God's Call

I'm doing a preaching series on God's call to each of us. In the first installment my major point was that the tendency in humankind is to live a karaoke life, singing the tune of someone else. And why not? It is familiar, we know it works, to some extent at least. And whether the karaoke life be an explicit parroting of another song, or whether it merely be a reaction to someone else's song, it is still someone else's song. Contrary to this, God has given each of us a particular task or contribution for the world, corresponding to our unique personhood. To find this unique task will take all our passion and gifts, and bring with it joy and sorrow.

To talk about this I used three readings taken from Francis Dewar, Invitations: God's Calling for Everyone (an excellent book):

Reading 1

God says to each one of us; “Come, I have a special task for you to do, something that you were born for, that will bring you untold fulfilment, through which others also may be freed or enriched or enlivened."

Reading 2

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is wide and easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

Reading 3

On his death bed Rabbi Zuscha was asked what he thought life beyond the grave would be like. The old man thought for a long time, then he replied: ’I don’t really know. But one thing I do know, when I get to there I am not going to be asked ‘Why weren’t you Moses?’ or “Why weren’t you King David?” I am going to be asked, “Why weren’t you Zuscha?"

Some Key Passages in the Ordination of Women Debate

The list of passages used against the full inclusion of women is small, and says little about the place of women in the church. Only one passage prohibits women from teaching men (1Tim 2:12), and only one passage says women should be silent in church (1Cor 14:33b-35, although clearly Paul wants women to prophesy, see 1Cor 11:1-16). But there are an overwhelming number of passages affirming the prominence and freedom of women in the life and ministry of the Christian community, and the fundamental theologies of faith, baptism and the giving of the Spirit never exclude women.

1. Emphasised by opponents of the full inclusion of women in the church

· Gen 2:18-25

· Gen 3:16

· 1Cor 11:1-16

· 1Cor 14:33b-35

· Ephes 5:21-33; Col 3:18; 1Pet 3:1-7

· 1Tim 2:8-15

· Tit 2:3-5

2. Emphasised by those in favour of the full inclusion of women in the church

· Gen 1:27

· The prominence of women’s faith and role in the ministry of Jesus: e.g. Matt 28:1-10; Mk 14:3-9; 15:40-41; Lk 8:1-3; Jn 4:39-42;

· Mk 3:31-35; 10:28-31; Lk 11:27;

· The prominence of women in ministry: Rom 16:1, 3-5, 7; 1Cor 1619; Phil 4:2-3; Col 4:15

· women are baptised without distinction (Ac 16:14-15)

· and receive the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit without distinction Ac 21:9; 1Cor 12

· Paul safeguarding the interdependence of men and women (1Cor 11:8-12;) and the rights of women in marriage (1Cor 7:3-5) and the rights of women and men to remain single (1Cor 7:25-35)

· 2Cor 5:17 (compare Gen 3:16)

· Gal 3:28

Some Notes on the Three Major Arguments Against the Full Inclusion of Women in Ministry

Three major arguments are used against the full inclusion of women in the Christian community.

1. The place of women is one of subservience, sometimes argued as complementarity, but always involving a subordination of women to the authority of men.

· This is often argued from a (small) number of biblical texts, and usually inconsistently. The obvious problems with this interpretation of Scripture (e.g. the authoritative ministries of women in the New Testament church) are left unresolved.

· Ignores the obvious authority of women in the history of the church. (Think of the Queen and CofE.)

2. God is male, Jesus was a man.

· God is ‘male’ (no, God is beyond sex and gender)

· Jesus was a man (Compare with ‘became fully human’.)

· Priests are in persona Christi, and must therefore be men. (Actually, all the baptised are in persona Christi)

3. Reproductive role and the nurturing nature of women

· Even if true, not sure why this should exclude women

· Even if true, could be used to argue for the inclusion of women (a more rounded and complete priesthood) For example, the male and female teams mentioned in Romans 16:3-4, 7.

· Jesus was not the quintessential ‘alpha male’, so I’m not sure why anyone should think nurturing –whether in women or men – is a bad thing. (See also Jn 13:23-25, reclining on the breast of Jesus, conveniently missed in the English translations!)

· Scripture, and Jesus himself, did not restrict the role of women in ministry according to their theoretical reproductive capacity. E.g. Lk 11:27.

