Jesus said to them, "My wife..."

If you have been following the news recently, you may have heard about the recently uncovered Coptic text which may indicate a belief in early Christianity that Jesus had a wife.  This fragment of papyrus from the second century, appears to be a sacred text along with similar texts like the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Thomas that did not make the traditional canon of Christianity but seem to display an alternative interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus.

There are many questions that have risen as a result of this finding, everything from "who are Coptic Christians?" to what kind of authority this text has.  Some have argued that if Jesus had a wife who was his disciple, this would open up all kinds of possibilities for women in leadership in the church which many denominations have so far denied them. 

I want to outline a little historical perspective on this issue and then offer an alternative opinion, that I believe our obsession with Jesus having a wife actually is an attempt to domesticate Jesus and keep women in a subordinate position to men.  I believe that a celibate Jesus, who calls women and men to discipleship, helps us see a more true equality between genders than a married Jesus would.

Coptic Christians

Who are Coptic Christians?  This question has led me back into my church history textbooks, which has been a healthy intellectual exercise this week.  It is a confusing history, but the emergance of Coptic Christians goes back to the fourth century and a debate in eastern Christianity around the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus.

In the western Church, most Christians affirmed the paradoxical statement of Tertullian, that in Christ there were two natures united in one person.  In the eastern church, however, there was a desire to spell this out a litle more fully.

This resulted in to primary "schools" of thought regarding the humanity and divinity of Jesus.  There were the Alexandrines, who thought a primary emphasis should be on Jesus as a teacher of divine truth.  Because of this emphasis, the divinity of Jesus is the primary lens through which we should understand his person.  Antiochenes, however, felt that in order for Jesus to be the savior, for his death to have significance for our lives, he had to be fully human, fully part of our condition and life.  They felt the Alexandrine diminished this full humanity of Jesus. 

Eutyches

There were several councils and fights about all this, but in relation to Coptic Christianity everything really came to a head in 444, a debate around the teachings of a monk named Eutyches.  Eutyches said really confusing things about the humanity and divinity of Jesus, things like wile the Savior was "of one substance with the Father," he was not "of one substance with us."  He also said that Christ was "from two nature before the union, but in one nature after the union." 

This greatly upset the Patriach of Constantinople, Flavian, who was strongly Antiochene (emphasis on the humanity of Jesus) and thought Eutyches was preaching something close to docetism (a heresy that states that Christ has two natures that do not unite in the one person).  Eutyches was thus condemned as a heretic.

In the end, the eastern church resolved their conflict with the "Definition of faith," that ultimately placed them back in the orthodoxy of the western tradition, that Christ is fully human and fully God, two natures united in one person, distinct yet not separated.

There were dissenters in this movement, however, some of whom wanted to emphasize the unity of Jesus over his two natures.  These became known as "monophysites" (from mono = one and physis = nature).  In the Byzantine Empires, the strongholds fro monophysism were in Egypt and Syria, where the oldest natural Egyptians, the Copts, were oppressed by the empire.  This mix of nationalism and theology came to form the Coptic Church in Egypt, a monophysite tradition.

Today the Coptic Church has between 12 and 18 million members, and ten percent of Egyptian citizens belong to this church.

Where does this scrap of Papyrus come from?

From my research this text is dated back to the fourth century AD and seems to be in a similar tradition to texts we refer to as the Gnostic Gospels.  Gnosticism was an expression of Christianity that arose within the first hundred years of the church and was ultimately rejected.  Gnosticism wanted to focus the faith on a "secret knowledge" that Christ comes to reveal.

There is a large amount of Platonic dualism that separates a pure soul from the wicked body.  Because of this, the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus becomes less important than the wisdom he sought to dispel.  True faith, then, is coming to understand that knowledge.

This expression was rejected because it seemed to minimize the role of the cross and scale back the cost of bodily discipleship that the canonized Gospels profess.

Does Jesus having a wife help women in the church?

Dr. Gail Streete

One of the proposed conclusions from this study of this scrap of papyrus is that if Jesus had a wife, this could show the value he placed in women, thus helping the case for women's leadership in the church.  When I was in college, I took at class called Sex and Gender in the New Testament caught by Dr. Gail Streete.  This was just as  Dan Brown's Davinci Code was coming out, and so this notion of Jesus' sexual life was a major topic of conversation then as it is now.

Dr. Streete made a proposal to our class that I tend to support and believe as well.  Her argument was that it is our modern reading of the scripture that makes us want Jesus to have a wife because we cannot conceive of a full human being not driven by sexual impulse.  We cannot conceive of a man and woman in a mutual relationship without a desire for sex being a primary factor.

