The Harvest and the Harvesters
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the March 22, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“And afterward, I will pour out my
Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will
dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men
and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” Joel 2:28-29, NIV
In 1983,
Barbara Streisand starred in the motion picture production of “Yentyl.” It was
the story of the daughter of a European Rabbi, who yearned for the theological
training that was only open to boys. Her father encouraged her and trained her
at home as he was able, but once he died, she had nowhere to turn to continue
her training. Not to be deterred in her desire to grow theologically, she
decided to cut her hair, dress as a boy, and attempt to enroll in a yeshiva.
Once enrolled in the school, she is paired
with another student as is commonly part of the educational program in such
schools. Eventually, her secret is discovered and returning to her female
identity, she sails for America where there are yeshivas that will accept female students. Today there are many
such inclusive schools as over time, more women have been granted access. The 1970s
and 1980s saw the first of many rabbes (female rabbis) to be ordained by
several of the major sects of Judaism.[i]
Lest we are
tempted to brush this off as a “Jewish” problem, my own experience has shown it
is not. While I was studying theology and biblical languages at Walla Walla
University in the 1970s, a handful of young women were also studying theology
there. Over several conversations with these fellow students, I heard of how
repeatedly they had been told that pursuing a course of theological study would
not be likely to result in their finding a pastoral position within the
Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Instead, in spite of the fact that their
education was just as expensive as any pastor’s, they were encouraged to enter
the poorly paid profession of Bible Worker where a woman could find herself a
place as a church employee.
Sadly, in
addition to this counsel from well-meaning faculty advisors and pastoral
mentors, these women also suffered a great deal of discriminatory pressure to
quit when they were given assignments to preach in area churches. Some churches
would not even allow them to preach, special music, yes, but preaching, no. One
church’s head elder even took it upon himself to call the university theology
department and give a movement by movement analysis of every glance, step or
gesture of one female theology student along with his interpretation of how
evil it all was and that a woman should never have been allowed in the pulpit
in the first place. Needless to say, the young woman in question was deeply
traumatized and quit the theology program when all of this was related to her
by her advisor.
To this day,
the denomination struggles to find an equal place for women within its ranks. Strangely
those who control such things in the church often make comparisons between the
pastors of today and the priests of the Old Testament as justification for
discriminating against women workers. However, it would seem that the Jews have
greater right to claim a link between their spiritual leaders and that ancient
priesthood than the Gentiles do, and still, they seem able to grant women equal
access with males to the rabbinate. Maybe if the Christian church had broken
from Judaism today instead of two thousand years ago, we would not even question
the idea of female clergy.
While many
local Adventist churches now ordain women as lay local elders and some
conferences are “licensing” women pastors, very few are actually ordaining
women into the ranks of the clergy. In fact, in the eyes of the world church
leaders, those unions that are allowing it to take place are deemed to be in
rebellion to the church. Perhaps it is ironic that a church that is often seen
to be anti-Catholic can be so in step with Roman Catholicism in how they treat
women. Maybe Adventists should question their willingness to “make an image to
the beast” in this area of practice if they are to avoid being branded with self-serving
hypocrisy.
As I have
written in other places in the past, the Old Testament priesthood died in the
first century, C.E, with Christ’s death on the cross. It took some time for
that to be realized, as the early church continued to worship at the temple and
participate in the temple sacrifices.[ii]
Eventually, with the destruction of the temple by Titus, son of the Emperor
Vespasian, in 70 C.E., both Christians and Jews had to come to an understanding
of how to move forward without that focal edifice. For the Jews, the system of
rabbis and synagogues begun during the reign of the Maccabeans, Mattathias and
his five sons, became the natural fallback position from the priesthood and the
sacrifices of the temple. Rabbis were not descended from the priestly caste and
the sacrifices were reinterpreted as being replaced by study of the Talmud and
personal devotions.[iii]
Christians
seem to have taken a different approach, seeing their leaders as descended in
an unbroken chain from the Aaronic priesthood through Christ. To use the Roman
Catholic Church as an example, the logic would perhaps work like this. The
popes who might be considered the antitype of the Aaronic high priest commonly
trace their office back to a supposed ordination of the first pope by Peter who
received ordination by the passing of the “keys of the kingdom” from Jesus.[iv]
However,
Jesus was not a descendant of Aaron. He descended from Judah, not Levi. His
priesthood was uniquely identified with the Melchizedekian order, not the
Aaronic.[v]
Lest some think this might be an endorsement of a new exclusive, Melchizedekian
priestly caste, we might consider how the Apostles viewed the new Christian
priesthood. Perhaps Peter said it best when he referred to all Christians as “royal
priests.”[vi]
Peter’s
tendency at one point, along with most Jews of his day, was to see his faith as
exclusive rather than inclusive. However, he was awakened to an inclusive
perspective through a vision received on a housetop in Joppa.[vii]
Peter was also the Apostle who cited the inclusive prophecy of Joel on Pentecost
that I have quoted at the top of this commentary. Perhaps this was why God saw
in him the ideal candidate to bring the gospel to the Gentile, Cornelius and
his family. Peter began to understand through that experience that it was not
the work of the church or the Apostles to restrict the moving of the Holy
Spirit.
We might ask
ourselves, why it is so difficult to understand Peter’s lesson, today. Why do
we so often seek to perpetuate the exclusivism that hindered God’s people in
the past? We restrict over half of the denomination from full-fledged ministry
and then pat ourselves on the back at how tremendous our single-digit growth
rate is. There is no small irony in that. Shouldn’t we instead wonder how our
growth rate might look if we unleashed those women we now keep bound in the
fetters of gender discrimination?
When we
survey the congregations of the denomination, so many skilled and able women
fill our pews and are led by the nose by a handful of men who tell them that
they are somehow deficient when it comes to ministry because of their gender.
As if that were not enough, those same women are expected to support that
message with their tithes and offerings. It brings to mind the tyrants who
execute their opponents and then send their families a bill for the bullets.
As Nicholas
D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, asserted in their book, “Half the Sky,” women
hold up half or more of everything around us, yet their part in creating and
maintaining society as we know it is treated as though it is insignificant and
irrelevant compared to the role of men. Men must control the power, men must
control the money, and yes, men must control the church as well. It does beg
the question, though, if there were no money or power associated with clerical
office, would so many men still be interested in holding it and excluding
women?
When we
consider Jesus words about needing more laborers for the harvest[viii]
and also consider Ruth’s faithful efforts gleaning from the fields of Boaz,[ix]
maybe we would be wise to follow the advice of Boaz to “Let her gather among
the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the
bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”[x]
The harvest needs to be gathered quickly before the rains begin to fall. Can we
afford at harvest time, when every hand is needed, to be driving the Ruth’s
from the field?