Strength Out of Weakness

The most important thing, and that which will enable you and I to be disciples for a whole life, no matter one's own sense of inadequacy, alleged failures, or disappointment, is a sense, a familiarity with our own weakness and emptiness. But not just weakness and emptiness; weakness and emptiness as the great dignity of our humanity and the fount of grace in our lives and ministries.

A few observations and anecdotes to finish this series on emptiness.

First, contrast the training for ordained ministry current ordination candidates receive and that which I received. They are given opportunities to attain skills and competencies early in their ordained ministries that I did not. And I think the training now is busier and more intense. But because of the gaps in my training I had to rely on personal presence in a way that the newly ordained now might not. I am not advocating this as a desirable place for the newly ordained to find themselves in! But just to point out the potentially unrecognised danger competency brings.

The danger is a lack of depth covered over by competency. Those who train now are prepared for ministry in a much more productive manner than in the past, but the competencies can become the new bag of priestcraft tricks of the past. In the old days it was tempting for the priest to pull out his communion, or oil, or bible or prayer book, or mumble a prayer with his clerical collar on, and think this would suffice for real sacramental personal presence. A bag of tricks is not what priesthood is about, whether that bag of tricks is a prayer book, the sacrament, th Bible or a whole new range of competencies.

Second, I remember sitting in the Peterborough Rectory and looking at my books back in the mid-90s. I had just finished my PhD, and here I was up in the country with a PhD that nobody cared about or saw as useful, or even knew what it meant! There seemed no way to pursue that path of academia, to develop it, or if there was, it seemed like it would drag me from the task at hand. And the task at hand was to be the parish priest of Peterborough and the people in it. There seemed little overlap.

And third, for ten years a attempted a radical pursuit of material privation in obedience to the call of Jesus. (I have a fundamentalist past, but not of the right wing type so prevalent today.) In the end I had virtually nothing left, except a huge mountain of pride. The actions were commendable, noteworthy, saintly, but in spiritual terms they count for nought. When I obeyed Jesus radically, I distanced myself further from him.

These three stories/observations speak to me about the great dignity of our humanity (its weakness and incompletion) and the dangers associated with that weakness. They also speak to me about what it means to be a baptised Christian (and subsumed within this common baptism, a priest): refracting back to the world, church, and all creation our common destiny grounded in our createdness and God’s grace. All three stories warn us of making our discipleship to our strengths. Relying on our strengths, rather than allowing strength to arise out of our weakness. For example, my radical pursuit of the gospel should have been the result of a letting go of those things I was formerly filling the emptiness with, but instead I refilled the emptiness with my pride. Or in the case of my PhD, it became something I could stand on and rely on (or its knowledge, or the differential between my knowledge and most other people’s knowledge), rather than something I could offer humbly in service to God, not knowing where that offer might lead. And in the case of priestly formation and competence, the danger of a mechanical and human generated application of a ‘bag of tricks’ bearing little resemblance to the true iconic value of discipleship.

I am not suggesting that we can’t be competent and increase competency, can’t have PhD’s, can’t operate in areas of ministry in which we are comfortable and capable, or radically pursue the gospel in our lives. But let us do so always from the perspective of the great dignity of humankind. (That is, our incompleteness waiting to be filled by God). The simple humility that flows from knowing our great dignity can ensure that our skills and competencies, the radical choices we can make, the achievements we accrue along the way, can become means of grace for others rather than condemnation of ourselves.

Priests to the World?

But what of the world and being a priest? If ordination to the priesthood is grounded in baptism, then surely priesthood is directed out to the world just as baptism is? In my previous post in this series I spoke of how priests refract back to the people of God who we are because of our common baptism. So too, priests show the world our common source in God and our common destiny as creatures. This is the call of all the baptised, and in a particular way, the priest. We are to be that iconic display of the dying and rising Christ, or in the language I have been using, the great dignity of being human. Not exactly in the way the world would ordinarily think of that dignity, but instead as a human dignity grounded in our emptiness and openness oriented to God through Jesus Christ. We do this in all sorts of ways, in every part of our life. No different to what all the baptised should be doing, but as priests we are related to all the baptised in this mission in such a way that we are particular examples of this death and resurrection, emptiness and fullness, weakness and power made perfect.

