Christa, by Edwina Sandys. This bronze sculpture sparked controversy when it was first exhibited at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, in 1984. Church officials quickly removed it, but it was once again exhibited at the Cathedral in 2016.
Abortion should be legal and safe.
Women should have full access to reproductive healthcare.
Women and girls are full and equal members of our community, and a primary purpose of our community is to dismantle patriarchy.
Here are other ways to say these things:
It is unchristian to make abortion illegal and unsafe.
Jesus stood against those who denied healthcare to women.
The bible takes pains to introduce us to women in positions of leadership: the bible instructs us to dismantle patriarchy.
Here’s one more way to say all of this:
My Christian faith tells me that the anti-choice position in the leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is wrong.
Okay, one more:
I proclaim Christ crucified and risen, and this Good News tells me that the anti-choice position in the leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is wrong.
Was I clear?
Now, maybe you believe preachers shouldn’t talk politics. I recently ran across a congregation online that said it wants its priests to talk about social justice, but “not with a political bent.” They’re using the wrong word: surely they mean a partisan bent, because we can’t talk about social justice without talking about politics. We can’t open God’s Word and understand what God is telling us without talking about politics. It’s not possible. It’s not even sensical. Avoiding politics in Christian community is nonsense.
Today we meet Tabitha, a woman in the early Jesus Movement who inspired deep grief in her faith community when she died. Tabitha’s community was in Joppa, the seaside town where the prophet Jonah had scrambled onto a boat, determined to run away from God. In sharp contrast to Jonah, these saints stayed put, and they welcomed widows into their fellowship – “widows”: shorthand for women who had no social standing in the larger society.
Tabitha’s friends held up her woven garments – she made clothes for people; she adorned human bodies with warmth and beauty – and they hugged it out. They missed her. Tabitha mattered. She mattered so much that twenty centuries later she is still remembered by name, and we still know her trade, her vocation. After the community reverently washed her body, Peter prayed alongside Tabitha’s body and raised her up in life and health.
All of this is politics.
The Jesus Movement names women, supports women, accepts leadership from women, embraces women, offers healthcare to women, receives healthcare from women, gives equal compensation to women, learns from women, grieves women. All of these things are political acts. They fly in the face of the patriarchal culture, then and now, that damages and destroys women. So in my book we have two options: option 1: we stop following Jesus of Nazareth, stop proclaiming the resurrection, close the bible, and go to brunch on Sundays; or option 2: we do as the risen Jesus does and we support women, accept leadership from women, embrace women, offer healthcare to women, receive healthcare from women, give equal compensation to women, learn from women, and grieve women.
(We could still go to brunch after church.)
Whatever our brunch plans, I’m assuming that since we’re all still gathered here, we are, at least for now, choosing option 2. And so it is that I believe, and testify to you, that one of the many implications of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is this: Because Christ is risen, Tabitha is also risen, and her story supports our stance that abortion should be legal and safe; that women should have full access to reproductive healthcare; that women and girls are full and equal members of our community, and that a primary purpose of our community is to dismantle patriarchy. Alleluia.
Our faith has always, always entered the political arena. Politics are why we have a faith. Jesus was executed by the state. His first followers were hunted down by political authorities trying to quell rebellion. The political activists Perpetua and Felicity – both of them young mothers – were among the early martyrs. Paul sometimes gets a bad rap for being anti-woman, but like Peter, Paul affirmed the equality of women, and Paul mentioned them by name – with the respect of a colleague – in his letters. His advice about women wearing hats and not talking in Sunday meetings was strategic, political advice: he was essentially saying, “We know everyone is equal and women in fact are bankrolling most of our house churches, but choose your battles, and live to fight another day by telegraphing to outsiders that you’re not a threat.”
Our faith has always, always entered the political arena.
It’s partisanism that preachers should avoid, and you’ll have my cooperation on that. I am not representing a political party, and I’m not going to tell you in a sermon to vote Smith for Congress. And that’s good, because there is no political party anywhere on the political spectrum that reliably aligns with the Jesus Movement. Sometimes one or another political party will get something right – the 19th-century abolitionist Republicans are a good example, and New Deal Democrats establishing Social Security is another – but political parties are not apostolic. That is to say, they do not, of their nature, proclaim the Good News.
But the risen Jesus does. And his followers do, too. And today, they proclaim the Good News by lifting up their sister in Christ, Tabitha, artisan and elder, teacher and leader, a woman whose physical health is of great concern to her community.
But what about unborn life – isn’t that human life? Some Christians can’t let go of this question, despite the biblical witness that life begins at the first breath of the newborn, and the firm biblical priority for the equality and health of women. It is a serious ethical question, so we are right to wrestle with it, but when we wrestle with this question matters. Right now, today, women are in grave danger of injury, illness, and death. Countless women are frantic and even terrified, not knowing where to go or what to do, or how to afford what they need to do to survive. Women and their families are in peril right now, in ways that the men who impregnate them are not. This is our first concern. So as important as questions about unborn life may be, they will have to wait.
It’s also good to take our cue from Tabitha’s community and let women take the lead on raising such questions. Pro-choice activists in our own time are right to insist that women have the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies and futures. Yes. That position aligns with our dominant culture’s value of the dignity and freedom of every individual, and it also aligns with the Jesus Movement’s value of the sacredness of life, and the particular dignity of those who have been cast to the margins by patriarchy.
But we Christians go one step further than U.S.-American ethical individualism. We believe that some of us should lead, and some of us should follow. Let’s take this particular Sunday as an example. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, the Sunday every year when we focus intently on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It’s a beautiful, serene image. You can imagine yourself in an open field on a bright spring morning, with God in Jesus leading you to fresh water and wide pasture. But notice that this is a hierarchical image. Shepherds have more power than sheep. They can use their crooks to yank sheep by the neck back into the fold. Now, if you don’t like hierarchy because it’s been misused so badly, and misused by men in particular, well, here’s the Christian twist:
Jesus the Good Shepherd is above us in the hierarchy, but she is a pregnant woman: she creates and nurtures life, and she wisely makes difficult choices about life. Jesus the Good Shepherd is all too aware of how costly life can be, and she knows all too well the keen sting of death. She knows more than us about her own body, and about the Body of all of us gathered here – the Body of Christ. She calls us by name, and we know her voice. She knows we will follow her. If she invites us to reflect with her on ethical questions about human life, pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth, we should happily participate. But she will let us know. Meanwhile, we can all simply follow her lead, and work together to lift up all women – and men, and people of all genders – in health, equality, justice, and peace.
Alleluia, Christ is risen indeed – this is Good News for everyone, but particularly for those who have been cast aside by the world. Like Tabitha and her friends, we follow Jesus the Good Shepherd, and no one will snatch us out of her hand.
***
Preached on the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year C), May 8, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30