Madre's Missives

You can do it!?!?

Sandra Ostapowich — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 02:26:04 -0600

"So what then would be the Gospel answer be to women's ordination? You can do it. In Christ there is neither male nor female."

Madre peeks her head out of her purple-festooned October blogservance of Domestic Violence Month.

Huh?

What in the world is THIS? Marie? Marva? Julie? Dot? No, Petersen.

To the question of whether women can/should/ought/may/are permitted to be ordained, Petersen adopts a strawman argument of the standard liberal, gospel reductionist position that uses Galatians 3:28 as its primary hermeneutic on this issue and spins that as "Gospel".

Surely CyberStones knows better.

The Gospel response on the issue of women's ordination is not the antinomian, "You can! Go for it - you're FREE!" It is that women are too important to be ordained. God, in His infinite wisdom has gifted us in Christ with vocations that are specific to our sex.

Sure, in Christ we are all the same - baptized, forgiven, saved. That's how God sees us - in Christ. That's all that matters, that we are in Christ, that we are baptized and clothed in Christ's pure white garments. Whether we are red and yellow, black and white, XX or XY, employer or employee, Hoosier or Gopher (or even Tiger), what matters to the Father is that we are in His Son.

That covers the relationship between us and God. We still live in this world where we relate to one another. Our generous, thoughtful, loving Father hasn't left us to fend for ourselves here either. He gives us vocations, places us in relationships with one another, where we care for and serve each other, living out the baptismal faith that we have been given. One of the ways He does this is by carefully knitting our mother's and father's DNA together at the moment of conception to create us as male or female. He doesn't just flip the cosmic coin - heads you're a girl and tails you're a boy. He made me female in full view that I would be given certain feminine vocations. He made my brother male, fully cognizant that he would be given different male ones.

Sure, for some vocations the male/female thing doesn't matter: citizen, student, employee, child (as opposed to parent), etc. But for others, it does: daughter, wife, mother; son, husband, father...pastor. These just aren't given to be done by a person of the opposite sex.

The feminist sinner in us sees that list and notices that one sex's list is longer than the other. NO FAIR! We see that extra little opportunity for one team and start ticking off reasons it should be shared by both sexes. I can speak in public, I can write a sermon, I can lead a worship service, I can administrate a church, I can teach confirmation, anything a man needs to do as a pastor, I can do just as well.

What we forget is that in our insistence that we are just as good and capable of pastoring as men, we ladies are dissing the vocations that God has given us. We completely miss the very important gifts that God does give us as women.

What is so special, so unique, so Gospelly about being made women is that we are made to be receivers. Like men we are made human to receive love and care from God. Our confessions explain faith as receiving gifts from God. But women were created to also receive love from the men for whom they are given. That's what submission and having a head is about - trusting that the men given to love and care for us are doing so.

Look at all the gifts God has for us to receive on Team XX from GOd and from our men! Why would anyone want to give that up to be one whose vocation is specifically to give out God's gifts for His people? Contrary to the popular idea, it is indeed more blessed to receive than to give - particularly when the gifts are God's forgiveness, life, and salvation in Christ.

And that's the Gospel answer to "women's ordination".

Domain Invasions

Sandra Ostapowich — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:29:13 -0600

I'm a woman who firmly believes that the backside of the entertainment center is a male domain. At least in every household I've lived in it is. Audio RF serial red yellow white input output video3...it's all just a dialect of Geekery* to me. My eyes glaze over, I don't understand it, and I really, honestly don't CARE to either. As long as the TV turns on when I hit the power button and all the gadgetry else works properly, I'm perfectly happy leaving the tangle of cables back there a mystery.

Except when the designated household male has his own projects during the move-in process that take priority.

So I plugged a bunch of thingamajigs in the back of the TV-watching-cool-stuff (I had resourcefully made a cheat sheet before unplugging everything). I crossed my fingers and everything turned on! (Wait, it gets better...)

...Except that I couldn't receive any actual shows through the Tivo. So I went into the Tivo setup and figured out that since we had changed zip codes, it needed to be reset. That involves it connecting up with the internet, most easily via a phone line.