In this sense we become priests to the world trying to make the connections to enable faith in the crucified-risen Lord. However, the goal is not, ultimately, for everyone to become Christian. It is much bigger than that. The goal of creation is for all of creation to be united with God in Christ. In this sense, hypostatic union is the destiny of everything. The whole creation is groaning in its weakness and imperfection as it awaits redemption through union with God. We are priests of this destiny for all creation. Not priests in the sense of mediating this salvation – that is the role of Christ the High Priest. No, we are priests in the same sense of refracting back to creation what it is, and what its destiny is. And again, what we refract back is our weakness and incompleteness – shared by all creation – which is, at the same time, the great dignity of creation waiting to be filled by God. As priests sharing in and reflecting back to the rest of creation our mutual weakness and hollowness as the point of God’s grace and fulfilment.

Thinking theologically: Creation can bear God in the most intimate manner, and the particular word of importance here is union. And so it fits together if we think of creation as an openness waiting to be filled by God, Jesus as fully human (made from stardust), baptism of those professing faith in Christ (receiving the Spirit in faith and discipleship of Jesus), and the use of sacraments as the outward sign of an inner grace. Ordination stands on these four foundational insights and is consistent with, and folds into, them. And for any priests reading this post, remember, the ‘stuff’ of the sacrament of ordination is you.

To read:

1Cor 15:20-28

Colossians 1:15-22 & Ephesians 1:3-14

Romans 8:18-25

1. Priests, how connected do you feel to your baptism and the vows you made (confirmed)?
2. Could you have the courage, and the humility, to be a priest living in grace and weakness?
3. Do you have eyes to see the coming unification of all things in the crucified-risen Christ in the world now? How could you live that ministry of unity through your ordination?

Priesthood and Emptiness

There are two ways of looking at priesthood. One grounds it in baptism (presumably one reason for the necessity of baptism before ordination); the other sees it as a gift from a different realm of the Spirit than that of baptism (ARCIC II). I favour the first, but include the second. For me, ordination to the priesthood is about a refocussing and concentration of my baptism in a re-ordered relationship to the people of God. (Perhaps this is the gift from another realm of the Spirit, as ARCIC II puts it?) Through baptism priests are icons of Christ, and in ordination their relationship to the people of God is so reordered to be a perpetual living reminder of who we all are together. Priests refract back to the people of God our mutual identity as icons of Christ within the iconic Body of Christ.

Which might sound like abstruse theologising. What does it mean? It means that priests are to be truly human, refracting back to the people of God the great dignity of the human condition in all its weakness and failure. Priests are filled by the Spirit of God, yet the weakness and emptiness that is filled never leaves us. It is the weakness in which God’s power is made perfect. But it never ceases being weakness, and at times, failure. This is the mystery of the cross and resurrection – life and death – that we carry in our bodies as baptised disciples of Christ. As St Paul says, “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

To be a priest is to know one’s weakness, perpetually living it, so that the life of Christ might be made manifest. Priests know their sin, but not just as a point of self-condemnation. Indeed, no longer a point of self-condemnation, but a point of grace through faith, a sign of the weakness that brings grace abounding in our lives. Priests are called to direct others beyond guilt and forgiveness to the point of faith in the grace that fills out all human weakness and failure. We don’t ignore sin; it is transformed into a source of grace and the perfect expression of the power of God.

To read:

Rom 6:1-11

2Cor 4:7-12

2Cor 12:1-10

For Reflection:

1. Recall an act of ministry that was sourced from weakness but revealed God’s power. (Either you as minister or ministered to.)
   
   
2. Is your past sin sufficiently ‘dealt with’ for it to no longer be merely a point of condemnation but give you a sense of the great dignity of humanity and God’s grace in your life?

