Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles
I suspect many of us, maybe most of us, have felt at one or another time in our lives that we aren’t really in the Church. By that I mean that we have felt, for this or that reason, that we are outsiders.
The reading today from Luke is, in that regard, a big one for me. Jesus names the Apostles. They are all men. Of course, much has been made since Luke wrote this Gospel of that fact. All men. No women. In the Catholic Church, that has meant that women cannot be priests. In some fundamentalist churches that has meant that women cannot, even in a university context, teach even 18-year old male students about the Bible.
If you have time and interest, Beth Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood is brilliant and very much worth a read. She joins her deep historical knowledge (she’s a medievalist) with her own personal story of growing up in Protestant fundamentalism (which has been making its way into Catholicism for a while now). The book is part really good history and part compelling memoir.
But it’s not just women who, over time, have felt like they aren’t really in the Church. There are others. I felt that when I was a teen in a youth program in a megachurch in the exurbs of Chicago. What I learned there was that I hadn’t had the requisite conversion experience to say that I was an authentic Christian. And that was necessary. I was supposed to have had this dramatic conversion experience. Maybe like Paul on the road to Damascus. Didn’t happen. In the end, I concluded that Jesus didn’t want me. I wasn’t chosen.
So, we have this text from Luke. It’s kind of difficult for those of us who are women. We appear to be clearly on the outside.
But if we attend to history, we aren’t the only ones who have been on the social outside. In the early 20th century, for example, there were a lot of people who were on the outside in America: Italian Catholics, Polish Catholics, Irish Catholics. Actually, any Catholic coming to the US from eastern Europe who was just trying to get a job and make a decent life for their family was on the outside. My grandparents were among them.
I’ve wondered for a long time about Jesus’ list of the Apostles—the chosen. These men. Among them he names Judas. The one who betrays Jesus. He’s among them. He is an Apostle. Of course, Jesus knows when he names him as an Apostle that Judas will betray him. He says as much in Luke’s Gospel. If Jesus can include among the Apostles the one who will betray him, surely he could include women.
One of the things I love about the liturgy is how good it is at pairing readings. So, we have this reading from Luke that seems to say that men are in and women are out. And we have a reading from Ephesians that explicitly addresses “Brothers and Sisters” and goes on to say “You are no longer strangers and sojourners but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.”
I can’t help but wonder if, when Paul was writing this letter, he had in mind Mary—Jesus’ first disciple.
I love it that my parish is devoted in name to Mary and that that the university I have the privilege to teach at was founded by the Marianists.
God works in mysterious ways. Amen.
Sue Trollinger