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worship 1

Call to Worship Let us celebrate our creation, as women and men, in the image of God. Let us proclaim our trust in God’s plans and purpose for the world. Let us acknowledge, in Christ, our call to life and ministry in the world. Let us affirm, in the Spirit, our desire to reflect the brightness of God’s glory through our worship. Let us pray, in the Lord, for our work together in this Women’s Workshop in the coming week.

Song How can our song this time....

Scripture Genesis 1:27-30

Isaiah 66:12-14

Luke 1:39-56

Galatians 3:26-29

Litany Women & Men – Together in the Struggle to be Human

Leader Lord, you made the world and everything in it, you created the human race of one stock and as women and men, and gave us the earth for our possession.

PEOPLE MAKE US ONE IN THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN, AND TO FULFILL YOUR PLANS IN US.

L Lord we have been divisive in our thoughts, words and actions; we have imprisoned one another and assigned roles which have resulted in prejudice and hatred.

P MAKE US ONE IN THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN, AND TO FULFILL YOUR PLANS IN US.

L Lord, you meant us to be a single people, living in peace and enjoying your justice, truly human, men and women, rich in the manifestations of participation, fellowship and love.

P MAKE US ONE IN THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN, AND FULFILL YOUR PLANS IN US.

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L Lord, lead us to ever-new insights into your truth, aware of your will for our lives, courageous to do what is right even when the price is great, persistent in changing structures of injustice, and persevering in our exercise of the ministry of reconciliation.

P MAKE US ONE IN THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN, AND FULFILL YOUR PLANS IN US.

L Lord, give us the gift of your Spirit, that we may burn with compassion for all whose humanity, whether men or women, are not affirmed.

P DIRECT US IN WAYS WE DO NOT YET DISCERN, AND E&UIP US WITH COURAGE TO STRUGGLE, AS WOMEN AND MEN, UNDER THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.

Scripture Gal. 3:26-29

Meditation Nael Cortez

Song We’ve got to do more...

Intercessory Prayers (Leader articulates needs, etc...and PEOPLE respond with the prayers:)

HEAR OUR PRAYERS, 0 GOD. IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST, WHO PRAYS WITH US AND FOR US, TO WHOM BE PRAISE FOR EVER. AMEN.

Dismissal

“WOMEN & MEN-TOGETHER IN THE STRUGGLE TO BE HUMAN”

(Meditations on Galatians 3:26-29)

“There is no such thing as Jew and Greek,

slave and freeman, male and female;

for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.”

Gal. 3:28 (NEB)

It is right that one of our first acts in this Women’s workshop is prayer and worship. This is to refresh ourselves as women and men together in the struggle to be human - of the witness of scripture

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and faith.

The affirmation we make is that the women’s issue is to be taken within the larger subject of HUMAN LIBERATION - of persons and socio-poiitico-economic systems. What we contend against, in the final analysis, are systems which hinder the full flowering of persons created in the image of God- within which oppression of women must specifically be located. We call to mind that a recognition of the role of women in church and society is one of the pre-conditions to full humanization.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he clearly enunciates that the true status of persons, women and men, in the faith is having equality and freedom in Christ.

As you may know, the world of Paul’s time was divided into races, classes, sexes, as indeed they are still now. There were divisions which kept people alienated from one another. Witness the following: the division between Jews and Greeks, free persons and slaves, male and female, etc. Concentrating on women and men, the condition during that time was something like this: A wife was the property of her husband, and her status ranked with slaves and children. The famed scholar of that time Josephus, declared: “In every respect woman is inferior to man”.

But this was not the stand of Jesus who in his life and ministry helped elevate the status of women. The early church, too, on the whole, bore the same message. For example, Paul saw in Galatians 3:26-29 that there ought to be, inspite of differences in status, race, sex, etc., freedom and equality in Christ, which is the overall message of this passage. He saw only too clearly that if divisions of status, race, sex, etc. were preserved in the Church this will be a fatal handicap for its mission and life.

In this passage, moreover, Paul recognizes differences - female and male - in this case, that separately they have functions to perform and that this is not to be a division so that one will be construed as necessarily superior and the other inferior. So that when the Law defines slaves, foreigners, proselytes, wife and children as permanent divisions, then unity is difficult if not impossible. It is in this sense that Paul declared:

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“There is no such thing as Jew and Greek,

slave and freeman, male and female;

for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.”

Finally, we must come to the application of this landmark passage and idea of Paul. Instead of spelling these out, let me invite you to some questions, which I am sure you will try to answer as women and men in this workshop:

What are social relationships related to sex, within the status of women and men, that we must analyse?

In what ways are women today (Asian women) made inferior to men?

How does the church prevent the full flowering of women’s full participation in church and society by attitude, policy, or whatever?

In what ways is it demonstrable that the issue of women, as we aver, belongs to the larger subject of human liberation which is ultimately related to total social liberation?

Gabriele Dietrich, one of our resource persons in this workshop wrote in a poem entitled SONG ABOUT GALATIANS 3:23-29, last stanza:

Praise ye the Lord! His promise is great:

Master and slave shall cease to be,

Nations and Peoples no more shall hate,

Women and men shall all be free.

When we through freedom are all as one,

God’s dwelling here will have begun.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

When God’s dwelling here will have begun, then full humanization is here and the message of GALATIANS 3:26-29 fulfilled, and we shall be, in Christ persons - neither male nor female - but women and men, men and women!