Baptism and Emptiness

Baptism is the sacrament of hypostatic union, or the hope of it. That is,

· We are brought face to face with our inability to save ourselves (we receive in baptism what by nature we cannot receive)

· But remain manifestly human afterwards

· Living now in direct relationship with Christ,

· And receive the Spirit of Jesus to be his disciples

Whatever else we might want to say about baptism, it is the rite where we are brought face to face with our own need and God’s desire to fill that need through Jesus Christ: God responds to our failure and emptiness with the grace of Jesus Christ by filling our emptiness with the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the rite that celebrates the iconic identity between Christ and us whereby we become icons of Christ himself, yet in this iconic likeness we are nothing more than who we were uniquely always meant to be. Baptism is the sacrament of our becoming fully human and proleptically announces the crowning of our humanity through union with God in Christ and his Spirit. This is why we were created, and why God became Incarnate in Jesus and gave the Spirit into our hearts: we are an emptiness filled by God, but in being filled by God's Spirit we become who we are meant to be in utter freedom.

An Emptiness Made to be Filled in Christ

If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would Christ still have needed to come?

Most people reply ‘No’: Adam and Eve in Eden were plan A, and sin messed it up. Christ was the rescue plan to undo the sin. But most people also sense that this leads them where they do not want to go. Christ as plan B? They wriggle out of the impending theological problem by saying it is a theoretical question because God always knew that Adam and Eve would sin, and therefore Christ was not really plan B.

It doesn’t quite work. Hypothetical or not, Christ remains plan B. And that is not the Christian faith, as I understand it. It is just not Christocentric enough, and restricts Christ’s efficacy to sin alone. But for me Christ is much more than the antidote to sin. He is that antidote, but he is much more. Christ would have come even if we had not sinned. The fact that we have sinned just means that Christ’s coming deals with the sin as well. (That is, the salvation of Christ is conditioned by the needs of sinners in addition to the original purpose of creation and its crowning in Christ.) Christ was always going to come because we are made needing the Incarnation and the giving of the Spirit. We are made that way irrespective of sin. That is to say, we are created hollow, an emptiness made to be filled by God. That filling by God is achieved in the Incarnation of Christ and the giving of the Spirit. It is a pure act of grace – unmerited love. That is to say, unmerited in the sense that moral categories don’t apply.

Now, our sin is also dealt with in the Incarnation. The Scriptures focus on sin as the cause of the Incarnation because the Incarnation becomes the point where our natural emptiness is displayed, and where we can see the need for grace. But the grace we are given is the original grace always intended for us.

The majority tradition has perhaps missed this, and made creation and the coming of Christ more ‘plan A mucked up, now for plan B.’ But running from the scriptures through the Church Fathers and the theology of theosis on to modern exponents like Karl Rahner, is the understanding of the original need for the coming of Christ, despite sin.

And this need (because of our original emptiness) is a sign of the great dignity of being human. Humanity is made to be filled by God. Not filled in such a way that we are overwhelmed and dissolved into the great chain of being, but rather, filled by the God who is love, and in this love utterly united with God, yet in this union becoming who we were always meant to be, secure in our own identity as human persons. Our hollowness, our weakness, our emptiness, is our great dignity; it is in this weakness that we find the great dignity as creatures who can 'become God'. Because we are made lacking, God can fill us. And this is shown perfectly in the Incarnation. God can become human – fully human – and remain God. One person, two natures. Theologically, the hypostatic union.

This is paradoxical. Our very weakness is our strength, the point of our greatest dignity. If it were not so, Christ could not have come, and we would not be saved. We would either be divine already, or we would be damned. This is typically Christian and paradoxical. Strength and dignity in weakness and emptiness; just like life in death, power made perfect in weakness. This is the point of all the controversy of the first centuries around the nature of Jesus, and the point of the hypostatic union.

Sin remains sin, but it is the distorted result of our natural weakness and hollowness: unhappy in the dignity of being an openness to God, we try to be God by filling up the hollowness with things, people, ideas etc. and so we maniacally desire these and squabble, compete and kill to acquire and retain them. (Think here of Genesis 3 and the murder of Abel in Genesis 4.)

We think of our weakness and emptiness as a problem. When manifested in sin our weakness and emptiness is a problem, but it is also the pinnacle of creation. Indeed, the ultimate point of the hypostatic union in Jesus Christ is not only our personal union with God, but also the union of all creation with God. What we see in Jesus is not only our destiny, but also the destiny, through Christ and the Spirit, of all creation. We normally think of the dignity of humankind in terms of fullness and perfection, competence and completeness. This is not the original dignity of the human condition: the original dignity of the human condition is emptiness and weakness, an emptiness to be filled by God.

