The Slow, Slow Art of Urgency for Women in Ministry
By Calvin Miller
[Dr. Calvin Miller is Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Studies at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. He delivered this sermon to the Woman`s Missionary Union in their annual meeting in Atlanta on June 13, 1999.]
We have met in Atlanta because we believe that Jesus saves and that preaching the gospel is urgent business! (Of course, while we are here we must also go to our Alumni dinners!) We met in Atlanta because we believe that everybody has a right to know Christ and we all have the responsibility to tell the world that Jesus saves. (And then there`s the matter of seeing old friends, who are always a little older and a little less friendly from year to year). A part of what it means to be a Baptist is that we tell others about the same grand liberation we found when we found Christ. In America the message goes on and on, as regular as cable television. If there`s anyone in America who doesn`t know how to be saved, it is because they just prefer ESPN over Benny Hinn.
But we`re "the world" people. We want the message that Jesus saves to permeate the Planet.
We are most urgent about it all. Urgency is a noun which has to do with pressing importance. The reason for our urgency is that life is uncertain and hell is eternal. So we have circled the globe, preaching hurriedly, evangelizing hurriedly, telling hurriedly. It is odd that when our convictions about hell were more pressing than they have been in recent decades we were content to be urgent with a great deal more calm. We used to think it important to evangelize by building schools and hospitals, appointing teachers and doctors. Of course, hell is eternal and the world needs to be saved. Still we took time for medicine, because as one fine missionary doctor pointed out, a hospital bed in any foreign culture is more effective than a pulpit for preaching the gospel. We built schools because for people to be literate is a great gift. Illiterate but saved people can go to heaven stupid, but they rarely do well in the here-and-now stupid. It is the oddest of discrepancies that wants missionaries to be well educated, but doesn`t give a fig about having literate converts. It is even odder that often well-educated temporary missionaries (those who flit about the world doing big revivals) come home with huge statistics about those who received Christ (before translators and photographers, of course) but who were never given any lessons to read or write by their literate evangelists.
But then all of this may be changing as Americans continue to dumb-down. Doing Bible translations at 5th grade levels, because that`s the American level, can hardly give us an intellectual credibility in the first place. Generally the church is dumbing down faster than the culture as a whole. Os Guiness said in Fit Bodies Fat Minds, `The chances of meeting educated people in America is better outside the church than inside it. People tend to be 68% better educated outside the church than inside it." In the last few years while Koreans have soared to l~~` place in world-wide reading ability, Americans have slipped to fourteenth. So it would appear that we have no great concern even about our own literacy.
Now, of course, it is easier to ask two questions than to build a school and it is a whole lot faster. Roman Roads, Evangelism Explosions, Four Spiritual Laws booklets have some place in a culture where evangelism is seen as a sales technique. These plans work reasonably well in a near-Christian culture like our own. But they major too much on bottom line sales figures really to impress those who need Christ far away from us. They seem to be falling out of favor in a fast-track missions world where we often want to apply 10-minute evangelism programs in complicated cross-cultural settings. I have no proof of this but I have always wondered if fast-track evangelism programs aren`t invented by men-American men steeped in tooth paste commercials and Dow Jones fast turnaround money making, liquid returns capitalism. It is all a kind of Dow-Jones evangelism, where you can watch the big board telling you just how it`s all going.
It is faster to read somebody a four spiritual laws booklet than to build a hospital. But that was the way that we used to Missionize. It was pitifully slow. Yet it was this slowness that created the credibility for our witness. People who care enough to build hospitals, find themselves listened to when they do get around to reading the four spiritual laws booklets. It is my general opinion that pressing American sales forms into ancient, cass cukutes does not work very wd. You can translate tracts into foreign languages but culturally they don`t translate very well.
The world is urgently lost, but the most formidable kinds of urgently lost people, probably can be saved only gradually.
Now, I want to say what will likely seem the most sexist thing I`m going to say in this sermon. Women are generally not as good at the four spiritual law booklets as men are. Why? Who can say? Maybe the little booklets just don`t have enough poetry in them. Some might say that they don`t read enough like a Jeannette Oke novel. But I believe that women have always been more intuitive and sensitive. It is harder for women to read a booklet and say, "Sign here." Women have a penchant for feeling their way into every situation, and it is harder for women to condense the Bible to two propositions and a signature. Maybe that`s why they have generally been the best missionaries. They can plug into a culture and live there for years after men would have read a four spiritual laws booklet and flown back to the states in time for the Super Bowl. Women seem to find time for being human. They love Jesus but they are bigger on listening men and women into the Kingdom than they are on talking men and women into the Kingdom.
