Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
July 6, 2003

"Ordinary Times, Extraordinary Calls"
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  Mark 6:1-13

(1) He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. (2) On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, 'Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! (3) Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?' And they took offense at him. (4) Then Jesus said to them, 'Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.' (5) And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. (6) And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. (7) He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. (8) He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; (9) but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.(10) He said to them, 'Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. (11) If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.' (12) So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  (13) They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

- Mark 6:1-13

The liturgical calendar tells us these are ordinary days: nothing special, merely the time between Pentecost and Advent.  It's the longest season of the church year, which, I suppose, is quite fitting, since there are a zillion more ordinary days in our life than there are peaks and valleys.  In ordinary time, we work our way through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, following Jesus and his disciples step-by-step on their journey that we know eventually leads to Calvary, but noticing the details along the way, much as in the summer we move from day-to-day with time to notice what otherwise we might run past in our busyness.

Ordinary time, ordinary people.  That was the problem, actually.  Jesus was the guy next door.  He'd gone to school with the children of the families in the neighborhood, and sat in synagogue with them.  If you lived down the street, he might have thrown his ball through your window, and eaten sweets at your table.  Some of the neighborhood women probably even changed his diaper years ago. 

Neighbors knew a lot about each other; remember, there were no air conditioners running back then to block out the noise, and no windows to keep sound inside.  With at least seven children in Jesus' family, there was a lot of chaos and commotion, and surely sibling rivalry and parental voices could be heard through the windows. 

Neighbors knew each other's clay feet.   No wonder, that when Jesus began teaching in the synagogue as if he had something to say, the people from his own street and town said, "Where did this man get all this?  What is this wisdom that has been given to him?  What deeds of power are being done by his hands!  Isn't that Mary and Joseph's son?  Isn't he the carpenter?  How can he have any right to say what he's saying and do what he's doing?!"  Because they allowed their familiarity with his seeming ordinariness to discount his wisdom and his God-given power, the Gospel says, Jesus "could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them." 

We do not expect ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  Yet I am going to state the obvious:  Jesus called ordinary people to be his disciples.  Some of those disciples were so invisible we're not sure we even know their names.  And then Jesus sent these ordinary people into ordinary towns and villages, to stay in ordinary homes.  They were ordinary people given extraordinary calls: the call to preach repentance, to cast out spirits, and to heal the sick.  According to Mark, these ordinary people cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. 

Because of these ordinary people who followed the extraordinary call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago, we ourselves, who are ordinary people with ordinary lives in ordinary time are here this morning, answering the extraordinary call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Extraordinary.

I want to speak this morning about a particular group of ordinary people with extraordinary calls.  When I was growing up, I thought they were the most ordinary of people.  Through the years, I have gained an extraordinary respect for these ordinary people. I'm speaking about Presbyterian Women.

When I was growing up in a neighborhood that was mostly Presbyterian and Catholic, I thought all women were Presbyterian Women.  Even the Catholic Churches must have groups of Presbyterian Women within them, I thought.   Sometime later I realized my naivete when I learned that there are groups of Methodist Women and Baptist, and Catholic Women.  I also realize that what I thought were ordinary women of the church had done phenomenal, extraordinary things throughout the centuries.  They did and still do simple, ordinary acts that had a far-reaching impact. 

A Chinese proverb says that at the end of the game, king and pawn go back into the same box.  It reminds us that we are all equal before God, no matter our status in this life.  Each of us is involved in the ordinary tasks of living and the ordinary tasks of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I want to lift up before us this morning the very ordinary ministries of women in the Presbyterian Church, so that we might realize how valuable are their lives and ministries are, and come to value the ways that God works through us, no matter our gender, to do  extraordinary work.  I want us to remember the extraordinary importance of the ordinary tasks of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

First I want tell you that I learned the names of women in the Bible not in Sunday School, but from the names of the Bible Study Groups in Presbyterian Women: the Rebeccah Circle, Sarah Circle, Martha Circle, Dorcas Circle.  I asked my mother how anyone has a name like the Dorcas Circle, and she told me who Dorcas was.  Then she told me who Rebecca was, and Martha, and Phoebe.  Through their names I learned the stories of these women of faith. Not until years later did I realize how radical it is to keep naming and speaking about these biblical women whom the tradition has so often made invisible.

One Sunday each year, Presbyterian Women led worship.  They read the scripture, they received the offering (which was really radical, almost as radical as a woman preaching), and a woman even preached.  I remember it as a very big deal, because in my formative years, and even now in many places across the country and around the world, Women's Sunday was the only time one would see women in the chancel, and leading worship.  When I was young, it was the only time I heard women preach. 

I don't believe these women saw themselves as radical, for I knew my mother's contemporaries well.  They saw themselves merely as faithful.  But I know that it is because of their witness and others like them, that women are active in teaching, preaching and leadership ministries which had been taken away from us centuries ago.  Ordinary people, ordinary women following an extraordinary call, had an incredible impact on generations of lives.