For Reflection:

1. Can you touch your weakness and emptiness? Can you also sense the great dignity of your humanity at that point of weakness?

2. Name one of your sins. Can you also see how this might be, or become, a point of sensing the great dignity of your humanity?

3. How might this change your attitude to yourself and others?

4. When and where do you feel God filling your emptiness?

The Weakness and Emptiness at the Heart of Human Being

Perhaps the most obvious feature of the human condition, but one often masked, is our weakness and imperfection. For example:

· Physically, we get tired, we get sick, we age, we die

· We cannot regulate human society in an equitable manner, control violence, racism, sexism, etc.

· Human history is a cul de sac of violence; particularly the 20^th, so far reproduced in the 21^st century

· The growth of our ignorance; the more we learn the more we know we don’t know.

· The triumph of technology, but a triumphant march ending in environmental damage or possible extinction.

· And in our personal lives, the difficulty we have in changing when we know we must.

· Gullibility, anger, obsessions, groupthink, etc., all these personal, psychological and sociological characteristics of humankind.

And if personal experience and observation isn’t enough, we have the great iconoclasts of the last 150 years, including Marx, Freud, Derrida, Girard. All these have unmasked the ways in which our weakness and failure are hidden from us.

And as the weakness and failure of human being is displayed to us in our experience, observation and in the great intellectual streams of our culture, so we realise that what we have based our lives on might be nothing more than an evanescence of limited lasting value. Our own existence, the reality of the world, truth, God, everything seems to disappear.

It can be hard to feel this at times and not mask it with our strengths and activities, or hide from it with the push of a button. But there are times in our lives when we get a sense of this lack at the heart of human being; disaster, relationship breakdown, death, failure; the encounter with beauty or nature, falling and failing in love; study; the encounter with God. I often have a sense of the chimera that is human being. We aren’t what we like to think we are; and when we strip away what we aren’t, we find an emptiness, a lack.

We fear this emptiness. Sometimes we try to define it away as abnormal, morbid, or perhaps a result of sin. We are not an emptiness, surely, so we fill our lives and our minds with great intellectual systems, busy ourselves with the practicalities of life, become owned by our possessions, and stuff our lives with relationships or the lack of them. And all to hide the hole at the centre of our existence.

But what if it was natural to be empty and hollow? What if, theologically speaking, we are made to be empty? What if our failure and sin as human beings was an indication that we are made hollow, empty, weak, beings that lack? What if sin is essentially the denial of our hollowness, and the result of our own efforts to fill the emptiness? What if our hollowness and emptiness is not to be feared, but the source of becoming who we truly are?

If any of this were true, it would change things. We would still have our weakness and emptiness, our failure and hollowness. These would remain experiences with the power to devastate our comfortable lives. But not only to devastate what is false, but also invite us to what is most real. Imagine if it were true that you and I, and the whole cosmos, were lacking something at the heart of our existence, and this lack was not just the result of sin, but also our original blessing?

Questions for reflection:

1. Where do you find your weakness/hollowness most visible?

2. What do you do with it? Fill it? Fear it? Run, mask it? Live out of it? (If this latter, how do you sustain this sense of weakness and hollowness without it overwhelming you?)

3. How do you sit with your own sin and failure? The sin and failure of other people?

4. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would Christ still have needed to come?

On the Ordination of Women Part IV(ii): Headship

(Continuing some thoughts on how thin the headship thing is as an argument against the ordination of women.)

To my knowledge, the only other passage which refers to headship is to be found in the household code of Ephesians (5:21-33), where it is explicitly stated that the husband is head over his wife as Christ is head over the church. Notice it is husband and wife, which seems not irrelevant to the debate. And notice that no attempt is made to connect the headship of husband over wife with ministerial leadership in the Christian community. Indeed, when Ephesians speaks of the ascended Christ's gifts to the church, the ministries mentioned are ones we know women held.

