that the expression of power to which followers of Christ are called is "the sharing of Christ’s suffering." This is the power Christ commanded his followers to wait upon at his ascension, when he sent them to Jerusalem to wait on the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of protection, which Jesus prayed for his disciples, namely that they not be so tempted that they would choose the world’s power of force over the gospel’s power of grace. It is what Paul called the very "dynamis" of God, or the power of God. He was referring to the power in Jesus’ cross. It is the power to confront that which is evil, and to do so with gentleness and no violence of any kind. It hardly looks like power, but it is the power that revealed to the first followers Jesus alive after his death, and it is the power that inspired followers to testify to Christ in Jerusalem only weeks after his ignominious death in the same city. It is not the use of worldly power in any recognizable form. It is that which we often cannot see, but which is eternal.

We should be plainspoken at this very point. Too often we men in church history have accepted the cultural privileges afforded our gender to exercise the power of coercion, or force, in order to have our way in the governance of the church as an institution. For example, we know that Phoebe is mentioned by Paul as a deacon in the earliest church. He wrote about her in his letter to the congregation at Rome. However, within decades we discover those who established the order of the church stating that leaders should be men only (I Timothy 3:1-13 NRSV states that bishops are men only by the choice of male pronouns, and verse 11 likely should be translated to mean the wives of deacons, not women deacons.) Only in the last century has the Presbyterian Church, among other branches of the Christian church, chosen to ordain women as church officers.

Women among the first Christians were more courageous and faithful in obeying the command of Christ to take up their crosses and follow in his way than men. This may have been in part because they are biologically created to carry life within their own bodies, and have a genetic predisposition to advocate for life, not violence that takes life. It could reasonably be argued that were mothers of sons and daughters to be the ones who had the authority to declare wars, there would be far less wars declared. The New Testament literature suggests that more women may have followed Jesus than men. This much we do know from the texts in the Bible. Women did not retreat, deny, or betray Jesus, when he was arrested, tried, and executed, while his male disciples did.

This sermon is not about a battle between the sexes at all. It is about the leadership of Christian women. Without them there is serious doubt that the church would be as faithful as it has at many junctures of its history. For example, even after the takeover of the Christian church by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, it surely must have been women like those in I Peter, who enabled the church to maintain some semblance of integrity, while men were forced to join the legions of Rome with the open support of male bishops. At the beginning of the fourth century, there was not a single Christian in the army of the Roman Empire. At the beginning of the fifth century there was not a single member of the army of the Roman Empire, who was not a Christian. Would we not conclude that Constantine was able to take over the church with the aid of its male bishops?

The women to whom I Peter speaks chose to balance real risk with their faith in Christ. They chose not to commit to whatever pagan religious practice their husbands chose, but they did so fully aware that their boldness could result in divorce and impoverishment. Again, they sought to be innocent as doves, doing as I Peter advised in conducting themselves with purity and reverence. Also, they did so with the wisdom of serpents, that is, they would pick their fights very carefully with their husbands. Culture constricted them, as did common sense. A serpent selects the pathways for travel with great care. Life and death are in the balance.

We are being reminded by these women that we can be faithful without being stupid. Innocent as doves, yes, but wise as serpents, likewise. Innocence for them meant not obeying their husband’s requirements to adorn themselves, but it also meant living with such a level of purity and reverence broadly that their husbands would have little grounds on which to divorce or otherwise dismiss them.

The women to whom I Peter speaks have chosen to respect the norms of their culture, as much as their newly experienced freedom in Christ will permit, and "no more." What they had working in their favor were 1) the conviction that they were emulating Christ and obeying his command to take up their crosses, 2) belief in the promise that Christ would appear to them very soon as the Son of man, much as the first witnesses reported Christ had appeared to them at Easter; 3) their certainty that God was working in their suffering for a good purpose; and 4) the value they experienced in the new community of the church, or the "royal priesthood, a holy nation."

In the end, however, these women make it plain by their lives that they will not sacrifice the integrity of their faith in the power of God, revealed in the manner by which Jesus approached his death. They are prepared always to give an accounting of the hope they hold within their hearts, even if it cost them dearly. They will not resort to any form of manipulative or coercive behavior, which would force their husbands to acquiesce in their cultural, social, or religious norms. They will rely ultimately on divine power, which is love joined in non-violence.

The paradox is that the only true antidote to the violence of the world’s power is non-violence, which entails the practical and real risk of being destroyed by violence. What I Peter preaches and what some women married to unbelievers chose to practice was trust and behavior that reflected their faith in Jesus’ demonstration of divine power, that is, the courage and unrelenting power of non-violent love.

The women who were married to unbelievers in I Peter’s audience have reminded the church of its calling. They have reminded us that we are called to be truly innocent of violence, but wise to understand how most constructively to engage it with the power of God, that is, a conviction based in non-violence. Love lived out in non-violence is the bottom line of the love of God that Jesus Christ revealed to us.