As a little girl, it was through Presbyterian Women that I first experienced what I would later learn was solidarity with poor women in this country and around the world.  How might  that be, you ask, that a young girl, through her mother's participation in Presbyterian Women would learn about solidarity with the poor?  It was because of an offering that PW has called the Fellowship of the Least Coin.  My mother saved pennies for this offering, and asked me to help her roll them.  Much as each year we ask our parents to tell us the story of Jesus' birth, each year, I asked why she didn't give dollars instead of pennies.  Each year, she explained the offering again.  "In this offering, women all around the world give the smallest coin in their country's currency.  Lots of people can't afford more than that," she'd say.  "When we who have more give our smallest coin with them, we remember that we are all equal.  God loves all of us the same.  We remember that we're all sisters no matter where we live and how much we have.  Not everyone can give large currency, because many don't have that, but we can each give our smallest.  But when you add all those least coins together, it makes a huge amount of money and does incredible good."

Each year, this offering totals millions of U.S. dollars that is used in ministry all over the world.  It wasn't until years later that I realized how radical such an offering is in its theology and its ability to change lives.  Ordinary people living an extraordinary call.

When I was growing up, I took it for granted that all women got together in small groups and studied the Bible together.  It seems quaint now that I would say that.  I took it for granted that all women had church friends with whom they talked about their families, grieved their parents' aging, and did projects to help people in need.  I took it for granted that all women had a regular monthly group who had known them for years and had seen them grow in faith and wisdom.  Now I consider such groups counter-cultural in a society that forces busyness and isolation upon us.  I consider such groups as Presbyterian Women's circles radical in their theology of community, partnership and equality, powerful in their ability to change lives by preaching repentance, casting out spirits and healing sick souls.  Ordinary people living an extraordinary call to community.

When I was growing up, I thought Presbyterian Women were just nice ladies who never rocked the boat and wore gloves to church.  That's what I thought until the year my minister tried to change Presbyterian Women's bylaws without consulting them.  It nearly ended his pastorate.

A few years later I knew a young minister in a presbytery that shall remain nameless, who decided to sell the church's old folding chairs at his garage sale.  But they'd been purchased by PW and he had not asked their permission.  That was the straw that ended his pastorate in that little town.  That's the year Mark Smutny and I decided there is an 11th ordination question that exists but is never officially asked: "Do you promise never to interfere with Presbyterian Women?" 

In 1969, the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian church in the United States of America received The Report of the Special Committee on the Status of Women in Society and in the Church.  In the late '60s, the church had become concerned about the large number of young women leaving the church, and about the discrimination against women evident in church nominating committees who were not presenting many women's names for election as deacons and elders, and also in hiring decisions across the denomination.  The report, received in 1969, concludes with these words:

"It is the women, particularly the younger women still in the church, to whom this Committee addresses its challenge.  Despite all that has happened in the last 1900 years we believe that the gospel proclaims true equality and full humanity for all people .... The road will not be easy but only the hard shell of custom stands in your way.  You have the potential power and you are the majority.  Only fear can stop you." 

The nice ladies of my childhood and of the present day who have cooked church dinners and washed dish towels, who have held the hand of grieving widows and brought food to new fathers, those nice ladies who have taught church school and herded choristers:

• These are the same gutsy women who most often call the church to work for justice on behalf of battered women and children.  These are the same women who hold before us our responsibility to close down the child sex trade in Thailand and in this country, and to care for the street children of Brazil and Calcutta. 

• These church women among us are the women who begin Head Start Programs and suicide prevention hotlines, and who, together, give millions of dollars each year to start small businesses that help families move out of poverty all over the world. 

• These are the women who refuse to be silent about the AIDS epidemic in Africa where so many men, women and children die of AIDS each day it would be as if the entire city of Pasadena died in the span of two weeks, and all of Sierra Madre in just three days. 

• These church women are the gutsy women who stand beside each other through thick and thin, and are not afraid to look life straight in the eye.

• These are the women of faith who have remembered for decades that God is not only our eternal father, but our strong mother as well, the Father/Mother God who loves us more perfectly than any human parent ever can.

• These are the gutsy, strong, powerful, ordinary women of the church who live and worship side-by-side with us, day after day, and seem so ordinary that we're likely not to take their witness seriously, and that we easily discount their wisdom, their voices, their power, and their contribution to the work of Jesus Christ. 

As I said when I began, I lift up the witness of all these ordinary women because we are all of us ordinary church folk whom Jesus has called with an extraordinary word.  All of us, no matter our station or circumstance in life, are bound together by the least coin in our pocket and the call of Christ in our heart. 

We are, all of us, called to the extraordinary, outrageous, counter-cultural work of preaching repentance to the world and to ourselves. 

We are all of us ordinary Christians called to the extraordinary, outrageous and counter-cultural work of casting out the spirits of complacency and complicity that afflict our families, our community and our country. 

We are all of us ordinary Christians called to the extraordinary, courageous and counter-cultural work of healing those who are lost, or wounded or broken. 

Just as it has been from the beginning of time, this is ordinary time and we are ordinary people, called to go into ordinary towns and cities and houses.  But do not be fooled.  We have accepted the extraordinary call to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

(c) Copyright 2003 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.