It is not only the headship idea that is thin. There is only one text in the whole of the NT that actually forbids women to teach men (1Tim 2:2), although, again, this might refer only to husbands and wives. There is another which commands women to be silent in church (1Cor 14:34f, although remember in 1Cor 11 Paul acknowledges that women are praying and prophesying in church, and safeguards this ministry through what he writes), while none of the passages around the submission of wives (not women in general) in the household codes and in Titus (Col 3:18f; Ephes 5:21-33; 1Peter 3:1-7; Tit 2:5) make a connection between the subordination of wife to husband and ministerial leadership in the church. On the other hand the NT is full of women's ministry that gives them authority within the church. Junia is a good example, the woman apostle mentioned by Paul. (Rom 16:7) There is also a woman deacon named Phoebe (Rom 16:1), and women prophets (Ac 21:9; 1Cor 11:5), as well as various other female workers Paul mentions inhis letters. (Rom 16:3, 6, 12; Phil 4:2f cf 1Thess 5:12f)

And one final point: those who think that a woman cannot have spiritual authority over a man, what about the Queen's role in the CofE? Many of those against the ordination of women seem also to take seriously BCP's acknowledgement of the monarch's spiritual authority in the church. Seems a bit odd.

On the Ordination of Women Part IV(i): Headship

Headship is used as an argument against the ordination of women. The essence of the headship argument is that women are not to have authority over men, and should be submissive because that is what the Bible says. This is a pretty thin argument, especially given how much weight some attach to it.

There are only two passages that speak directly of headship, and neither of them use it to prevent the ministry of women. In 1Cor 11:2-16 Paul uses the idea that man (or husband) is the head of woman (or wife) to enforce the practice of women (wives) wearing veils when they pray or prophesy in church. This is not about ministerial authority in the church. Indeed, upon reading the passage again we can see that Paul's intention is to safeguard and affirm the right of women to pray and prophesy in the church, and highlights the interdependence of men and women in the Lord. (See also 1Cor 7:3-5) If this passage is seen to be important in the debate it seems to me it could only be used to require appropriate head wear on the part of women priests (seems like an argument for the consecration of women bishops!, or perhaps only those women priests who are married (and whose husbands are present).

As an aside, it is said by opponents of the ordination of women that the headship of men over women cannot be a cultural accretion because it is based by Paul on the order of creation. So, for example, in vv 8-9 Paul uses the second story of creation in Gen 2:21ff to explain the need for women/wives to wear hats in church. But most of us would think that the wearing of hats is a cultural accretion that can be shed. So the argument that headship is more than a cultural expression because it is grounded in other parts of Scripture needs to be approached with discernment.

Also notice that in 1Cor 11 headship is first about origin. God is the origin/head of Christ, man is the origin/head of woman. (Again, Gen 2:21ff is in the background.) If Paul's purpose were to enforce a rigid order of ministerial authority, or intended that this passage might be a bulwark of such a notion, he is making a strange argument. He mentions the descending order of origin, but then says that , 'in the Lord', men and women are not independent, and that men come from women, and that in any event, all come from God. (vv11-12) His purpose is to safeguard the right of women to prophesy and pray at church, and is ensuring that the origin-authority nexus is not overdone.

And what authority are we talking about? Whatever it is, it is not ministerial authority, and whatever the theology, the submission of women/wives is achieved with a hat.

On the Ordination of Women Part III: The Fatherhood of God

The early trinitarian debates gave the Fatherhood of God a quite specific nuance that cannot be ignored in the ordination of women debates. In the debate over the last few decades it is worrying when people make God the heavenly image of the patriarchal father-figure. It is also worrying when people extend this to some inherent connection between human fatherhood, the fatherhood of God and male priests. Or worse, a crass linear course from the maleness of the language of 'Father' when applied to God to the need for a male priest. The first and determinative meaning of the 'Fatherhood of God' should be derived from its trinitarian meaning. In the Trinity, the Fatherhood of God is about finding identity in relationship. This is not a patriarchal idea. And it is a long bow to draw to get from this to an only male priesthood.

'Father' is a naturally relational term. It makes no sense apart from reference to a child. This is why the orthodox maintained the eternal fatherhood of God. God cannot be considered apart from the Son. (There was never a time when God was not Father, implying that intra-divine relationship lies at the very heart of divinity.) Furthermore, the Father's eternal identity comes from the relationship with the Son. Identity and relationship are not related in inverse proportion. The more we pronounce the identity of the Father the more the relationship with the Son is affirmed.

