Scriptural Basis
Luke 10:1-9 (NRSV)
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.'"Blog Reflection
About this Commemoration
Named by her father “much beloved daughter,” Li Tim-Oi was born in Hong Kong in 1907. When she was baptized as a student, she chose the name of Florence in honor of Florence Nightingale. Florence studied at Union Theological College in Guangzhou (Canton). In 1938, upon graduation, she served in a lay capacity, first in Kowloon and then in nearby Macao.
In May 1941 Florence was ordained deaconess. Some months later Hong Kong fell to Japanese invaders, and priests could not travel to Macao to celebrate the Eucharist. Despite this setback, Florence continued her ministry. Her work came to the attention of Bishop Ronald Hall of Hong Kong, who decided that “God’s work would reap better results if she had the proper title” of priest.
On January 25, 1944, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Bishop Hall ordained her priest, the first woman so ordained in the Anglican Communion.
When World War II came to an end, Florence Li Tim-Oi’s ordination was the subject of much controversy. She made the personal decision not to exercise her priesthood until it was acknowledged by the wider Anglican Communion. Undeterred, she continued to minister with great faithfulness, and in 1947 was appointed rector of St. Barnabas Church in Hepu where,on Bishop Hall’s instructions, she was still to be called priest.
When the Communists came to power in China in 1949, Florence undertook theological studies in Beijing to further understand the implications of the Three-Self Movement (self-rule, self-support, and self- propagation) which now determined the life of the churches. She then moved to Guangzhou to teach and to serve at the Cathedral of Our Savior. However, for sixteen years, from 1958 onwards, during the Cultural Revolution, all churches were closed. Florence was forced to work first on a farm and then in a factory. Accused of counter revolutionary activity, she was required to undergo political re-education. Finally, in 1974, she was allowed to retire from her work in the factory.
In 1979 the churches reopened, and Florence resumed her public ministry. Then, two years later, she was allowed to visit family members living in Canada. While there, to her great joy, she was licensed as a priest in the Diocese of Montreal and later in the Diocese of Toronto,where she finally settled, until her death on February 26, 1992. (Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, page 186).
The Gospel reading chosen for today's commemoration is so very appropriate. Jesus chose seventy others included in the twelve he had already called. Among those seventy there were undoubtedly women. There were most likely lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning people among those seventy who were sent out. Given that the region that Jesus lived in there is a good possibility that they were all middle-eastern people, if not very few Caucasians. How then, has the Church over these two thousand or so years become so narrow minded? How has the Anglicized Church of a middle-eastern Jewish carpenter become so full of people who want the doors, pulpits, sacraments and places of leadership closed to every body who is not white, male, heterosexual, healthy, wealthy etc? How very interesting that the first woman Priest of the Anglican Communion was Japanese. And of all years for the first woman Priest, who was Japanese, to be ordained, the year 1944.
As with any new door that is opened, the first woman Priest faced the worst controversy and back lash. Just as Bishop Gene Robinson has received death threats, hate mail, email and horrible treatment because he is the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church. The outrageous comments that came before and after the ordination of Suffragan Bishop Mary Glasspool by the Archbishop of Canterbury are bitter and not so distant memories for most of us. I remember when Bishop Barbara Harris was ordained the first woman Bishop and all the ground shaking anger that followed that wonderful event.
The issue of women's ordination to the Priesthood and to be Bishops continues to be a very controversial issue. There remains many parts of the Anglican Communion that are divided over the issue of women clergy and ordaining openly LGBT individuals as Bishops, Priests and Deacons.
To be open to new things happening in our lives and the Church requires an opening to the movement of the Holy Spirit. The Life-Giver that is the Holy Spirit never stops moving us to new and exciting opportunities for personal and social transformation. The Jesus Christ event that we celebrate as Christians opened humankind to going forth from what we have learned to knowing and understanding that God is not finished with us just because we have met Jesus in the comfort of our church pews and altars. The visit and withdrawal to our churches is to rest in God just for a little while, and then be sent forth as one of Christ's many followers into the world. Having been fed by the Word and nourished by Christ's Real Presence we are sent forth to make God's Presence real in our lives and the lives of others. If we leave with our hearts and minds closed to the movement of God the Holy Spirit to teach us new things, then we have left God back at our favorite pew when we exited our churches. All we have done is used God to politely knock on our Pandoras Boxes while we insist that they remain closed. But, the Holy Spirit with her gentle and moving grace never leaves us alone with our boxes closed. She wants to rip them open and take us to new opportunities for the Advocate to work in and through our lives.
The acceptance of ordaining women to the Priesthood was a difficult change for me. You see, I had been an arch-conservative Roman Catholic up to the time I left the Courage RC ex-gay group. When I finally faced the reality that I could not remain a Roman Catholic because I wanted to be true to God and myself about being gay, I chose to visit St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral. Upon our first two weeks that Jason and I started worshiping there, I was met with my own prejudice by seeing then Canon Cara Spacarelli (now Rector of Christ Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC) wearing an Anglican clerics clothing. As a Roman Catholic I was convinced that the Catholic church's reasons for not ordaining women was correct. They claim that they do not ordain women because in their minds, women cannot bring about Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist because they do not share the "maleness" of Christ. Once I began to open my heart to the Holy Spirit to transform my thinking, I began to reconsider that idea by asking myself the following question. If Jesus first came into the world through the womb of a Virgin Mother named Mary in a miraculous way that cannot be explained, then why can't Jesus also come to us in a way we cannot explain through a female Priest as she offers the Eucharistic Prayer? I further asked myself: is God really limited to our human thinking, or are we ready to admit that God can do things beyond our limited understanding? As I employed the gift of Reason into my understanding of Scripture and Tradition it also led me to the belief that Mary was the first female Priest. She offered herself to the use of God, to bring about through the sacrifice of her will, that wonderful event of God's perfect revelation in Jesus Christ. And, while all the other disciples fled in fear for their lives it was Mary, who stood at the foot of the Cross with John and offering her son through her own pain and anguish in total surrender to God's will for the salvation of Humankind. Is that not what a Priest does through her or his work?
As we recall the ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi as the first woman Priest in the Anglican Communion, let us also ask ourselves what changes is God the Holy Spirit asking us to open up to? Are we participants in the work of transformation that the Holy Spirit wants to do through us, or are we obstacles in her way? How can we more open ourselves to the changes that God, the Mother, the Holy Spirit wants to do through our lives? Be ready for the Holy Spirit to help you answer those questions.
Prayers
Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much-beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion: By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Commemoration of the Ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi, Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, page 187).
Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Book of Common Prayer, page 215).
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, page 816).
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