I dug around and found the longest piece of phone cord known to man (Ok...just 20 feet, but that's still pretty long!) and plugged it into the nearest phone dealie and told Tivo to update. No dice. Oh yeah, we don't have local phone service. That's a problem. Ok. I'll just hook it up to the cable modem thingy with any one of a bunch of colorful network cables (I picked green, my favorite color). Nope. Nowhere to plug it in on the Tivo. Just the USB holes - and no matter how much you poke at those, network thingies just don't fit (and I'm thinking it probably wouldn't work anymore even if I did manage to cram it in there). Now what?

I couldn't imagine being the only person who ever had this kind of problem, so I went to the Tivo website for help in getting this stupid machine working - preferably BEFORE the NCIS premiere tonight. I researched the problem (I love research) and found a solution. It needed a doohickey and then everything would be peachy-keen. But only a select few doohickeys would actually work. Remembering that the computer store (aka CompUSA) sells all SORTS of doohickeys and whatchamacallits, I looked up the different doohickeys that were recommended on their website. Score!

All by myself (sans any male geek counterpart), I went to the computer store, found not one but two of the possible doohickeys that would work. One regularly priced $80, and one on sale for $29.99. I got the cheaper one, of course. I got home, plugged whatchamacallits into the doodads it looked like they'd fit into, crossed my fingers again. Woohoo! It worked. Tivo updated, NCIS recorded. And I got a deal.

All is good in at Casa de Madre. Now that I've mastered this mystery of the masculine domain...on to barbequing!

*Geekery - The strange and wondrous language of "computerese"

On covering your head

Sandra Ostapowich — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 18:47:46 -0600

I have been asked to give my take on this topic a a few times so here are my incomplete thoughts and conclusions. Have at it!

The interesting thing about this 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 is that it s not primarily about wearing veils or hats. In a sense, women have two heads, the one on top of their shoulders, and the spiritual one given by God to care for her as a father/husband/brother/pastor/elder/etc.

1 Cor. 11 is about keeping the Order of Creation. Covering the head is not just having something on top of your head, but showing headship and submission. A man praying and prophesying in church (part of the OHM) whose head is covered (under another's authority) is not showing his proper authority as a man and a leader. A woman doing so with her head uncovered is failing to show submission to those in authority over her.

The principles being explained in 1 Cor. 11 with women's headcoverings are for woman to show that she is under the authority of her head and modesty (which itself expresses being under authority). In Paul's time, an uncovered head and/or "short" hair on a woman usually signified that a woman was a prostitute. It was apparently popular for high-society women to do fancy, expensive and time-consuming things with their hair and wear jewelry which had a tendency to draw a lot of attention to their vanity.

The way that principle, of showing modesty at least, was carried out until recent decades is to wear a head covering of some sort. For whatever reason, that tradition has fallen away in much of the U.S. Women in some LCMS congregations do continue it, and wearing headcoverings of some sort seems more common in conservative evangelical and Eastern Orthodox churches. It also seems to be pretty common in churches that are primarily African-American. I'm not sure why more women don't wear hats in church, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion about the same time hat-wearing in general (for both sexes) became less fashionable and feminism began to take hold.

A comparable "sign" of that relationship today might be for a woman to wear a wedding ring, not nearly as obvious and while it indicates a certain relationship it certainly doesn't necessarily signify a woman being under a man's headship in today's feminist society, but that's about as close as we come now. Wearing a headcovering has different connotations today than it did then. Submitting to husbandly and fatherly authority itself is rare and frequently misunderstood, even moreso the public expression of it with a headcovering.

Do we wear a tasteful hat that matches our Sunday dress and can be worn out to brunch after the service? Or just keep a lace mantilla in our purse to pull out and secure with bobbypins for the service? Or can we artfully wrap our heads and hair with colorful scarves a la Erykah Badu? Or why stop at covering our head in church, why not on a daily basis? Don't we confess submission to authority every day? If we're really going to be modest, is the "Little House on the Prairie"/Victorian 18^th century style of dress the way to go? Or should good, modest Christian women wear a hijab, which is probably more along the lines of what Paul was talking about anyway?

When we approach this issue as a matter of Law we can err in two major ways: 1. despising the spirit of the Law, being covered under another's authority, and 2. taking pride in our "pious" obedience of said law.

In my opinon, the point is not to make wearing a headcovering a law like the Muslims do, but emphasize modesty in dress and headship/submission in the Order of Creation. In Christ, we are free to cover our heads with a husband, free to submit to him and trust him to care for us above himself, and free to dress according to our beliefs and priorities.