Dr. Streete argued that this sexualized interpretation of Jesus actually does more to harm the role of women in the church than to enhance their leadership because it objectifies them as sexual objects.  It is almost as if we cannot comprehend that possibly Jesus called these women (Mary Magdalene, sisters Mary and Martha, etc.) to be disciples alongside the twelve named apostles.  We don't sexualize Jesus' relationship with Peter, James, and John so why do we sexual his relationship with female disciples?

I believe, however, that if we want to raise the role of women to greater equality in discipleship, we have to begin to think of the women in the New Testament as full disciples and not sexual objects.  I know it is sometimes hard to think that maybe Jesus wasn't as obsessed with sex as we are.  I think Jesus' life was a testimony to a new kind of family relationship he was forming in the church, and I believed he called both women and men into the fullness of that mission and ministry.

As a result, I do not put too much stock in this papyrus as some kind of revolutionary discovery for the Christian religion.  I think it is interesting to make note of it.  I believe a thorough study of our past is a good thing.  I just believe this is a more sensational response to this story than might be warranted in the larger picture of the history of Christian thought.

September Eldertorial: Linda Noonkesser

Perhaps it was the title that first resonated with me, inciting a curious peek at an article entitled "Missing Jesus" by Jonathan Martin, or perhaps it was a personal response to the thought of Jesus among us, but unrecognized.

As Martin observes, most of us as believers, while standing firm in the faith, are often a bit disconcerted by the Jesus of Nazareth who makes a practice of appear-ing in the most unexpected and disruptive of places. This Jesus challenges all of us by refusing to be constrained into acting the role of the mascot or symbol, by refusing to be afraid and in need of defense. He challenges us to put Him in the center, not on the edge, serving not only as our Lord, but also as the relevant standard against which all questions and decisions are measured.

Is the active, surprising Jesus of the New Testament being overlooked in our church? I got some answers ra-ther quickly just by attending the August Family Night Supper where our young people so passionately spoke of their encounters with Jesus as they ministered to the needy at Sunset Gap. Also I noticed the loving prepara-tion of food, offered to any and all, by the hard-working volunteer groups who are so faithful in every function. Many of us found Jesus in learning new music for worship, and there were chats, smiles and hugs as Jesus’ love was passed among us.

After the supper and program concluded, I noted the colorful bulletin boards in the hallway which spoke to the many activities for youth, education, evangelism, church maintenance- all supported faithfully by church members and friends. And then there were the dedicated members of the mission committee responding to requests for aid coming from every direction, and doing that task with prayerful care. A tour of the church yard showcased hours of quiet tending providing a lovely setting for medi-tation and a welcoming approach to our building. All an-swering my question-Jesus is not overlooked!

Yet we are challenged anew each day to look for Jesus in those unexplored places, events, opportunities where He is already working- places where compassion and mer-cy are most needed. Jesus "relentlessly" loved people and demonstrated that by standing up for the oppressed (economically or socially), the hurting and those whose wounds were less visible, but only too real.

Phrases of an old hymn come to mind…"Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow; We will follow the steps of Jesus wherever they go." Can we as a congregation even more prayerfully follow the steps of an active, caring Jesus?

Flood Waters

"The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.  The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.  May the Lord give strenth to his people!  May the Lord bless his people forever!" -Psalm 29: 3-4, 10-11.

Tuesday morning began with a surprise as I found that water had leaked into our basement fellowship hall, covering roughly two thirds of the floor.  This is a problem that has occurred since I arrived, and we have spent time and money attempting to solve the problem, but with five inches of rain in twenty-four hours, even the additional precautions did not hold up. 

As a result I was walking through puddles, surveying the damage to the merchandise for our church mission yard sale scheduled for early October.  It need not be said that this was not how I was predicting I would spend my Tuesday.

At 8:30 I began making phone calls, to the Building and Grounds Committee Chair and to another elder on that committee who works on caulking and waterproofing.  Within twenty minutes they had both arrived with mops and shop vacs, and after a short survey of the damage, they began moving boxes and cleaning up the water.

Within the next thirty minutes, an additional six people arrived, more shop vacs, more available hands.  There was no sense of panic, no chaos, just people with their hands down and hands at work throwing away soaking cardboard, sorting through merchandise that could dry out or needed to be thrown away.  They began moving boxes to the upper floor to protect them from any future flooding issues. 

I realized rather quickly that my schedule for the day was not going to be terribly interrupted because the members of the church had sprung into action to take care of the problem.  Because of their efforts, I was able to continue preparation for Sunday worship, trusting that our water problem would be cared for.

Jokingly I came down into the fellowship hall to check on the progress and read to the volunteers the words of the Psalm posted above.  It was to provide a moment of humor, and also offered me a time to offer thanks for their immediate and thorough response to the need.

I do think, however, that this Psalm reminds us of the ambiguous nature of water.  Water is necessary for life, for cleaning and drinking.  We need it to water crops for food production.  It provides an element of beauty when we sit by a lake, float down a river, or gaze out at the horizon over the vast ocean.