I learned a long time age that the first two critical questions for evangelism are never, "If you died right now do you know for sure you`d go to heaven?" And, "If you were standing before God and he said `Why should I let you into heaven` what would you say?" The first two questions are, "How are you?" And "How are Madge and the kids." These are the human questions that slow down the process of evangelism, but in the end make it real and lasting. We cannot make any divine propositions seem important without being human beings. I have led a lot of people to Christ, but I have done it by listening people into the Kingdom of God rather than talking people into the Kingdom of God.
Women are more likely to go to the mission fields to be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, I think, than men are. Once they get there they can work with a situation by living in it better than men can. They can more easily embrace people of other faiths with other value systems than men can. In short, they are able to go more slowly in redeeming a complicated world than men are, and in going more slowly they change the world about them, step by credible, slow-paced, and very human step.
There are many reasons we should slow our missionizing methodologies down.
First: a rapid fire evangelism often shows a disregard for the cultures we want to evangelize: How true it is that before we seek to displace the culture of whatever religion we wish to replace, we should at least show some interest in it. An evangelist who can rapidly and unilaterally kill another`s faith without seeing how precious their faith is, has not looked into the eyes of his or her converts long enough to see their humanity, their life-styles, etc. There is salvation in none other but Jesus, but not to esteem the way others believe fails in some sense to take them seriously.
Second: Those in the more liberal wings of Christianity, now discourage all missions because they believe that it is immoral to try and change anybody for any reason. These see Christlikeness as a Live-and-Let-Live philosophy. Trying to change a Hindu to a Christian, these say, would meet the same kind of resistance we would resent when approached by a Hare Krishna or a Moslem or a Jehovah`s Witness. There is no way to harmonize such a view with the great commission, but we should let it teach us that we are confronting the lost whose lostness should get our special and studied consideration. We have the God-given right to seek to change others, but we do not have the right to trivialize what they believe.
Third: Multiculturalism and its acceptance is viewed as the only way to the kind of tolerance that makes it possible for a world to live together. As long as any one world religion insists on its right to live above all others, the world will continue on in bloodshed and wars of one kind or another. This is the philosophy that sponsors ethnic cleansing or white supremacy or supremacy of any other culture. Only Jesus saves, but until he does it, we ought to live at peace, respecting those with other faiths.
The big question is this: What are we to do in such a growing world of resentment toward conversionism? Did not Jesus say, "GO into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?" Of course he did; and missions ought always to be at the heart of all things truly Christian. Without being committed to world evangelization we cannot call ourselves the people of God. Still at the heart of all things Christian, there also lies the issue of our humanity. If we do not approach a lost world as human beings genuinely interested in their welfare, then we eventually wind up with a huge sales program that wants to rack up sales at the expense of those being evangelized.
This slower speed will demand that we become determined to listen people into the Kingdom of God rather than talk them into it.
Hildegard of Bingen was born in 1098, but she did not set off on her first preaching tour till she was 60 years of age (Things have always gone rough for women in ministry). Her tour was especially hard on her but we are indebted to her for several insights.
First: "Most people come slowly out of sin, "she taught. In fact they do it in four steps. When God touches evil people for the first time, they say to themselves, "What is God to me?"
Second: Then God touches them a second time. They may feel less threatened by God`s touch, because they have experienced it before.
Third: They then enter a period of internal struggle in which the zeal that they once showed for sin is now transformed into a zeal for repentance.
Fourth. Gradually they wake up from the sleep of death and embrace life. (Scivias. 3.8.8, Hildegrad in a Nutshell. Robert Van de Weyer, p.7O)
She also said that we understand so little of what is around us because we use so little of what is within us (Scivias 1.2.29, p. 37, Hildegrad in a Nutshell). There is no God for the arrogant, she said, and that the major cause of sin is blindness to the beauty of God
All in all, she said that evangelism cannot be hurried beyond the confrontation of God`s will and human will and that gentle intuitive missions may in the long run be the most effective.
