Sermon preached by The Reverend Leslie Reimer

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND LESLIE G. REIMER, ASSOCIATE RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA AT A SERVICE OF CELEBRATION OF WOMEN'S MINISTRIES AT TRINITY CATHEDRAL, PITTSBURGH FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER 2006




The Father's splendor clothes the Son with life The Spirit's power shakes the Church of God Baptized we live with God the Three in One Alleluia. Amen. Hymn 296, The Hymnal 1982.

Right here, in this very place, Trinity Cathedral, on January 8, 1977, Beryl Turner Choi was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Appleyard, the first woman ordained priest in this Diocese. The air in this cathedral was electric. Beryl is a woman of formidable intellect, unremitting honesty and clarity, great integrity, and steadfast faith and perseverance. By her teaching, preaching, and presence, she had won the hearts of the congregations she served St. James, Penn Hills, Church of the Ascension, and Calvary Church. She had so gained the respect and affection of her fellow deacons, that those young men, who could have been ordained to the priesthood that year in time for Christmas, chose to wait until January when Beryl could be ordained with them. So, on that day thirty years ago, the way was open for Beryl to be a priest, the vocation that had long made a claim on her life. Her ordination happened exactly one week after it was officially, canonically possible for a woman to be ordained priest. It happened about two and a half years after the Philadelphia Eleven were ordained, on July 29, 1974, in a service where then lay woman Barbara Harris was the crucifer. And it happened about twenty-nine and a half years before people sported buttons saying "It's a girl" to announce the election of a new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, for the Episcopal Church.

Thirty years ago it was an interesting time, somewhat unsettling, somewhat exciting. When Cynthia Bronson Sweigert and I were students at the General Theological Seminary in those years, the school was ten percent women so in a class of forty, that meant four, and in a school of one hundred twenty, an even dozen. We were making great strides. I was the first woman to serve as Chief Sacristan at General yes, that's right, a woman as the head of the altar guild radical! My home parish of St. Andrew's, New Kensington welcomed me back to preach for Theological Education Sunday the rector invited me into the pulpit and the women of the church invited me to pour at the coffee hour. To me, that has always been an image of the changes that were underway - sitting in my seminarian clerical collar (with a stripe on it) pouring coffee like a lady.

Exploring vocation was a challenge. There was enthusiastic support from some folks, including the early roots of the Episcopal Women's Caucus. Some other folks weren't so sure. I remember going to priests who were my role models and inspiration to say, rather tentatively, that priesthood might be where I was heading. The response was "Ohwell, yes, but, well, I don't really believe in that." In spite of the shock and hesitation, they were willing to listen and talk, and to be supportive. I still have the telegram Father John Thomas sent me to celebrate on the day General Convention approved the ordination of women to the priesthood. My friend Bill Pickering loves to tell the story of arriving here at the Cathedral on the day of my ordination to the priesthood still uncertain about whether he would lay hands on me. We both remember the moment when I looked up after the laying on of hands and saw that he was indeed there. It was a time of conflict and controversy, of uncertainty, when some people felt that the church was being shaken to its foundations. There were arguments based on Scripture, tradition, biology, and psychology, and people held their positions with great passion.

I have great respect for the priests in that generation who never were persuaded that women priests were acceptable. While they would not invite us to their altar, they welcomed us to their pulpits. They were clear that they would not leave the church. At the same time, they acknowledged that the church was moving forward and that the issue was now their problem, and not the church's. In recalling that time of intense disagreement and argument, one thing stands out. People were willing to criticize each other's views and to state emphaticallythat certain positions were theologically unsound and certain actions were wrong. Yet no one ever said that someone was not a faithful person, not seeking the truth, not believing and preaching the same Gospel. Never was anyone considered not to be a Christian. It was an interesting time, as the way was opened for women to be priests. It presented a new way of thinking and seeing. For some, there was just the relief that the roof didn't fall in or lightning didn't strike when a woman stood at the altar. Others told of their first experiences of women priests with profound gratitude, having seen God and themselves and the church in a completely new way. I remember celebrating the Eucharist at Calvary Camp, where the girls sit on one side of the chapel and the boys on the other, and having the powerful realization that those young women were seeing an image it had previously been impossible for them to see. (These days, we are sure to invite men to celebrate in the chapel at camp so the boys have the same experience.)

Thirty years have passed. After Beryl came Cathy Baur, and Sally Chandler, and then Marge McCarty and Pat Carnahan and Pam Foster and Diane Shepard. Today there are women clergy throughout the diocese, in small towns, in the suburbs, in the city, building churches, at the cathedral, on the diocesan staff. So much has happened in a relatively short time. Thirty years later, it is important to remember the stories, not just for nostalgia or reminiscing, not simply as a part of our history, but for perspective. While Bishop Duncan was in seminary at General with the first women studying for ordination there, our young clergy colleagues, like the past three curates at Calvary, have never known a church without ordained women. We have come to a new place, a place which helps us to see God, ourselves, and the church in a different way. We look to these stories to help us understand something about our journey as people of faith.

As we look to the stories of our own history and experience, we look even more deeply to the stories of Scripture. The Gospel for this evening is a Resurrection story. I'm grateful to a teacher, the great Roman Catholic Scripture scholar Raymond Brown, who encouraged us thirty years ago to claim these stories, to see Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles, and to recognize that the women had encounters with the Risen Christ and were sent out with the message of the Resurrection. Let's look at where the women are in this story. They have come to the tomb a place carefully guarded by the occupying Roman soldiers so that the body of Jesus will not be taken away. They are courageous, willing to risk coming to the place where Jesus has been sealed in the tomb. The ground begins to shake, and the stone is rolled away. The guards are terrified, but the women stay and look and listen. They respond to the familiar Scriptural greeting, "Do not be afraid". In that moment, they hear the astonishing good news - Jesus is risen. They are witnesses to the new thing God has done, to the new life of the risen Christ. They understand everything in a completely new and unexpected way. They run to share this incredible good news with the disciples.

In this story we see women of courage, who are willing to wait out the earthquake as the stone is rolled away and the empty tomb opens the possibility of new life. The women who are honored at this service tonight are women of that sort of courage, willing to go and to stay and to serve in places which are frightening, difficult, challenging. They carry with them the message of hope and new life in Christ.

Tonight's celebration is so much more than a celebration of the ministry of ordained women. I'm not much of a slogan person I don't have bumper stickers on my car. But I remember the buttons which said "Ordain women or stop baptizing them." That slogan made sense. All of us are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.

All of us are entrusted with the message of new life in Christ. All of us are called to proclaim that good news. The ordination of women opened the way to seeing God, ourselves, and the church in a new way. We discovered that all of us, men and women, have an encounter with the risen Christ and are called to live out our vocation as witnesses to the resurrection. Each person is made and loved by God and is invited to serve according to the gifts God has given. Tonight we celebrate the fullness of that baptismal ministry.

Where do we look for God to be doing a new thing? How do we see the promise of new life given by our baptism into Christ? How do we respond? Such discernment can be unsettling. It takes talking, listening, arguing, exploring. It takes people of courage to lead the way. It takes time.

It requires the respect which never questions the faith or faithfulness of the other person. When God is doing a new thing, it is often in the places where we know fear and where the earth itself seems to shake.

We share by water in Christ's saving death. Reborn we share with him an Easter life. As living members of a living Christ. The Spirit's power shakes the Church of God. Baptized we live with God the Three in One. A new creation comes to life and grows. Alleluia.
Amen. Hymn 296, The Hymnal 1982.