 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Wednesday, March 8, 2023 International Women’s Day Why do we celebrate?  We are grateful to be Episcopal women: -to be part of a church that, although it did not always recognize the equal dignity of every (female) human being, does so now, -to rejoice in women serving the Lord as priests deacons, lay women and bishops across the world where the Anglican Communion exists, -to thank the women who persevered and persisted and defied tradition and sometimes their own bishops, are the very ones we now celebrate as the holy pioneers they were -that the diocese of West Missouri has had a goodly number of these women clergy, and extraordinary laywomen bearing witness to God in Christ ever since those earliest priestly ordinations and long before -that if anyone in the Diocese of West Missouri had any doubt about whether a woman could actually serve the Church honorably and beautifully, and with grace and love as well as strength as bishop, Diane Jardine Bruce has effectively erased that doubt. And we are grateful that we continue to stand together as women of God, and to serve the Lord Jesus alongside the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized, persons suffering illness, doubt, fear, and abuse; that we speak out for justice, and call out injustice and oppression as our forebears have done, and that we do not need to wait for permission from any male religious or political authorities to do it. That we know ourselves to be equal to men in our very being, co-heirs with them, children of God, witnesses to the Lord, co-equally responsible to be preachers and teachers, liturgists, and in everything, servants of Christ the Lord.    Paul – Romans 16 “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you…Greet Prisca (the woman) and Aquila (her husband) who work with me for Christ Jesus…and the church in their house…Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you…Greet Andronicus and Junia (a woman) my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles…” Paul – Galatians3: 27-28 As many of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.    |
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