sister Phoebe

I don’t completely buy the whole idea of white privileged, but not because I’m not privileged. I am. I just know plenty of white folks who aren’t. But it’s good to be reminded once in a while that most other people aren’t just like me, because God likes it that way.

I thought about that today as I read the last chapter of Romans.  Most of the chapter is greetings and commendations, but midway through there’s this admonition, from Romans 16:17: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.”

By itself, a familiar caution, but I immediately went back to the very first reference, in verses 1-2: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.”

Sister Phoebe was a deacon in a time when women often didn’t have much status. Sister Phoebe was a deacon centuries and even millennia before my denomination allowed women to be deacons. In fact, the debate over appropriate roles for women in public church life continues in many churches.

I don’t want to fight that fight here, but it makes me wonder how many other dividing lines we draw in the church that we wouldn’t have to. We qualify people based on age, education, experience, and demographics. We measure people by their positions on issues, and most pointedly by their agreement with our positions. Are those some of the divisions and obstacles Paul warns about?

It seems to me there are enough people trying to exclude other people for various reasons. I think I want to be known as the guy who always wants to include people.