Cursing like Martin Luther
So I’m lying in bed shadow boxing with old grudges. It’s a habit of mine (a sin, really, insofar as I’m really good at getting sucked away from the present moment where I can actually act).
But I’ve been doing it more in the last week than usual. This time, in my crosshairs are the sexism and misogyny as I have experienced and witnessed it in the Episcopal Church currently and since life in seminary.

What? Sexism in the Episcopal Church? Misogyny??? I thought they ordained gay bishops and did social justice work and stuff. Yeah, well, good ol’ TEC has its fair share of lady-stomping — it just tends to do it quietly and politely.
Like this past weekend when another white man was elected bishop. I’m sure he’s a good fit, blah blah blah. But I don’t have time for niceties, y’all. Because there’s a very limited number of seats for bishops in the TEC — only 110 dioceses with roughly 300 active bishops in the entire House of Bishops.
TEC has been ordaining women to the priesthood for 40 years. By my count (correct me if I’m wrong), fifteen women have been ordained bishop in the TEC since the first woman, Barbara Harris, was ordained bishop in 1989. Know how many men have been ordained bishop since her? Guess. No really.

TWO HUNDRED SIXTY SEVEN.
In October 2016, the first black woman was elected as a bishop diocesan (i.e., the head bishop of the diocese. the head honcho. the big cahuna. i.e., not a sidekick bishop). THAT’S LAST YEAR. LIKE, NINE MONTHS AGO.
For crying out loud, the friggin’ Church of England has only been ordaining women to the priesthood since the early 90’s and to the episcopate since 2014 — and they already have EIGHT women on board. At that rate, they will have passed the cumulative number of lady bishops in the TEC by 2020!
(Yes, I do math, too.)

I’m not going to waste my time rolling out all the reasons why this situation screams misogyny and racism and the sick ways they intersect in the Church. (If you need that, please enroll in your nearest Women’s Studies or Africana Studies 101 course.)
But I will tell you why it’s not godly. Since the Episcopal Church’s primary authority for all things godly is the BIBLE (see BCP pp. 877: Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, among other sources), let’s start with Scripture. For one, Jesus was all about empowering and including women and outsiders. Hell, the “Apostle to the Apostles” was Mary Magdalene. Paul was all about some lady leadership in the early Church too: a full third of the names listing church leaders-movers-and-shakers in Romans 16 are women, not to mention all the other women he mentions by name (= mui significado) in his other authentic letters, as he encourages the recipient to support them in their ministry. The vision for the Church that Paul acted on was one that required he go to all ends of the then-known-world to reach people from all different parts of the then-Empire and bring them fully in to God’s family and Body: life in the Roman Empire was richly multi-ethnic, and so too was the early Church.
Secondly, God made a beautiful, diverse world. I lived and breathed ecology and biology until I was 22, and I know the science: study after study shows that the most robust and resilient communities in the plant world are those that are diverse. Monocultures die out fast. Jesus was all about the agricultural metaphors, my friend. For the Church, that means that every kind of person must be valued on all levels of participation and leadership.
Thirdly, it’s all about the Holy Spirit — you know, the member of the Trinity that breathes life into the Church and makes it Christ’s Body in this world. If the Holy Spirit truly called the Episcopal Church to ordain women as priests and bishops (and I believe She did), then I doubt She intended for only a few to be ordained bishops. I mean, what’s the point, otherwise? Token lady bishops?
I read some white men commenting about this latest bishop’s election. I expected the typical, “What’s wrong with white men? Why are you all so angry? We haven’t done anything wrong.” However, I was surprised and heartened to see one man write that if our underlying biases are getting in the way of the Holy Spirit then the Church is doing something seriously wrong. I not only agree, I’ll go so far as to say that that very misogyny and racism is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
Not only that, but I don’t buy the whole “We haven’t done anything wrong” script. White men: you are not helpless when you are tapped for a higher position. You have not been pressed into service. Just because you passively and easily receive a job offer that others have had to fight and scrape for doesn’t mean that you are off the hook. White men, if you are tapped by a search committee for any higher position in the Episcopal Church, such as rector of a cardinal parish or bishop, it is your duty as a Christian to step out. That’s right: Take yourself out of the running.

We minorities have fought — and are still fighting — the good fight. We’ve jumped through your hoops. We’ve taken your GOEs (conveniently instituted as women’s ordination was on the horizon — you know, just to ensure the quality of candidates to ordination). We’ve been judicious and pastoral in our criticism of the patriarchy. We are pushing a boulder up the hill. White men, at best you are standing beside us critiquing our strength — at worst YOU ARE STANDING ON TOP OF IT.

You are not boys. You are men. Just because your participation in a dysfunctional system that favors you is passive does not mean you have no agency. A choice made passively is a choice made actively. There are clearly a limited number of elite positions in the Episcopal Church, and if you belong to the group of people who is hogging all the spots, then you have the obligation to step back and step out.
Don’t get me wrong: God will do the best God can with anyone in any position. I suspect that many of the white male bishops who are elected are well-qualified. But so are the non-white, non-male candidates. And the Body of Christ is way off-balance, and not by God’s design. And if white men don’t move over so the rest of us can balance her out, she’s going to topple over. It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty to give God thanks and praise at all times and in all places. My read on that is that we must continually turn away from our egos and our self-advancement and back towards God and the rest of the flock.
“That’s a big sacrifice!” you might say. Yes, you’re right. It is. That’s what we do as Christians:
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
(Philippians 2:3–8)
We make sacrifices for our Faith — you know, that godly thing we share and can only experience as a community.
I know you can do it.
So what’s all this got to do with Martin Luther?
My Benedictine monk friend has explained to me that we have to be hospitable and loving to those parts of ourselves we don’t like. Only then can we truly let them go so God can redeem them. It takes practice to observe your mental or emotional state in the first place, and even more practice handing it over to God. I admit I’m still a beginner at this.
Well, I kinda realized that I was lying there just shadow boxing and spinning my wheels, working myself up and getting nowhere with my anger. I stopped what I was doing and, without self-judgment*, I sincerely asked God, “Why am I shadow boxing about misogyny and racism in the Church? Why do I feel this rage?”
Well, wouldn’t you know it: the Holy Spirit brought me the giggles with an answer. I just need to learn how to curse and insult like Martin Luther.
Enough of polite rhetoric! Enough of being “ladylike.” “You teach the disorderly masses to break into this field in disorder like pigs.” Yeah! That feels better! Oo, or “You are such outrageous, shameless blockheads.” DAMN STRAIGHT, Marty — you go girl! Oh, sorry, I got carried away….

This article may be harsh, but I’m pissed, and I’m not alone: a lot of women clergy are. And we’re talking to each other. IRL AND ON SOCIAL MEDIA. (If that’s surprising to you, you may ask yourself why you don’t know.)
But one of the best ways to beat the Devil is to laugh, and laugh at him. And by golly, I really appreciate that chuckle the Holy Spirit sent me. And thank you, St. Martin, for the comedic fodder.
It loosened my soul up enough to write this post.
