Grace Cathedral

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“… [N]either death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else… will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus…” (Mt. 13).

1. Hi Barbie! In the movie Barbie, everyone says hi to each other. It’s adorable but confusing since they have the same name. When Barbie first leaves her home in the matriarchal paradise of Barbieland and arrives in Venice Beach she gets relentlessly harassed. We have become attached to her and it feels heartbreaking. Near the end of the film a character named Gloria summarizes the contradictions of being a girl or woman today.[i]

“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.”

“… You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line… And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us…”

Behind this frustration lies a desire for human dignity, true equality and respect for all people. At the same time we see deep divisions in society over gender roles. Senator Josh Hawley writes that there is, “No menace to this nation greater than the collapse of American manhood.”[ii] He blames this problem on the control exerted by “the American Left” over the press, universities and politics. Climate change. The economy. Inequality. Homelessness. Racism. Wars. Malicious computer codes from foreign governments. And a United States senator believes the problem is that men don’t feel good enough about themselves?

It turns out that attitudes about gender and masculinity are deeply correlated with how we vote. A July survey even carried the title “The Best Way to Find Out if Someone Is a Trump Voter? Ask Them What They Think about Manhood.” How can Americans disagree so profoundly about the value of equality when it is so central to our culture? The answer is simple and short. Tradition.

To treat people fairly with respect to gender would mean a departure from the status quo. Many of us are not ready for this change. It can be summarized in one of that survey’s questions, “Traditional family structure with a wage-earning father and a homemaking mother best equips children to succeed.”[iii] Although too few Americans were ever able to afford this kind of life, this is what many believe God demands of us.

2. At the heart of the issue lies the question of how we read the Bible. The central prayer and statement of faith in Judaism is the Shema. Shema means to hear. The prayer begins, “Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, The Lord is One…”[iv] Jesus refers to this when a young lawyer asks him about the greatest commandment (Mk. 12:29-30).[v] Jesus explains we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as our self. This should be the basis for how we interpret the Bible.

God is one. We have difficulty comprehending this. There is no one, there is no thing, that is like God. God is utterly unique. We may say that God is like the universe, the laws of physics, the ocean, a trusted friend, a judge, a mother but we cannot compare God to anything else in our experience without being more wrong than right. And partly for this reason, God remains hidden to us.

And yet there is still hope that we might gain wisdom about God. The German reformer Martin Luther said that the Bible is not just simply the word of God. It becomes God’s word when the Holy Spirit inspires the reader. Not all scripture is created equal. But different parts of the Bible, at different times in our life and over history, help us both to understand God and God’s hiddenness.

Wednesday night at our Vine service Dana one of our dear Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence read this morning’s story about Leah and Rachel. Dana wondered aloud, “whatever does this mean?” Jacob has traded his inheritance for a bowl of stew. With his mother’s help he tricked his father into giving him the blessing intended for his brother. Running away he joins the household of his relative Laban.

Laban has two daughters: Leah has lovely eyes, and younger Rachel is graceful and beautiful like Barbie. Jacob agrees to work for seven years if he could be allowed to marry Rachel. And so the seven years pass, “and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her” (Gen. 29:15-28). After a great feast Laban tricks Jacob into sleeping with Leah, and then makes him work seven more years to be married to both sisters, or that women are of secondary importance to men

From my perspective it is impossible for me to interpret this as an endorsement of the wage-earning/home-making model of family. The story of Leah and Rachel does not mean we should have two spouses, or that we should work really hard so that we can buy another human being. It does not warn against being fooled into sleeping with the wrong person or against falling in love.

What does this mean to me today? It is part of a long story about how the people of God through a series of individual actions are saved from famine, then fall into slavery and finally are set free. But this morning it also serves as a kind of allegory for the kind of ideal society we think we want and the one which we actually have. We live in a world both of our dreams for how things could be and how things actually are. Both of these matter and have continuing value.

In the end of the story Rachel dies as the family is traveling and they bury her by the side of the road. When Leah dies Jacob buries her in his family plot where he will be interred. It seems as if he really embraced the one he did not initially choose. He learned to love.

God is one. God is incomparable. In God’s kingdom everyone is beloved without exception. Jesus tries through different parables to show us what God’s work is, what God’s kingdom is like. It is small like a mustard seed but has a huge effect so that all the birds of the air can have a home. It is tiny and hidden like yeast but makes what it becomes part of, truly itself. Yeast makes bread, bread. God’s kingdom makes human beings, humane. The church makes us the saints we intend to become.

God’s reign has tremendous value like a hidden treasure or the greatest pearl and it is worth giving everything you have for it. God’s kingdom is like a net gathering what is good and bad in us altogether.

Exactly forty-nine years ago yesterday a seed was planted, a loaf of bread was leavened when the first women were ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church. Known as the Philadelphia Eleven, they were ordained by retired bishops before women’s ordination had been officially approved by the national church. Two of my teachers Suzanne Hiatt and Carter Hayward were among these brave women. Barbara Harris was the Senior Warden of The Church of the Advocate where this took place. She later became my bishop in Massachusetts.

These women were my teachers and mentors. We talked about what they went through. Growing up they were told that being a priest isn’t what girls do. Decisions about their future were entirely in the hands of men. They received threats. People called them terrible vulgar names, refused to receive communion from them, belittled and humiliated them in every way.

They were a diverse group with very different politics, but they bravely opened a new door for us to live in a way more faithful to God. One said, “Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.”[vi] And that is what they did (for seven years, seven more, seven more, seven more, seven more, seven more and then seven more). It breaks my heart that their dreams for equality still have not been realized.

Why are women not receiving equal pay? This is in part because the largest Christian denominations in America still exclude women from being leaders and teach that our gender makes us unfit for particular roles in society. We try to be polite about this but the time has come to speak honestly about the role of women in America. It is not the will of God for women to be second class citizens in society. Perhaps this new society in which every person is treated with equal dignity and has equal opportunities has always been your life’s dream. Or perhaps it is not what you would have chosen but are coming to love anyway. Can we learn to love what we imagine and also still cherish what is real? Can we abandon worries about manhood and stop tying ourselves in knots over whether people like us? Can we be brave and bold in the face of change, so that we can lov

[i] Barbie, Directed by Greta Gerwig, Warner Brothers, 2023.
“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.”

But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”
https://people.com/read-the-powerful-barbie-monologue-about-being-a-woman-that-america-ferrera-performed-30-to-50-times-7565806

[ii] Thomas Edsell, “Democrats and Republicans Are Living in Different Worlds,” The New York Times, 26 July 2023.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Shema: “Hear, O Israel: Adonai is our God, Adonai in One! Blessed is God’s name; His glorious kingdom is for ever and ever! And you shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Also see, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael#:~:text=The%20Shema%20has%20also%20been,thereby%20concluding%20the%20day%27s%20prayers.

[v] Jesus answered, ‘The first is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

[vi] The Philadelphia Eleven (official trailer), Time Travel Productions LLC, 2015-2023. https://vimeo.com/797111253