If priesthood is about safeguarding the Fatherhood of God, then priesthood cannot be about representing patriarchy. The eternal Fatherhood of God is non-patriarchal despite the exclusive male terms of Father-Son (although not Spirit, but it is a bit amorphous granted). If we are to take this trinitarian meaning of the Fatherhood of God seriously then priesthood is not about maleness, not about patriarchal power, but about relationship-in-identity. This makes a lot of sense to those who are ordained. We are not submerged into a congregation or the wider church. We retain our identity, but we retain this identity precisely because we are related to the body of the church. We are not priests to the world, but priests in the church. (As far as I am aware, in the New Testament the word for 'priest' is applied to Jesus and the church, not to the ministers of the church.) Lose our relationship to the wider body, and so our identity as priests gradually dissipates.

Fudge this first meaning of the eternal Fatherhood of God in the theology of ordination and the whole Christian paradigm unravels. It undermines the Trinity for one thing, which is not good. But also our vision of salvation is transformed into an alien understanding. Christianity believes in a salvation that is both relational and personal, without in anyway diminishing our identity or our relatedness. The eternal Fatherhood of God ensures this understanding is rooted in our theology of God. The same goes with the diverse gifts of the Spirit that are given for the unity of the body. (See 1Cor 12) The diversity of gifts is not a hindrance to unity, but the instrument through which the Spirit brings unity. Again, without the eternal Fatherhood of God the basis for believing this is slender.

From this vantage point the ordination of women, at a minimum, is not prohibited. But let us not be so churlish. The ordination of women makes the priesthood more diverse by including both sexes of the human race. And with this diversity encompassed in the unified office of priest, the eternal Fatherhood of God is proclaimed. And this is utterly congruent with the cross (as it should be) as revealing of the Father ('those who have seen me have seen the Father'), for it is on the cross that the unity of humankind is achieved. That unity is expressed in a priesthood open to women and men.

On the Ordination of Women Part II: The Twelve

Some people think that because the Twelve were men only men can be priests and bishops. It must be remembered that the Twelve were the symbolic heads of the renewed twelve tribes of Israel. It is hard to jump from this to a necessary and absolute link between priesthood and maleness. The offices of priest and bishop are not the historical, linear heirs of the symbolic heads of the renewed tribes of Israel. Notice how relatively obscure the Twelve were in the early church. (Hardly mentioned in Acts, and the Gospels can't agree on a set of names.) Apostleship was important, and a link between apostleship and priesthood and episcopacy can be made. But the band of apostles was much broader than the Twelve, and included a woman named Junia. (Rom 16:7)

On the Ordination of Women Part I: In Persona Christi

In 1997 I moved the legislation to allow the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Diocese of Willochra.The first female bishop has been ordained in Australia now, but we are still hearing the same hackneyed arguments in oppositon. So here are some of the points (in an abbreviated form) I made in my speech, with some continuing relevance I think.

In Persona Christi: Can a Woman Represent Christ at the Altar?
The ordination of women is a necessary consequence of the theology of baptism where all who are baptised are made one with Christ. The baptised are capable and called to represent Christ in the world; that is, they are icons of Christ. To then deny the iconic nature of baptised women by arguing that they cannot represent Christ at the altar is to deny the baptism common to us all.

A good example of the iconic nature of the baptised, including women, is to be found in the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne. In this account of martyrdoms in the late second century AD, a female disciple named Blandina is exposed to wild beasts, and when the other disciples see her they see Christ.

But Blandina was hung up fastened to a stake and exposed, as food to the wild beasts that were let loose against her. Because she appeared as if hanging on a cross and because of her earnest prayers, she inspired the combatants with great zeal. For they looked on this sister in her combat and saw, with their bodily eyes, Him who was crucified for them, that He might persuade those who trust in Him that every one who suffers for the glory of Christ has eternal communion with the living God.

In other words she was an icon of Christ. If women can represent Christ in the amphitheatre of martyrdom, then women can represent Christ at the altar. (Baptism is the foundation for both, and is why baptism is a prerequisite for ordination.) This is a basic consistency running from baptism through to ordination. Ordination cannot obliterate this iconic value of women, just as it is not ordination that gives men their iconic value as representatives of Christ in the first place. Therefore, to deny women ordination to the priesthood (and episcopate) on the grounds that they cannot stand in persona Christi is to undermine the integrity of baptism.