Saint Dominic, Joy, and Grace

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of Our Lord, Episcopal Church Center 

Feast of St. Dominic, August 8, 2019

Psalm 96:1-7; Romans 10:13-17; John 7:16-18

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

One of my dearest friends, Minlib, who is really more than a friend (he is like another brother), is a Dominican Friar. We first met as PhD students many years ago, and he fast became a member of my family. So when I saw that I would be preaching on the feast day of his order’s founder, I wrote him a note asking if he had any particular insights for me. 

He told me that Dominic was as a joyful friar and a preacher of grace. That made me smile and warmed my heart. It probably helps that all these centuries later joy and grace are still embodied in the Dominican order. My dear Minlib certainly does. And there seems to be something of the Holy Spirit in having Dominic’s feast this week. Joy and grace. We are certainly in need of those at the present moment. Now it could certainly be said that joy and grace are always a good idea. AND I think we need them especially right now. We need them. Our world needs them. Joy and grace seem to be utterly missing from our news headlines and from our collective, societal discourse.

We need a little more Dominic in our lives. We need his spirit in the public square. Now, it could be easy to protest this since we cannot all be Dominic. We are not likely to give up all we have, commit ourselves to poverty and celibacy and found an order of friars. So while we may not all become preachers and friars, we certainly can embody his characteristics of joy and share his message of grace.

As I shared yesterday, I struggle with the judgment passages in our Scriptures, and so I am always grateful for a reminder that God’s grace abounds. One way to live out the reality of grace is to be more gentle with ourselves. No doubt we could all benefit from sharing God’s grace inside our own hearts. But if we are to follow in Dominic’s footsteps and to “preach” grace with our lives, then we also need to share that grace with others. We need to view others and the world through the lens of grace. This doesn’t have to mean letting go of high standards or accountability. It just means that when we find ourselves jumping to judgment or making assumptions about someone else’s motivations, we pause and reflect. We ask ourselves how it is that we might find more grace in this particular moment.

I have no doubt that joy and grace are inextricably linked. When we have more grace for ourselves and for each other, then there will also be more joy in our hearts. I also firmly believe, in fact it is part of what keeps me going, keeps me hopeful, even when the news headlines make me feel like crumpling into a puddle of tears and giving up. I believe that as each of us strives to live our lives with a little more grace, to bring a little more joy into the world, I believe it matters. I believe our actions matter. I believe how we live our lives matters. I believe that together, little by little, we can make the world a more graceful and joyful place. AMEN.

Women Preaching the Resurrection

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of Our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Wednesday in Easter Week

Acts 4:1-12;John 21:1-14; Psalm 116:1-8 or Psalm 118:19-24

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

A meme has been going around Facebook in the last couple of weeks, particularly shared by my fellow clergy women that says, “In the interests of Biblical accuracy all the preaching about the resurrection this Easter Sunday will be done by women.” This makes us smile and laugh. It makes us smile because it is true, and there is some pride for us in it. But behind the laughter is a bit of the struggle in the fact that people need to be reminded that the first people to know about and believe in the resurrection were women. Mary Magdelene is known as the Apostle to the Apostles.  

But it didn’t take long for the Church to gloss over that fact and then to spend centuries saying women cannot even speak in Church. Sadly there are still many Christian communities where in the interests of “biblical accuracy” women are still prohibited from preaching or holding leadership positions. Discrimination is real. Still.

Note our readings from today. Acts tells us of the ongoing importance the reality of Jesus’ resurrection held for his followers. John tells us of his appearance to Simon Peter and the other fishermen. It is a story designed to ensure that we believe in the reality of the resurrection. But . . . did you notice? There are no women in it. No doubt they were there. On the periphery, perhaps cooking over the fire, but apparently their presence did not warrant a mention. It is such a timeless tale. The women did the work. They were first. They had the important information to share. And who gets most of the credit? Or sometimes all of the credit? The men.

I am sure many of us can relate to this with stories from our own lives when we have felt invisible or ignored by those in power and authority. But just in case you have forgotten the systemic reality of sexism. Let me remind you of the fact that women in the Obama White House (a place one would think would be a bastion of feminism and progressive values) had to institute a strategy of “amplification” to make sure that there ideas and voices were heard in meetings. As described in the Washington Post, “After one woman offered an idea, if it wasn’t acknowledged, another woman would repeat it and give her colleague credit for suggesting it.”

It has only been five days since Easter, and already our sacred texts have forgotten the women. Let’s not follow suit. For all the intellectual reasons that we know supporting women and girls matters and how it makes life better for everyone. And because there is a profound individual, personal lesson for all of us, male and female, in the Easter story and its women preachers.

Let’s start with Jesus. He is Jesus. Fully God and fully human. So he could have appeared to anyone anywhere on Easter morning. He didn’t. He appeared to Mary Magdelene and the other women. The women who had come to care for his body. In the Ancient Near East caring for the dead was all women’s work, because it was unclean. Birth and death were the realm of women because they were messy. And that is where Jesus showed up. Just like at his birth, God showed up right in the middle of the messiness of real life. Jesus showed up in a way that honored and empowered the women in their work. He sought them ought and gave them a message, perhaps one of the most important messages ever, to share with the world.

Jesus did not appear first to his 11 disciples. He did not go see all the guys. He chose the women. He chose those on the margins of society whose voices often went unheard. They are not the ones that society or the rules of the day would have elected to be important messengers. And that is probably precisely why Jesus chose them. Jesus was not interested in upholding the status quo. He was interested in transformation.

And this matters for each of us. In two important ways. First off, no doubt there are days when we are pretty sure that we are not worthy of the responsibility we have been given. Days when we feel like we are on the margins struggling to be noticed. On those days let us remember that Jesus is with us. We are worthy. We are beloved of God. We belong to God, and just as Jesus chose the women to bear his good news to the world, so to have we been chosen to be evangelists (literally bringers of good news) to the world as well.

Second, there is an invitation to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. To be someone who empowers and amplifies the voices of those who have been ignored. How might we be a force for transformation? How might we amplify each other’s voices in a world that often clings to a mythical idea of the past or fears change? How might we join with Jesus in helping people to hear and believe in the reality of resurrection?

Just like in the Easter stories, the world needs the message those women had to share. Our headlines are far too full of violence, hatred, and division. The reality of the resurrection. The overwhelming power of God’s redeeming love is real. May we have the courage to proclaim that truth with our words and our lives.

AMEN.