Do you have a cover story? I'm beginning to think I need one. Let me explain. The nature of my work on behalf of the United Church of Christ dictates that I do a lot of what you're seeing my do right now: Travel around to new places to meet new people to do a new thing in the UCC-- Men's Ministry. As I do this, I frequently find that the journey is at least as engaging as the destination. Because it is during the journey that someone inevitably asks, “So, what do you do?”

Every time that question gets asked, I have to consider for a moment how much I want to get into it. Before I begin to sound terribly suspect, let me clarify: Like Paul in his letter to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” In fact, I am proud to represent the United Church of Christ. And I am honored and humbled to serve as the first designated minister to men in this Denomination's history. But more times than not, people's initial response to my disclosure that I work with men is one of puzzlement, if not downright suspicion.

The reaction of a fellow clergy woman who asked the $64 question over the dinner table at a conference I recently attended sums it up: When I told her that I do men's ministry, she said “What do you mean by 'men's ministry?!'” And I found myself having to respond by speaking to what I didn't mean by men's ministry.

I didn't and don't mean by saying that I am a men's minister, that I am not also a minister to woman and children. I don't mean that I harbor a secret or not-so-secret agenda to use the gospel as a cover for some kind of retrenchment in the seemingly endless gender wars. I am not out to co-opt God or the gospel so that I and other men can reassert our rightful role as “head of the household.” Once she had heard that, she was just fine.

But I find it either discouraging or intriguing, depending on what kind of day I'm having, that I have to defend myself and my flock in this way. What is it about men, and ministry to them, that is so darned scary? As it so happens, I got a couple of e-mails this week that help unpack that question.

The first comes from a colleague of mine who is just about the most liberated and just man I know. But he also knows that he, and I, and lots of other men, are still cultural “works-in-progress.” So he, and I, and more than just a few women in our office and beyond engage in the following kind of humor: “Why Men Should Not Be Ordained.”

1.Men are too emotional to be pastors. Their conduct at football, baseball and basketball games show this.
2.A man's place is in the army.
3.Some men are so handsome they will distract women worshipers.
4.Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.
5.In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinate position that all men should take.
6.Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes other than by fighting about it. Thus, men would be poor role models, as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
7.To be an ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, through history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled at nurturing, but also more attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination to the pastorate.
8.Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, he represents an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of Creation.
9.For men who have children, their pastoral duties might distract them form the responsibility of being a parent.
10.Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof and maybe even lead the singing on Father's Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important to the life of the church.
11.Women will never respect a man dressed in the skirt of a liturgical robe.

Now, to be fair, I laughed at this, too. Men are, after all, fair game around this issue. There are still too many places and too many ways in which such spurious, indeed as the list makes clear ludicrous, arguments are employed by men to keep women out of power in churches, in culture, and in the home. We laugh about such things because it is easier to laugh than to cry. But behind such laughter I sense a serious dilemma, and a note of caution. That note was sounded resonantly in another e-mail I received from a pastor in California. This, I assure you, came to me as no laughing matter:

Dear Rev. Holden:
I am the pastor of the **** Church, UCC.
Our little church is growing-- over half the new members have come in the past three years. This is good news. The single cell is growing into groups, also good news.
However, the forming of a men's group has caused some women (and two men) to become almost militantly opposed. One has resigned membership. The reasoning is that a men's group is exclusionary by nature. The term “Open and Affirming” has been used against some of the very men for whom that term was intended to be liberating, claiming that we are not being open and affirming of women by having such a group, Karl Marx was even recently invoked, and I was told that “This was an outmoded model of human behavior.”
I would love to be in conversation with you to learn more about how to present the men's group in a positive light. The men don't all know about this conflict, but they will soon. I appreciate your assistance.
Yours,
Rev. ****

When people begin to leave churches out of fear, anger, or mistrust towards a group to whom the church ministers, then the time for laughter ends, in my opinion. And the time for reflection begins. Which turns me to this morning's reading from 1 Peter.
In the gender-balanced language of the NRSV the text reads: “Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” In the bible in your pews, rather than admonishing early believers to have “love for one another,” it has Paul saying that they should exhibit “brotherly love.” Well to coin a phrase, or a sermon title, “What do you mean brotherly love?!”

As a matter of translation either rendering, “brotherly love” or “love [for] one another” is essentially correct. The term in Greek is öéëÜäåëöïò (philadelphos) which means “love, as for a brother.” Need I remind us that it does not mean “love for” or “love only for” a brother, or brothers?! My felt need for a cover story, and the two e-mails I received this past week suggest, maybe I do. So here's my challenge and commission to you today: Consider “brotherly love” and give us brothers [mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts and neighbors, too] the benefit of the doubt. In fact, this is not just a challenge or a commission, it's a commandment. At least that's what the gospel says. You know the text: In John, Jesus says these words: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And as Christ gives that commandment, I leave you with a thought: Maybe if, in the church, we spent less time fearing, excluding, and fighting with each other and more time loving each other, like brothers, like sisters, like God's extended family which we claim to be, then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to get quite so exercised by such questions such as “What do you mean men's ministry?!” or “What do you mean 'brotherly love?!'”

It's like the old church camp song “We Are One in the Spirit” says. Do you know it? It's the perfect hymn for this World Communion Sunday. For it says, [if you'll grant me a little liberty... ] as we gather at the World Communion table:

We are and sisters and brothers, by our love, by our love,
We are sisters and brothers, by our love.
Free of fear and resentment, we take comfort from above.
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.
Yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.

Amen.