May 6, 2007
(Fifth Sunday of Easter)

Make No Distinction

By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

Acts 11:1-18  •  Psalm 148  •  Revelation 21:1-6  •  John 13:31-35
(From The Lectionary Page)

On May 5, 1907, in Hong Kong, the Li family welcomed the birth of a daughter. She was named Tim-Oi which means “much beloved daughter.”

Tim-Oi was baptized as a student, and took as her baptismal name “Florence” after Florence Nightingale, ‘The Lady of the Lamp’. She studied at Union Theological College in Guangzhou (Canton). After she graduated in 1938, she served in lay ministry first in Kowloon and later in Macao. She was ordained as a deaconess in May 1941.

Later that year, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese and priests could no longer travel to Macao to celebrate the Eucharist. Tim-Oi continued her ministry, and her work drew the attention of the Bishop of Hong Kong Ronald Hall. Bishop Hall asked Tim-Oi to meet him in Free China, where on 25 January 1944, the feast of the Confession of Peter, he ordained her “a priest in the Church of God,” the first woman ordained to the Sacred Priesthood.

Her ordination caused much controversy after the end of World War II and Tim-Oi surrendered her license to function as a priest, but did not resign her Holy Orders.

The 1948 Lambeth Conference refused to recognize her ordination, as did two successive Archbishops of Canterbury. The Conference (Resolution 113) rejected a request from the Diocese of South China to experiment with ordaining deaconesses to the priesthood.

"The Conference feels bound to reply that in its opinion such an experiment the resolution said.

While Anglican Church Fathers refused to recognize her priesthood, Florence served faithfully and quietly as a priest amidst persecution for 39 years, particularly after the Communists took over mainland China in 1949. Tim-Oi studied theology in Beijing to understand the implications of the Three-Self Movement which had been instituted to govern church life in China. She moved to Guangzhou (Canton) to teach and serve at the Cathedral of Our Savior.

When the government closed all the churches in China between 1958 and 1974, Tim-Oi was forced to work on a farm and then in a factory, and was required to undergo political re-education when she was deemed to be a counter-revolutionary.

During the Maoist persecution Tim-Oi went to the mountains to pray because she did not dare be seen with her Christian friends. Her re-education nearly drove her to suicide. She was forced by the Chinese Red Guard to cut up her vestments with scissors. She was allowed to retire from factory work in 1974, at the age of 67.

In 1983, arrangements were made for her to live in Canada where she was appointed as an honorary assistant at St. John's Chinese congregation and St. Matthew's parish in Toronto. By this time, women were ordained priests in some provinces of the Anglican Communion, and the 1978 Lambeth Conference recognized these ordinations.

In 1984, on the 40th anniversary of her ordination by the Bishop of Hong Kong, the Primate of Canada regularized Tim-Oi’s ordination and she was formally recognized as a priest in the Church of God, though her priesthood had never been in doubt for her. The celebration of her priesthood was held throughout the Communion, including at Westminster Abbey even though the Church of England did not at that time ordain women as priests.

The very quality of Mother Li's ministry in China and in Canada, and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood, helped convince many people through the Anglican Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was certainly working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944.

Tim-Oi, much beloved daughter, a child of God, a priest of Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, died in Toronto, on February 26, 1992. Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of her birth.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter describes one of the most defining moments of our faith. I beg us all not to rush past this reading.

Peter said to the emerging Church that Gentiles are God’s people, too. God’s Holy Spirit is given to anyone who believes, the gifts of the Spirit are found in all, and the First Covenant is not the only way for people to come into relationship with God.

Peter describes that this radical inclusion by describing a dream where dietary restrictions are lifted. But the freedom to eat formerly forbidden foods stands for much, much more. And Peter proclaims a truth that shook the foundations of the faith community in his day by saying that a voice said to him: “What God has called clean, you must not call profane.”

And given the ethnic heritage of most of us, we are Christian today because of the defining moment described in this lesson. Further, says Peter, “The Spirit told me to go with them [the Gentiles] and not make a distinction between them and us.”

Making distinctions is a favorite past time in society and in the Church. Often such distinction-making ends up in the vicinity of judging some-thing or some-one as being profane, un-sacred, incapable of being embraced by God. If as much energy was spent on contemplating the other possibility that God can do new things whenever God wishes, then the new heaven and new earth revealed to John would become a vision claimed by us all.

The lessons today are bursting with God’s promise of new life: a new vision of reality, a new Church where all are honored, and a new way of living and being based upon our Lord’s own command: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you.” And how did Jesus love us? Sacrificially, unconditionally, by emptying himself, by serving, by accepting God’s economy and living out God’s vision not partially, not occasionally, but consistently, seamlessly, and unreservedly.

The 1948 Lambeth Conference of Bishops (and do we ever need a world-wide Anglican gathering that brings together all the baptized and not just bishops) said that Florence Li Tim-Oi’s ordination should not be recognized because it would be against “tradition and order and would gravely affect the internal and external relations of the Anglican Communion," and that was true. There are no words that let us know if reasons for recognizing her Orders were seriously considered, so wondering “what if” is not particularly helpful.

But what we do know is that today, looking back, we find those reasons of 1948 do not hold the same meaning for us nearly 60 years later. Like the event described in today’s reading from Acts, defining historical moments do come our way. As Anglicans, we have a heritage of ecclesial testing that has often lead to a new direction. (Anyone else been watching The Tudors on Showtime?)

Thus, it is a part of ancient tradition, as well as a part of being Anglican, to gather as the Church and consider in every age that which the Holy Spirit may be leading us to do differently. That is not carte blanche to change any thing, but it is reason enough to seriously consider that God might be calling us to new things.

Forty years after her ordination, Li Tim-Oi met Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie at Lambeth Palace, and afterwards, he said to Canadian Archbishop Ted Scott: "Who am I to say whom God could or could not call?''

Let us leave those decisions up to God. In the meantime, let us be about the work Christ has given us to do: to love one another.

Tim-Oi’s example of commitment should inspire us. [In a few moments we bless a 50th wedding anniversary, and that sacred commitment should inspire us.]

And if we find ourselves at this very moment in a situation as did Tim-Oi in 1948 when few could recognize how God was at work in her, if today we are marginalized, persecuted or labeled because of our gender or race or sexuality or for any other reason not fit the norm and are denied dignity and respect in the Church or the world, let us not lose heart. For Gentiles are now in God’s family, and women are now priests, and as the Holy Spirit is constantly at work in us, the day will come when St. John’s vision of a new heaven and new earth will be fulfilled. That reality already exists in God’s Heart and will one day reign in all our hearts.

Alleluia – Christ is risen!

Let us keep on loving.

Let us embrace what God calls clean.

Let us make no distinctions.

For God in Christ is making all things news.