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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">Forwarded:</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><table data-dojo-attach-point="fullFromTable" class="fullFromTable" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; border-spacing: 5px 8px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr data-dojo-attach-point="fromRow" class="fieldRow" style="vertical-align: top; margin-top: 4px;"><td class="label" style="outline: none; margin-right: 4px; text-align: right;">From</td><td data-dojo-attach-point="fullFromNode" style="outline: none;"><span data-dojo-attach-point="fullFromNode"><span class="addressItem" style="white-space: nowrap;"><span class="address wsItem" style="padding: 2px 4px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32) !important; background-color: rgb(216, 242, 254) !important;"><span class="addressDispForm" style="font-weight: bold;">robertpmorrison</span> robertpmorrison@charter.net</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">PROVERBS
31:10-31 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">PROPER 20 B</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">JAMES
3:13 -4:3, 7-8a </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">20<sup>th</sup>
SEPTEMBER, 2015</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">MARK
9:30-37 PSALM 1</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> In a cartoon sent to me this week
there was a picture described as “An Irish Sense of Humour”. A woman stood at a
sink overflowing with dishes waiting to be washed, the back of her hand wiping
her forehead. She said, “I almost had an ‘I need a man’ moment ….. but then I
was able to get the whiskey bottle open myself.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> How many people can you offend at
one time? Why was there a woman standing at the impossibly full sink, and no
one else appeared to be there to help? Did someone think that was where she was
supposed to be? It’s not guaranteed, but surely there had been at least one man
at the dinner table.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> And what’s with this “I need a man”
moment? Perhaps a second person <span class="textexposedshow"><b><u>CAN</u></b> help, from time to time,
especially if you or I have arthritis, or a bruised finger or hand. But think
of the number of times when the gender of the second person helping has been
entirely insignificant, no matter whether it’s working through that load of
dishes, or opening a bottle, or changing the baby, or just about anything else
you care to mention.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Arial",sans-serif"> And what’s
a bottle of whiskey, Irish, Scotch, or otherwise, got to do with completing the
job at hand?</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> Was the point of that cartoon to
offend, or, like so much else we see and hear, something which grew out of
ignorance or unwillingness to think about the impact of a statement or an
action? Doesn’t it attack the very nature of what it means to be human? Don’t
things like the cartoon simply reinforce stereotypes while, at the same time,
saying that it’s O.K. to single out one person, one group, one nation, and make
disparaging remarks about them? And have I contributed to this simply by
talking about what was sent to me? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> Where does this start? Where does it
stop? When do we realise and accept what it means to be fully human and to
rejoice in all the possibilities God offers?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> The church has been criticized,
rightly, for its history of intolerance, prejudice and abuse. Yes, there have
been some wonderful people, people willing to look and listen to what’s going
on around them, and been willing to respond on behalf of others, often at great
personal cost to themselves. Thank God for those faithful followers of Jesus.
But we have to confront ourselves and others about all the times Christians
have been instigators of shockingly poor theology and perpetrators of the
misuse of scripture to harm others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> Take the first reading, for example.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Arial",sans-serif"> “The </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman"">chapter on the woman of noble character (or the wife of
valor or whatever she’s called) is a poem that closes Proverbs. Unfortunately,
the passage has been used to oppress women, demanding a wife have all the
characteristics listed in the poem. But the beauty of the passage is that the
speaker of the poem praises his wife not simply for her physical beauty, but
for her strength. He admires her fortitude, her wisdom, and her goodness. He
recognizes that beauty is not in the eye but the heart.” <sup>1</sup></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman""> But
we can’t stop there. If we do, we fail the writer of the passage; we fail women
and men everywhere; we fail God, the Inspirer of the poem.</span></div>
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> If
we look behind the words to what is left unspoken, we discover that what the
narrator is praising, what <b><u>WE</u></b>
should be praising, what <b><u>GOD</u></b>
praises, is the shattering of the stained-glass ceiling, or however you want to
characterize the way in which women have been inhibited, have been oppressed,
haven’t been allowed to advance and challenge themselves to reach greater and
greater levels of capability and skill</span>
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mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">===>Continued in Parts 2 and 3</span></div>
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