Image: the female apostle Junia, missing for centuries as her name (and consequently gender) in the Scriptures was changed to ‘Junius’.
Apologies: there is no video this week of the service – a small technical glitch meant the sound quality was very low for those at home and on the recording.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
With flannel flower & wattle, with acacia & blue gum branches we dance our own corroboree as we continue to celebrate on this seventh Sunday after Easter day our risen Christ Jesus. We welcome him into our lives on Dharawal land, gifted by the Creator. We acknowledge their land and their elders past and present joining our voices with theirs in our search for reconciliation and justice making.
YOU ARE WELCOME
All people are made in the image of God. If you know what it is to love and to be loved, you are welcome. If you have spent your whole life searching for such love and acceptance you are also welcome. We are all welcome to this safe place where Jesus is acknowledged as Lord. You are welcome in His name on this day of new beginnings. And the Peace of the Lord be with you…
INTRODUCTION
In today’s Service we continue with John 14 from vs 15: If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever.
Last week we listened to the stories of the Syrophoenician woman and of the woman who haemorrhaged. Today we will listen to the stories of a number of other women. Let us Pray…
RESPONSIVE PSALM 66 selected verses adapted
Bless our God, O peoples!
Give God a thunderous welcome!
Didn’t the LORD set us on the road to life?
Didn’t the LORD keep us out of the ditch?
Yahweh trained us first in Sinai
Passed us like silver through refining fires
Road-tested us inside and out
Pushed us to our very limit.
Finally El Shaddai brought us to this well-watered place.
All believers, come here and listen, let me tell you about God.
Elohim came on the double having heard my prayer.
Blessed be God: steadfast and loyal in her love.
HYMN Music – Judy
O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Your people still are fed
Who through this earthly pilgrimage
Have all our forebears led:
Our vows, our prayers, we now present
Before your throne of grace
God of our people, be the God
Of each succeeding race.
Through each perplexing path of life
Our wandering footsteps guide
Give us each day our daily bread
For all our needs provide.
CCLI Song # 3330298 Philip Doddridge. Public Domain For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
TWO MINUTE HUDDLE – see if you can recall some of the women who are named in the new testament…
ROLL CALL: Mary Magdalene; The other Mary; Mary, the mother of James; Joanna, wife of Chouza, Herod’s Steward (Luke 8:3); Susanna; Mary, the wife of Clopas; Salome; Mary & Martha, the sisters of Lazarus; Mary, the Mother of Jesus and her sister; Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah; Mary, the mother of James & Joseph; and Anna, the Prophet.
Sapphira (not a good role model); Tabitha (Dorcas) raised to life; Damaris; The servant Rhoda who answered the door to St Peter; Lydia, the seller of purple from Thyatira; Priscilla & Aquila (Paul’s co-workers in Christ) – Phoebe, Mary, Junia, Tryphena & Tryphosa, Persis, Julia, Euodia & Syntyche, Nympha, Prudens, Claudia, mother of Linus and those in Aristobulus’ & Narcissus’ households.
Unnamed: the mother of John & James, Simon Peter’s mother in law, Jairus’s daughter, the persistent widow, the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet, a crippled woman, the woman who haemorrhaged, the Syrophoenician woman, the ‘other women’ (multiple times) plus those of ‘high status’ mentioned several times in Acts.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION & THANKSGIVING
Lord, we could probably rattle off most of the names of your 12 male disciples. It may take us forever to name 12 female disciples out of the many that are mentioned in the NT.
Forgive us, for not valuing those whose presence in our lives, both past and present, we forget to name and honour publicly especially if they or we were brought up to be neither seen nor heard.
We give thanks for each one of the names we have thought of in our discussions just now and commit to finding out a little more about them; remembering that they too have gone ahead of us, interceding on our behalf with that great ‘cloud of witnesses’ now in God’s Kingdom.
Forgive us for allowing the paternalism of our age and the selective use of Scripture to deny women their rightful and equal place amongst all who are called by you to service and to ministry.
We give thanks for the 11 years of ministry of Patty and Tammy as they lived out your call and for Sue, Irene, Leanne, Judy, Loraine & Kathy who comprise our current Church Council. God, wise beyond our imaging, you who cannot be contained yet are seen clearly in Christ Jesus, help us to stop limiting how we see and speak about you with just male names because you are neither male nor female. These are our attempts to understand you with the human attributes we know and understand. And they are always limiting. In the name of Christ Jesus, hear our prayers. Amen
HYMN Woman in the night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JN6qJB3GnA
Woman in the night, spent from giving birth
Guard our precious light: peace is on earth!
Come and join the song, women, children, men
Jesus makes us free to live again!
Woman in the crowd, creeping up behind
Touching is allowed: seek and you will find.
Woman at the well, question the Messiah
Find your friends and tell: drink your heart’s desire!
Woman at the feast, let the righteous stare
Come and go in peace; love him with your hair!
Woman in the house, nurtured to be meek
Leave your second place, listen, think and speak!
Women on the road, from your sickness freed
Witness and provide, joining word and deed:
Women on the hill, stand when men have fled
Christ needs loving still, though your hope is dead.