Therese of Liseux-a contemporary of Lottie Moon (although she died in 1897 at 25)-wrote:
O Eternal word, my Savior, You are the Eagle I Love and the one who fascinates me.
You swept down to this land of exile and suffered and died so that you could bear away every soul and plunge them into the heart of the blessed Trinity, that inextinguishable furnace of love.
Like the prophets and doctors of the church, I should like to enlighten souls. I should like to wander through the world preaching your name and raising your glorious cross in pagan lands. But it would not be enough to have only one field of mission work. I should not be satisfied unless Ipreached the gospel in every quarter of the globe and even in the most remote islands. (pp. 158, 153)
One thing we should remember is that women have not just recently become involved in missions. They have been involved in missions from the very beginning. The scriptures themselves are filled with the tales of women in ministry. Yet, whether actual or merely perceived by other Christians, our denomination is perceived as being anti-feminist. This is due in part to a partial hermeneutic that sees the role of women totally in terms of the family. I do not object to seeing women in this way as long as we define men in the same way. In the New Testament, women are often defined in terms of the family but I do object to seeing them totally in that way. Men would object to being defined totally in terms of the home. They want to be defined in terms of the Kingdom of God and world enterprise. There are a great number of New Testament passages that define the role of women in missions and evangelism as well. Therefore, they hold as legitimate a place in the spread of the gospel as they do in the role of the home. This can hardly be a new insight, but I recommend that when defining the role of women in the ministry, that the people of God stack along side 1 Timothy 4, 1 Peter 3, and Ephesians 5:22 or 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, not a new hermeneutic for women in ministry but a very old one. I believe the Bible, but I believe in developing our rules for faith and practice by using the whole Bible and not just those parts that support some particular viewpoint.
Our new hermeneutic should be our old hermeneutic for Women in Ministry. It should include these passages:
Acts 2:17-18: this is a primary passage regarding the coming of the Holy Spirit in which women are seen being filled with the Spirit and prophesying just as men are.
Romans 16:1-7: in this remarkable passage, more women are mentioned than men and they wear such titles as "deaconess" and "apostlette." None of these women are mentioned in terms of their family roles but in terms of their kingdom roles.
Galatians 3:28: this passage seems to teach that there is to be no gender distinction in how men and women serve in the kingdom. Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women are all to share equal status in the kingdom enterprise.
Ephesians 5:21: this is one of those six "hupotasso" passages in the New Testament that speak of submission. But this one, different from the other five, does not speak of a woman submitting to a man but all Christians submitting to each other. This passage precedes what Paul is about to say on the home, but it is not really a part of the passage.
While all of these passages speak of women, they do not do it in terms of the home but in terms of their kingdom callings. We are here to celebrate our Savior`s last command. We are here to be effective in our evangelism. Jesus died for the whole world. It is too important a subject to exclude the fifty percent of ministers who are not men.
Marguerite of Oingt wrote a long time ago, Jesus are you not my mother? Are you not even more than my mother? My human mother, after all, labored in giving birth to me for only a day or night. You, my tender and beautiful Lord, labored over me for over thirty years…. Oh, with what measureless love you labored for me!… But when the time was ripe for you to be delivered, your labor pains were so terrible, your holy sweat was like great drops of blood that ran from your body onto the earth…. Whoever saw a mother endure so dreadful a birth? When the time of your delivery came, you were nailed to the hard bed of the cross… and your nerves and all your veins were broken. How could anyone be surprised that your veins were broken. How could anyone be surprised that your veins broke open when in one day you gave birth to the whole world." Marguerite of Oingt (p. 107, Teachings of the Christian Mystics)
In the year of Lottie Moon`s death, the war for suffrage was at its apex: those were hard years for women. In Peter Jennings, The Century, he writes, "Women were often spat upon, slapped in the face, tripped, pelted with burning cigar butts, and insulted by jeers and obscene language" (p. 26, the Century).
On they fought!
One of the progressive era jingles ran:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wifi` and tried to beat her:
But his wift was a suff`agette,
And Peter in the hospital yet (The Century p.27)
Bill Sherman of Mary Poppins fame had the suffragettes singing:
Cast off the shackles ofyesterday, and forward and forward into the fray.
