Excerpt from Romans 16:1-16  

"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."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

Sometimes we can glimpse the future through an individual.  In some people, the future seems to arrive ahead of schedule.

In some of his letters, the Apostle Paul limited the role of women in the church.  For instance, he wrote that women should be silent in church (which, you have to admit, is pretty limiting).  But here, as Paul writes to the Romans, he commends a woman named Phoebe to them.  She will soon be traveling to Rome, and Paul wants to make sure that she is properly received.  He uses the title "deacon" (some translations render her title as "minister") in recognition of her authority.  He then admonishes the members of the Roman church to do whatever she might need or ask.  Whatever Paul may have thought of women's role in the church in general, in Phoebe he caught a glimpse of the future.  

When my grandmother was fourteen years old, in the late 1800s, she told her Presbyterian minister that she felt called to the ministry.  He informed her that she must be mistaken because God doesn't call women into the ministry.  So my grandmother went in search of a denomination that would ordain her.  She was ordained in 1902 in the Christian Church, a predecessor denomination of our United Church of Christ.  I am proud that our United Church of Christ consistently seems to be able to catch early glimpses of the future.

Prayer

Dear God, keep us open to the glimpses of the future, your future, that we see around us this day.  Amen.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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