Women in the dawn, care and spices bring
Earliest to mourn, earliest to sing!
CCLI Song # 1648783 Brian Arthur Wren © Words: 1995 Hope Publishing Company. The United Methodist Publishing House (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
BIBLE READINGS Sarina
LUKE 8: 1 – 3 (NIV) Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
JOHN 19: 25 – 27 (NIV) Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
ROMANS 16: 3 – 15 (NIV) Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys. Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord. Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the other brothers and sisters with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus his sister, and Olympas and all the Lord’s people who are with them. In these words we are reminded of God’s all-embracing love.
MESSAGE (Rev Paul) Women too at the heart of the Gospel
Did you think that Judas, as he carried the money, was also the one who collected the finances for Jesus & his disciples? So is it a surprise to you that it was the women who bankrolled much of Jesus ministry? Luke Ch 8 vs 3 is clear ‘these women supported them out of their own means!’
We see echoes of such financial independence in Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod (Antipas’) household. A wealthy and high status role and we see it also in Lydia the seller of purple and in the frequent mention of the women of high status in Acts, and in Paul’s writings. It isn’t just the poor and the marginalised who responded to the Good News – the Gospel speaks to all people.
For its message is about the deep longing all have, who are made in God’s image.
And there are also followers of the Christus in Narcissus’ household: his was the 2nd most powerful household in Rome during the 13 year reign of Claudius before he was killed in 54 CE. Narcissus was Claudius’ Secretary and therefore vetted all who sought an audience with him.
We already know of the faithfulness of the women on Good Friday when they, alone, remained; the other disciples having fled in fear behind locked doors or having betrayed (Judas) or denied Jesus (Peter). And not only did the women remain faithful, as the words of our last hymn recall they were the first to mourn on Easter Day and the first to attest to his resurrection. When women had no legal status to act as witnesses in courts of law, their witness was profoundly radical.
And yet within 300 years the centrality of their witness in the practical day to day life of the Church is pushed to the margins by a Church that gave men the primary place of witness and leadership. Although it did take until the Council of Whitby in England in 661 CE for their role in Britain & Ireland to be reduced by the Church in Rome. In Celtic Christian Britain until the seventh century, priests could marry, and women played more visible high profile roles, although they often came from Celtic and Saxon nobility.
And if we needed any other reminders of the centrality of their place within the Church, the roll-call of names in the personal greetings Paul brings in his letter to the Romans is impressive. Along with his greetings in his other known writings, we can see that women played a key role in the growth and maintenance of the infant Church.
While Luke and Paul’s writings, which record the events in the decades after Jesus’ life, are clear that both Aquila and his wife Priscilla were ‘co-workers in Christ’, and ‘Apostolos’ or ‘sent ones’ with Paul. Such women, though,never fully regained equal ministry status until the twentieth century.
Since 1969 women were able to be Ordained in the Methodist Church. We had one of the first in the Rev Chris Read at Rosanna in the early 1970’s and similarly in 1973 within the Presbyterian Church. The ordination of women was not an issue at Union (of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in 1977) even though all the church leaders on the stage at the Sydney Town Hall that June 22nd night (Act2 photo last week) were all older men!
At least the NSW/ACT Synod’s first Moderator was Mrs Lilian Wells, and our ninth was Freda Whitlam. Nearly 40 years ago when I was ordained, 10% of ordinands were women but percentage has been 50/50 for 20 years now – yet many congregations, like Jannali, have never had a woman minister. Women elders or deacons were also embraced in the decade before Union as were women lay preachers, though it needs to be said that in Pentecostal churches women were involved decades earlier.
Engadine Uniting Church seeks to live out its faithfulness to Christ & the pattern of the early Church where it is recorded in Galatians 3:28 that ‘there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’. And on this Mother’s Day, we also say, thanks be to God for mothers, past, present and expectant, gone ahead and with us still. In Jesus name, Amen.
HYMN
Brother, sister, let me serve you
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I might have the grace to
Let you be my servant too.
We are pilgrims on a journey
and companions on the road
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.
I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear
I will hold my hand out to you
Speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping
When you laugh I’ll laugh with you
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we’ve seen this journey through.
When we sing to God in heaven
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.
Brother sister let me serve you
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I may have the grace to
Let you be my servant too.
CCLI Song # 72673 Richard Gillard © Words & Music: 1977 Universal Music – Brentwood Benson Publishing (Admin. by SHOUT! Music Publishing Australia) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
OFFERING PRAYER
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Karen
HYMN
O breath of life, come sweeping through us
Revive your church with life and power
O breath of life, come cleanse, renew us
And fit Your church to meet this hour.
O wind of God, come bend us, break us
Till humbly we confess our need
Then in your tenderness remake us
Revive, restore: for this we plead.
O breath of love, come breathe within us
Renewing thought and will and heart
Come, love of Christ, afresh to win us
Revive your church in every part.
Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating
While harvest fields are vast and white?
Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting
Equip your church to spread the light.
CCLI Song # 2648008 Elizabeth Ann Porter Head. Public Domain For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
BLESSING & BENEDICTION
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