Water can also be destructive, causing flooding that does significantly more damage than our flooded basement, destroying homes and lives.  It destroys family treasures, photographs and artifacts that we have saved from important moments in our lives.  Too much water can drown our crops or our yards. 

Water is a necessary resouce to life but it can also destroy life.

Maybe this Psalm can serve as a reminder that our God is not an ambiguous resource who randomly causes good or evil in life.  Our God actually sits enthroned over the waters, forming the world out of the chaos of the waters, bringing new life through the waters of the Red Sea and the waters of our baptism, and promises a river of life at the end of history where the throne of God will sit.

And so when basements flood, we do not fear that we are at the mercy of a random natural element that can create or destroy life.  We do not inhabit a world only of chaos and random chance. 

We trust in a God who provides through the means of water and who heals when the waters cause destruction.  Therefore, when basements flood, God sends faithful saints to clean out boxes and mop up messes, because God's purposes will not be ultimately thwarted by weather patterns. 

We do not, therefore, seek to interpret weather patterns, floods and droughts, as signs of God's abandonment or blessing.  We know that the rains fall on both the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45).  Instead we place our trust in a God who rules over the waters, who provides both the natural as well as the human resources we need.  This is the God who can create the world out of nothing and who brings life out of death.

I am grateful this day for the saints who witnessed to the power of our God through their humble and tireless service to make sure that God's purposes of mission were able to continue despite natural set backs in our daily routine.

Meet Patrick Harley

As part of a connected denomination, pastors and ruling elders share responsibilities of carrying out the mission of the presbytery.  Our presbytery, composed of sixty-seven congregations in northeast Tennessee, possesses certain functions that congregations alone cannot carry out.  One of these is the preparation for ministry of women and men who have responded to God's call to enter ordained ministry to serve as teaching elders in the Church.

The Committee on Preparation for Ministry walks with these students through their seminary experience, and seek to evaluate their progress and provide mutual discernment for where God is calling them to serve.  I can attest from going through the experience in recent memory, it can feel somewhat tedious and laborious, filling out pages and pages of paperwork, organizing meetings, and traveling to presbytery events, but the work we carry out really is necessary if we believe in a system of mutual support and accountability.

Those seeking to become ordained in ministry must go through a series of steps with the presbytery that takes roughly three years, in addition to completing the Master's of Divinity Degree (which first requires a bacculaurete degree) and passing five denominational Ordination Exams.

Through the experience, the inquirer (the term for someone in discernment ) and later candidate (the stage to which the person moves if she or he indeed feels led to ordained service) is given a liason to accompany them through the journey.

I had a wonderful liason on my presbytery in East Tennessee, when I was in the ordination process.  The Rev. Dave Webster would contact me each quarter with updates on the process and would elicit information from me about my spiritual growth.  When I was beginning to seek a call, he shared with me from his own experience and asked important questions that helped me to listen more carefully to the Holy Spirit at work.

Because of this experience, I wanted to serve on the CPM so that I might have the chance to provide this care for a future candidate for ministry. 

At our last CPM meeting, I was named as the liason for Patrick Harley.  Patrick is from Greeneville, Tennessee where he was raised at the First Presbyterian Church.  He is a graduate of Auburn University where he majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies, was active in campus ministry, and served as the youth leader at FPC Auburn.  He has served as staff and as a member of planning teams for the Montreat Conference Center and just completed a year with the Young Adult Volunteer program of the PC(USA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

He met with our committee only days after returning to the States, and it was a joy to hear about what God has been doing in his life over the past several years, from the early rumblings of call to ministry as a teenager, to the willingness to step into a foreign context to listen more carefully to God's call.

Patrick and I had a chance to meet for lunch last week before he heads to Decatur, Georgia to begin his studies at Columbia Theological Seminary.  I have appreciated his honesty, his openness, his attentiveness to the Spirit, and I ask the prayers of our church for Patrick as he continues to strive to deepen his walk with the Lord and respond to the call of Jesus in his life.

From our limited time together I feel very clear that the PC(USA) needs thoughtful, compassionate, and energized leadership that Patrick already exudes.  I look forward to walking with him in this journey and hope we might find ways for him to get to know some more members of our congregation as well.

I think it is helpful to see a face behind the money and time we dedicate to our Presbyterian identity.  Indirectly, our church has supported Patrick through our funds that help to maintain the Holston Presbytery Camp and Retreat Center, through denominational gifts that strengthen the Young Adult Volunteer Program and help to put on Youth and College Conferences at Montreat.  I am grateful that this congregation allows me to serve on a presbytery committee and take time to visit with future leaders in the church.  Let us remember that the Church and Mission of Jesus is far greater than our congregation that gathers each week, and let us continue to look and listen to those God puts in our lives to deepen our knowledge of what it means to be the body of Christ.