Bishop encourages clergywomen to keep knocking on doors
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Retired
United Methodist Bishop Judith Craig urges women to keep knocking on
doors, like the unrelenting widow in the Gospel of Luke.
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Retired
United Methodist Bishop Judith Craig urges women attending the 2006
International Clergywomen's Consultation to be persistent and
unrelenting, like the widow in the Gospel of Luke who sought justice
from a disinterested judge. About 1,500 United Methodist clergywomen
from around the world met in Chicago Aug. 13-17 to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of full clergy rights for women in the denomination. A UMNS
photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06922. Accompanies UMNS story #496.
8/21/06 |
Aug. 21, 2006
By Linda Green*
CHICAGO (UMNS) — United Methodist clergywomen attending an international
consultation were challenged to be like the persistent, sassy, forever present,
importune woman in the Bible who never ceased to knock on the door of the unjust
judge.
Referring to Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:1-8,
retired Bishop Judith Craig cited the woman who kept after the judge until
he finally
gave her justice.
“Is there any woman more worthy of being the great-grandmother of United
Methodist clergywomen than that woman?” she asked. She encouraged the
clergywomen to not give up seeking what is theirs.
United Methodist clergywomen attending the 2006
International Clergywomen’s
Consultation Aug. 13-17 celebrated 1956-1976 as the first two decades of full
clergy membership rights for women in the denomination, and they marked the
50th anniversary of winning those rights at the church’s General Conference.
The clergywomen also paid tribute to their sisters who had led the way in ministry
and remembered those who’ve died since the 2002 consultation. The 1,500 United Methodist clergywomen came from the United States, Sierra
Leone, the Philippines, Congo, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Katanza, Angola, Germany,
India, South Korea, Liberia, Norway, the Dominican Republic and Ghana.
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert "How
many times have you heard that this is not your place, this is not your
agenda, you don't belong here?" Bishop Violet Fisher asks.
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Bishop
Violet Fisher, New York West Area, challenges participants of the 2006
International Clergywomen's Consultation Aug. 13-17 in Chicago not to
allow society to dictate their actions and opportunities. The 1,500
United Methodist clergywomen from around the world met in celebration of
the 50th anniversary of full clergy rights for women in the
denomination. A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06923.
Accompanies UMNS story #496. 8/21/06 |
Craig, of Powell, Ohio, and Bishop Violet Fisher,
who leads the church’s
New York West Area, gave the clergywomen biblical role models in separate sermons
on persistence and faithfulness to God’s call.
More knocking needed
Craig described the woman in Luke as unyielding,
assertive and aggressive. “We
know her. She was a widow. She was somebody who had no advocate. She was someone
who was due a settlement that had not come her way.”
Though the judge did not care about her situation,
she wore him down with her constant knocking and pleading. “He finally acted justly, not out
of some wonderful sense of what was right but because he just could not stand
up to her,” she said.
If someone so unjust can be persuaded, imagine
what prayer can do, Craig said. Jesus used “a pushy broad” to make a point about God’s generosity
in “our lives of prayer.”
Whenever Craig said something that resonated with the clergywomen, they expressed
their delight by making the motion of knocking on a door.
The bishop told the consultation participants
that the Scriptures are full of women doing what they needed to do and what
God intended
them to do against
all odds. “Sometimes they caused a dust storm, sometimes a significant
backlash and at other times they just did what they did.”
Clergywomen today, she said, “are a wonderful sorority” and come
from a line of women who took on powerful men, defined laws and scruples, and
stood by Jesus’ side. “We are daughters of those who knocked on
doors. We are the sisters still knocking on doors. ... We must really believe
what Jesus said: Knock and it shall be opened to you,” Craig said.
Today’s clergywomen are the daughters of “many importunate, stubborn,
called, eternal women,” she said. “We are daughters of an endless
line of splendor (and) named God’s persistent and faithful women (who
were) knocking until their knuckles were raw.”