So what do you think? Am I wrong? Convince me.

Lookie here, a giant barrel of fish...Lock 'n' load!

Sandra Ostapowich — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 03:29:55 -0600

So I go visit the ELCA website to see what's going on in "Lutheran" land and run across an ad for The Cafe, the ELCA's new Women's E-Magazine.

Wow. I don't even know where to begin.

For convenience, I'll start with the current issue. There's a long, 3-page article on forgiveness. I guess I'm a little naive, because I actually dared to hope that somewhere in that article that there would be the Gospel. I really did think that I'd see "Jesus" mentioned in it. Even I was a little shocked to find not even one occurrence of either.

But don't worry, there's plenty about the psychological benefits of forgiveness, how forgiving can significantly improve our physical health, and even an invitation to celebrate International Forgiveness Day (August 7).

Even in the "Faith Reflections" (I can hear Bloghardt-the-Reflector's prettyboy Skywalker brain approaching the brink of explosion already), there's precious little, if any, Gospel, but plenty of the Law. Jesus does get mentioned in this "devotional" ditty on forgiveness -- in it, the author quotes the Bible where there are references to this Jesus guy.

The author, an ELCA "pastorette", does bring up Baptism and the fact that we receive forgiveness in it, once for all time. But she does so, making it sound as though our own forgiveness was a one-time deal that we don't really need to bother with giving much thought to anymore. She talks about the Lord's Supper too...but in a way that advocates open communion and reduces it to a community meal that spans class, race, gender, ethnicity, etc. where we receive the power to forgive rather than where we faithfully receive into our bodies Christ's own Body and Blood for the forgiveness of our sins.

The articles are on FORGIVENESS, ladies. How in the world can a Christian even begin to talk about forgiveness without talking about Jesus, who won our forgiveness, or the Cross where He did so? This was a perfect opportunity to share the Gospel in its purity and sweetness. And they blew it. That's what I get for forgetting that no woman who knows the Gospel would ever be a "pastorette".

Since finding this tonight and the wealth of things to discuss and false teachings to expose, I plan to spend quite a bit of time springboarding from their articles over the next few weeks. Watch for more frequent Missives!

Former Contender for the World's First Female Lutheran Pope??

Sandra Ostapowich — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 22:32:03 -0600

Over on the Higher Things forums, I've been asked to explain myself ;)

You know those tests school counselors make you take from time to time that supposedly help guide you into different careers? EVERY single one I took, I got "Priest", "Rabbi", "Nun", "Pastor". Once I got "Circus Performer" :) So I guess my interest in ministry to youth is not entirely inappropriate! However, I went to a church where women did things like serve on the Board of Directors (which replaced the Elders), serve communion (usually just the Chalice but I'm pretty sure they did the Host too), read lessons (including the Gospel), serve as Worship Director (selecting the music for the contemporary service), etc. I was personally encouraged to become a pastor from confirmation onward. Anyone who believed women should not do those things, I was taught, was an unenlightened, woman-hating moron and it was just a matter of time until I could preach in my home church.

But becoming a nun always had its appeal, unfortunately Lutherans didn't have nuns (I didn't know about deaconesses then). Why stop there though? I mean, if I was going to jump into the ministry and be a nun, why NOT ride the wave all the way to the top and be pope?

In college (Valparaiso University) where I was a pre-Sem Theology major, it was typical for profs in more laid-back classes to ask us to introduce ourselves and share what are career goals were. Always the shy and demure flower of a gal I am, when it got to be my turn, I proudly stated that I planned to become the First Female Lutheran Pope. Everyone laughed, of course.

This prof was also the Dean of the Chapel at the time, and in the sermon on the final Sunday of the school year, with all the parents in town for graduation that afternoon, he was talking about all the wonderful futures students there had ahead of them...engineers, teachers, nurses, pastors, even the World's First Female Lutheran Pope!

Of course then I had to run into this guy who told me the Gospel and taught me what great creatures God made when He invented woman and everything changed.

My tiara is too sparkly!

Sandra Ostapowich — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:15:25 -0700

"People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me."
�Princess Diana

Really? People think that? The People's Princess said so, I guess it must be true. Personally, I've never heard anyone say that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. If someone did, I think I'd have to agree, a job is probably a better idea. A job like...Princess.