You may be wondering why in the world I would ever preach from this section of First Corinthians that includes the verses about women being both silent and subordinate in church. Indeed, the translation found in the NRSV Bible says that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. If I took that particular text too literally, that could make my sermon for today a whole lot shorter. But instead, if you look at the context for these couple of verses about women, they are considered parenthetical to this larger text anyway about appropriate worship. In fact, various early manuscripts of scripture put verses 34 and 35 in different parts of the passage, so for whatever reason, they seem to be added as an afterthought to coincide with the customs and laws of that day.

In the larger text Paul is trying to make some very important points about worship and the worshipping community that get lost when we focus too tightly in on what it says about what women should or shouldn't do. The concept of "decently and in order" in the Corinthian letter speaks to concepts that are still vitally important for worship. One of Paul's essentials is that all things in worship are to be done for "building up" the community of faith. Any songs, lessons, revelations, prophecies, prayers, or interpretations that are included in worship should have the primary purpose of building up the family of faith. That doesn't mean we are limited to a watered down version of worship that tries to make everyone happy, but it does mean that worship is intended to guide and nurture the gathered community as well as honor our relationship with God. Paul also addresses the kind of leadership that is appropriate for a worship setting. Interestingly, he suggests that worship leaders follow the kind of guidance that we hopefully learned back in Kindergarten: things like taking turns and being sensitive in deciding when to speak and when to listen. For Paul, worship is not a professional show for entertainment put on by trained clergy-types. In worship, he says, all can prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. He seems much more inclusive in this than verses 34 and 35 would have us think. And by all means, questioning what one's worship leaders say is not only OK, it's expected. When two or three prophets speak, the others are told to weigh what has been said. So after saying all this about building up, learning, encouraging, and growing together through worship, his final remark to those claiming to have any spiritual gift for leadership is to know that these worship guidelines come from God - so anyone unwilling to recognize the community nature of this enterprise ought not be recognized in the church. This, this is what decently and in order means from a scriptural point of view.

When we leap forward in history to Reformed Christianity and the concepts common to many Protestant traditions, the repeated refrain is that the true church can be found where the Word of God is rightly preached, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rightly administered. Here again, we get a concept that there is a "right" way, an orderly way, a decent way to worship. And once again worship is thought to be the foundation of the Christian community. However, it's very easy in our human way of thinking to begin to identify our own customs, traditions, preferences or policy as the basis for determining what's "right" about worship. Once we do that, it's just like focusing on the admonitions about women speaking in worship to the neglect of what else Paul has to say. Right preaching and right sacramental theology still go back to Paul's concepts of God's order as superseding anything relative to our sense of order. We can write policy about orderly worship until our fingers go numb with carpal tunnel - but the basics still apply. Right worship in the true church always builds up the community, involves everyone, and helps us to learn and grow in our knowledge of God and ourselves.

Therefore, John Knox, who was understandably highly critical of the corruption found in church of his day, added a third criterion for recognizing the marks of the true church. He said that the true church was to also known by those churches where "ecclesiastical discipline [was] uprightly ministered." (Rogers, 90) Though there are many places where I find John Knox to be troubling, I think he makes an important point with this addition that is too often lost on the contemporary church. Just like in Knox's Scotland, today's church is rife with scandal. Sadly, in the media and in just about every other public forum, churches are identified more often with their corruption than with all the good that they do. Sex scandals, money scandals, and all sorts of unscrupulous behaviors from hypocrisy to downright meanness are not all that well hidden in the church - though the perpetrators of such scandals seem to find an over-abundance of mercy when the systems of church justice try to deal with such offenses. I think this has far more to do with our fear in dealing with bad behaviors than it does about our understanding of forgiveness as a Christian value. I say this because what I find is that the Christian sense of discipline tends to be mute in the areas precisely where scripture speaks the loudest, and tends to be loud in those places where we are trying to preserve our own prejudices with what little scriptural back up tells us about those things.

It comes down to this. In our covenant life together, are we being shaped by our own ideas about order or by the values that determine God's order? Paul speaks with authority when he talks about sharing God's sense of order. But we may wonder when we consult either God's Word or come to God in prayer - how do we really determine if God is speaking to us? And if God is speaking to us, what are we doing to follow the wisdom that comes from God? One way God's Wisdom comes to us is as proverbial woman wisdom who takes her stand at the crossroads. She speaks in truth, abhors evil, and always walks in the ways of righteousness and along the paths of justice. Those who love her are richly rewarded with treasures better than jewels or gold. This woman speaks not only in church but in the pages of scripture as one who has intimate knowledge of God's desires for humankind.

The Book of Order tells us that the covenant life is marked - marked by a disciplined concern for order - marked by God's Word preached, heard, and discussed over Sunday lunch - marked by the grace of our sacraments that claim us as God's own through the waters of baptism and renew us in that grace at the table - marked by the discipline we exercise as we listen to each other, learn, and grow in our faith. It's no secret that the church is identified by her marks, since they are visible signs the outside world can see. And we have the responsibility to make the best of those marks, for people are drawn to the true church through both the workings of the Holy Spirit and the tangible love of God's people felt through particular communities of faith.

As we work out that covenant life, it's interesting to me that the discipline section of our Book of Order seems to be the fastest growing section of our polity. Out of necessity we're writing a lot about the processes required to deal with secular litigation, and at the same time we are hesitant to use discipline in the church at the local level. It insults our concepts of individual responsibility, but in the true church we submit to something other than a "me first" attitude. The church is about life together. Discipline helps us to have a better community. In living the covenant life, it matters if I can forgive you and can forgive me. Sometimes that can only happen if we can speak the truth in love. By following that biblical concept, we can name and therefore change the behaviors that tear down the community rather than building it up. The basic premise of honoring discipline as a community boils down to what it means to live in a meaningful way with people who think, speak, and act differently from one another. We cast broad boundaries and yet we want to protect the most vulnerable in our midst from harm. So you'll hear refrains of Paul in our understanding of church discipline that comes from the Book of Order and says, "The power that Jesus Christ has vested in his Church, a power manifested in the exercise of church discipline, is one for building up the body of Christ, not for destroying it, for redeeming, not for punishing. It should be exercised as a dispensation of mercy and not of wrath so that the great ends of the Church may be achieved, that all children of God may be presented as faultless in the day of Christ."

In our worship, in our fellowship, in all our mission and ministry, we can make our priorities to care for one another and to encourage each other to grow in love. When we do those things, we bear the marks of the true church and live more fully in the Covenant Life, a life that reveals God's love and grace to us over and over again.

Amen.