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Clergywomen knock in agreement with Bishop Judith Craig.
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Clergywomen
knock in agreement with retired United Methodist Bishop Judith Craig as
she speaks of the need to be persistent and unrelenting in their
ministry. The 1,500 United Methodist clergywomen from around the world
met Aug. 13-17 in Chicago for the 2006 International Clergywomen's
Consultation. A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06924.
Accompanies UMNS story #496. 8/21/06 |
Racial and ethnic clergywomen are still knocking
for fairness and equality in appointments and for acceptance, she said. “More knocking (is) required,” she
said. “There are doors still to be opened.” She also encouraged
the clergywomen to not forget those women who preceded them from other denominations.
Craig thanked those who knocked on the doors to
help elect women to the episcopacy and those who “took doors and turned
them on their side and made them bridges across chasms of obstacles.”
Jesus used the widow to also show the power of persistent prayer, she said.
This is the door that opens the empowering, lifting presence of the Holy Spirit.
“It is more than our determination that it is at stake here,” Craig
said. “It was more than a demand on a personal level that opened the
doors we celebrate.
“We are the heirs of women of deep and abiding
faith; women who knew their limitations, but also knew their possibilities
when
they yoked their
sense of call with a life of prayer.”
Anointing gives strength
Fisher focused on the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet
with costly oil from an alabaster jar or box. The disciples were angry with
Mary for what they
considered to be wasteful, but Jesus chastised them because she performed a
service for him.
The woman’s actions were not appreciated and she was seen as overstepping
her divine role. “How many times have you heard that this is not your
place, this is not your agenda, you don’t belong here?” Fisher
asked.
“How often do we find persons who impose their value systems upon us?” she
asked. “They tell us who we ought to be, where we ought to go, what our
tasks ought to be about … and so many of us home into that,” she
said.
She told the clergywomen that if they know they
are in the body of Christ and have the anointing of God’s spirit on them, then they don’t
have to answer to any system.
“Anointing is a divine capacity to carry out ministry in the name of
Jesus Christ,” Fisher said. “It is the goodness and the providence
of God. ... (It) is the covering of the spirit that equips us and pushes us
out into the ministry in the name Jesus.”
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Bishop Judith Craig speaks to 1,500 clergywomen at the 2006 International Clergywomen's Consultation.
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Retired
United Methodist Bishop Judith Craig speaks to 1,500 clergywomen at the
2006 International Clergywomen's Consultation, held Aug. 13-17 in
Chicago. The 1,500 clergywomen from around the world met in celebration
of the 50th anniversary of full clergy rights for women in the United
Methodist Church. A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06925.
Accompanies UMNS story #496. 8/21/06 |
Since anointing gives spiritual authority, freedom
and strength, and brings results, she encouraged the women to relax in the
flow
of the spirit and to
get out of the boxes that society has placed them in. She told them to be like
Mary, to feel the anointing, and believe that nothing can separate them from
their ministries and God’s love.
“We cannot allow systems to lock us out,” Fisher said. “We
cannot allow the institutions any longer to say there is no place for us.” She
urged them to be bold and audacious and to move out in the splendor and authority
that is theirs.
“Our sisters did it in the past. They took those bold steps, and we
have to say, ‘As for me, I am going to be God’s servant and work
in God’s world today.’”
In the anointing, Jesus told his disciples to
leave Mary alone. “Surely
he is saying today, to all those forces out there, to ‘leave my women
alone. They are the kingdom; they are part of my plan.’”
As Mary poured everything out, Jesus saw it as
a testimony of what was going to happen to him, Fisher said. The bishop referred
to the
song made popular
by Gladys Knight and turned into a spiritual by the late Rev. James Cleveland, “You’re
the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.”
Reciting the lyric, she said: “‘If anyone should ever write my
life story, for whatever reason it might be, between the lines of pain and
woe, He (Jesus) is the best thing that ever happened to me.’”
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn. News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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