No more the meek and mild subservient we, we`re fighting for rights militantly
We`re clearly soldiers in Petticoats, And dauntless crusaders for womefls votes.
Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group, they`re rather stupid
It is time for a healthier hermeneutic. It is time for a wider and more inclusive hermeneutic.
We are not arguing for Sophia and the Mother Goddess Movement.
We are not out to call the Father Mother, nor our Lord the Lady,
But we are out to recognize the courageous evangelism and missions of the gentle and intuitive sort that remembers that most people come out of sin slowly,
And that the hunger to call the world to Christ has never been a gender-exclusive task.
????? has always teen a matter of Expedency. The most indicting line in Lottie Moon`s letter: It seems odd that God would call 500 preachers for Virginia and leave one lone woman for all of China. The Promise Keepers have gained the freedom for feminizing their feelings. The new Tender Warriors were suddenly free to talk about the home and cry and hold hands. Suddenly they were apologizing to women for forcing them into matriarchal roles while they abdicated the home. But let us have no more apologies from men for what they haven`t done. Let us simply say that the Kingdom of God is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. The world is lost and its lostness, in neither the 19th or 20th century was never in the mind of God a gender consideration.
I met on a recent round-the-world trip four steel magnolias who impacted forever my view of women in missions and ministry and their right to do it. Each of their tales is too long to recount, but let me say briefly that the first was a woman in Xian, China, whose heroic and courageous ministry had won many beautiful converts. She did all this really without much human support, and she was unmarried, so she ministered alone.
Secondly, I met a woman in Mother Theresa`s house for the dying, who was not a Baptist (I think she was an Episcopalian, although most of those who come there to die, aren`t really all that interested in American denominations) and she was married. She left her super-executive-CEO husband in the United States and served alone among a team of volunteers in India. She worked tirelessly day after day, and her ministry made very few converts, but she so resembled Christ, it didn`t matter, overmuch.
Thirdly, I met a woman in Calcutta who passed out day-old bread to the hordes of insane who roam the midnight streets of Calcutta. She was assisted always by her husband, and their ministry goes unrecorded since most of the insane are not likely to be Baptists (at least in India).
Finally, I was in India at the time of Mother Theresa`s passing and happened to see her as she lay in Calcutta. I cannot tell you the full range of my emotions. I can say this: I was struck by her bare feet, protruding from under the flag of India, and I wept when I realized that she had literally worn them out in ministry. What man would be so presumptuous as to say that God has no place for women in ministry? Not, I.
Conclusion
I wonder if all these women found such joy in ministry, that I pleasing the Lord was quite enough for them. They win the world slowly and surely. They let their singular compassion speak for them. They not only have the right to do what they do, they have the commendation of Cod. Women are Cud-called; and thank God for their callings. They deal with hardship and sit through the pain of their callings with more charity. What is it that they do to contend with the difficult world of missions? I think, women better than men take the 9 steps to Third World Living. What are those steps?
First, take out all the furniture: leave a few old blankets, a kitchen table, maybe a wooden chair. You`ve never had a bed, remember.
Second, throw out your clothes. Each person in the family may keep the oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. The head of the family has the only pair of shoes.
Third, all kitchen appliances have vanished. Keep a box of matches, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt and a handful of onions, a dish of dried beans. Rescue some moldy potatoes from the garbage can; those are tonight`s meal.
Fourth, dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, take out the wiring and the lights and everything that runs by electricity.
Fifth, take away the house and move the family into the tool shed.
Sixth, no more postman, fireman, government services. The two-class-room school is three miles away but only two of your seven children attend anyway, and they must walk.
Seventh, throw out your bankbooks, stock certificates, pension plans, and insurance policies. You now have a cash hoard of $5.
Eighth, get out and start cultivating three acres. Try hard to raise $300 in cash crops because your landlord wants one-third and your moneylender 10%.
Ninth, find some way for your children to bring in a little extra money so you have something to eat most days. But it won`t be enough to keep bodies healthy, so lop off 25 to 30 years of your life. (Leadership, Summer, `98, p.8l)???
The world is obviously broken and in great need.
Come; let us come slowly and thoughtfully to such a world. Save human kind slowly-at a rate that does not frighten, further frighten, the dispossessed.
The world is in desperate shape.
We dare not go too fast.
