Message for the Women

Scripture Text : Romans 12: 1-2

12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

This biggest lie women are told is that a Good Christian Woman is Sacrificial. 

I grew up witnessing the women in my life sacrifice all that they had to the service and betterment of others. 

And I remember seeing the tombstones of my ancestors in rural South Carolina as a child, pockmarked by the weather and covered in grit and dust and weeds.

Great great and grandmothers  who served their churches faithfully every week, women who supported their husbands and sacrificed greatly so that their children could eat the pork at the table, while they picked around at the biscuits. 

Ancestors who used the best cloth for everyone else's home-sewn suits and dresses, while their own was darned and patched as cleverly as possible to hide the extent of true poverty.

On almost all the tombstones of the women in my family up until a certain point it would read with some variation- without fail, “Devoted Wife and Mother, Faithful Christian”. 

And thinking through it, really, every story I ever heard of these women in my family who were the matriarchal stalwarts- - were stories of their sacrifices and what they gave up to others.

She always had dinner on the table for us.

She always taught bible school each Sunday. 

She always was the first one to watch the neighbors kids when work ran late.

 Legendary sacrifices.

I dare us to reframe Paul’s phrase here of being a living sacrifice and look at it through the spectacles of renewal of the mind and personal transformation.

So that we do not perpetuate the tombstone edicts for our future generations of women based in praise of only the qualities of servitude. 

Today, we gather here in Baton Rouge not only as individuals but as a collective force in the Presbyterian Church, woven together by the threads of resilience, strength, and an unyielding spirit. 

And we gather at a time in which we are being asked more and more and more by our houses of faith- because there is greater need than before, and less bodies to serve. And historically, when there are less bodies to fill needed positions- that is always when the women are given greater opportunity. 

We are women who have sacrificed, who have shouldered the burdens of our families, who have seen our bodies transformed by childbirth, and miscarriages and illnesses. 

And yet, time after time, women are the first to ask - no matter what is going on privately in their own lives-- “How can I help?” 

We look at the church around us and see the requests coming in for more pieces of us, more money from us, more time from us- in order for the church that we love and have been molded by- just to stay alive.

But we cannot be led by our fear. We can no longer sacrifice ourselves to the point of exhaustion and frustration.

I challenge us to stop and pause and re-evaluate what it means for each one of us to be renewed and to consider how that renewal of our hearts and minds will contribute to our presence and parts in building a new era of the Presbyterian Church.

A great shift is occurring- and we can all feel it.

The funding models are having to pivot and smaller churches are going to be relying more and more on raising up and encouraging members of these congregations to serve as Certified Ruling Elders,

 and the call is echoing louder and louder for women to be leaders in the Presbyterian Church, and to increase their gifts and services. Secularism is growing, less and less are people relying on the social structure of belonging to a church.

I admit,  there are days where I feel the death and the decay. 

And I get tightly pulled into confusion and worry about the future.

But mostly- there are days where I can see the potential for religious regeneration.

I especially am fortified through the news of successes within the 1001 New Worshipping Communities Initiatives that I’m hearing stories from and witnessing their work to thinking creatively to meet populations of the unchurched wherever those groups may be.

Strangely, it reminds me of how a few summers ago, my dog caught a lizard in his mouth and the dang thing detached its tail,

 and fell to the earth and slid away, leaving a bloody appendage still hanging out of Oakley’s jaws.

I stood there mesmerized by the lizard's creative solution to survival.

I really dont think the Presbyteiran church is dying-

I think we’re just losing our tail. 

 And boy, does it hurt. But it’s not the end of the story. This isn’t a  perpetual deformity- a lingering sacrifice of body- it’s a temporary method of survival and adaptation.

I later discovered that lizards- while losing their original tails, immediately begin to regenerate a new tail for their body.

One that, yes- when inevitably another hardship occurs, can also detach- allowing another chance of survival, and regeneration.

With the changes of faith and the rise of secularism comes a great opportunity to begin a new life- to regenerate the tail in society that no longer is working to the benefit of Christ’s message.

There’s cool things happening in the church- and it’s a result of tails being lost, and pivots and adjustments having to be made so that we meet people where they are, not where we think they should be.

So what is our place in all of this?

So how do we live as a living sacrifice, as we’re called to do in Paul’s message to the Romans?

First- by not sacrificing ourselves to the point of our brokenness. That is where we start.  

I say this with an underlined emphasis, because I have seen this verse used as a suggestion that we should give to Christ unlimitedly and it’s relentlessly toxic.

When we have healthy boundaries in all the areas of our lives we are empowered to show up fully to serve God. 

 We can give way more when our cups are full, our bodies are healthy and our lives are in order. 

And so- it is ok to take that time to do those things.  It is ok to step away from your service to the church to take care of whatever it is that needs attention. It could be your body, your relationships, your finances. 

It is ok to say no when you cannot give, and it is ok to say no when you are not feeling an emotional tie or spiritual connection to a certain task.

 It is ok to say no to organizing, meal-training, car-driving. It is ok to say no to teaching a class, or giving what you cannot afford, or picking up the phone for yet another call in which you are the unpaid therapist for the umpteeth time.

Renewal is not merely a word; it's a call to action, a beacon of hope guiding us through the darkest of nights towards the dawn of a new day. It's about shedding the old skin of limitations and doubts, and stepping into the radiant light of possibility.

We must be guided by the biblical ancestors who have walked these paths of spiritual renewal amidst turbulence.

Esther was renewed by her courage.

Ruth was renewed by her relationship with Boaz. 

We have to closely examine what it is that fills our cups, and what drains them. And then, we simply must recalibrate so that the remainder of our time serving Christ is that of renewal, and not depletion and sacrifice. 

Let us be healthy in our bodies and our personal lives, so that we can be healthy in the ways that we serve the church.

Amen.