"Power tends to corrupt. And absolute power corrupts absolutely." This famous epigram came from the pen of the 19th-century English historian Lord John Acton. And it sums up a truth that was already well-understood 3,000 years ago by the prophet Samuel, who stands at the center of the scripture lesson I've just read. It sums up a truth also well-understood in the 16th century by John Calvin, who founded the Reformed branch of Protestant Christianity, of which our Presbyterian denomination is a part. It sums up a truth well-understood as well at the end of the 18th century by the Reverend John Witherspoon of New Jersey, and James Madison of Virginia, and all the others who shaped, influenced, and wrote the separation-of-powers clauses that are such an essential feature of our American constitution.
Yes, power does tend to corrupt, and that's precisely why ancient Israel needed the office of prophet to counter the power of its kings. You see, in the centuries before Samuel, Israel, unlike any of the other nations around it, had had no king, and quite deliberately so. For God alone was Israel's sovereign. And to help preserve the unique egalitarian structure of Israelite society, civil and religious authority had been kept separate, and political leadership had been kept decentralized and non-hereditary.
But then in Samuel's day a dire threat to Israel's very existence was being posed by its bellicose neighbor to the west, the Philistines. And when Samuel retired from being the "judge," or leader, of the nation, the elders of Israel approached him and said (I Samuel 8:5): "You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations."
Now, in an earlier period, Israel had experienced slavery under the pharaohs of Egypt and had known firsthand the corruption of power that attends monarchy. So Samuel was mightily displeased by the elders' request for a king. Yet, after warning the elders of the abuses of power that doubtless lay ahead (I Samuel 8:11-18), Samuel agreed to a compromise that he hoped would limit such abuses. To satisfy the people's need for a strong military leader, they could have their king, but Israel's king would not have the full range of powers held by the monarchs of other nations.
For example, civil and religious authority would still be kept separate, so that Israel's kings, unlike other monarchs, would be prohibited from performing sacrifices and from functioning in any other way as a priest. Furthermore, Israel would have, as an office of state, a post to be occupied by a person who, on behalf of God, first would anoint the one who was to be king and then would go on to act as the conscience for that king, holding this monarch to the same standard of obedience to God's laws as applied to every other citizen of the land. This office of state for counterbalancing the power of "the king" would be the post of "the prophet," and it was to be Samuel himself who initially would fill this corruption-preventing role.
So it had come about that God had told Samuel to recognize and then anoint a person from the tribe of Benjamin, a man named Saul, to become the first king over Israel (I Samuel 9:1-10:26). But soon after Saul had assumed the throne, he violated the terms of Samuel's compromise by taking upon himself the priestly prerogative of offering sacrifice. So Samuel announced that since Saul had violated God's commandment, his reign would not continue. God would choose another king in his place. (I Samuel 13:9-14)
So now we come to today's Second Lesson, in which God, having rejected Saul from reigning over Israel, sends Samuel to go to the household of Jesse in Bethlehem, where he is to find and anoint Saul's successor. And, to Samuel's surprise, this turns out to be not Jesse's tall, strong eldest son Eliab, nor even Jesse's second son Abinadab, nor even Jesse's third son Shammah, but rather Jesse's eighth and youngest son, David, who's not even present there but is off in the fields tending the sheep. But after David has been found, Samuel takes the horn of oil he's brought and proceeds to anoint David as Israel's next king. This is Samuel the prophet acting on behalf of God to hold in check the corrupted power of King Saul.
And just as King Saul had the prophet Samuel to hold him in check, so, too, would King David have the prophet Nathan to hold him in check (I Samuel 11:1-12:25); and so, too, King Ahab, the prophet Elijah (I Kings 17:1-19:18); and King Ahaz, the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 7); and kings Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26-29). Yes, Israel and Judah possessed throughout their history a gift from God-the gift of prophetic leadership, persons speaking truth to power and seeing to it that power only tended to corrupt and did not corrupt absolutely.
Skip ahead now to the 16th century of our Common Era, when there came along the Christian reformer John Calvin, who believed that abuses of power by monarchical bishops, including the supreme pontiff, the Bishop of Rome, had led to the corruption of Christ's church. And the newly emerging Protestant Christian groups that subscribed to Calvin's vision came to abolish the office of a monarchical bishop and also sought to establish a balance of power between clergy and laity, a balance of power symbolized through the ordination to office not only of the ministers of Word and Sacrament-the clergy-but also of the lay rulers and leaders-the elders and deacons. (Compare Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.3.8-4.4.5) So the ritual of ordination and installation that we have just enacted in an earlier part of this service symbolizes God's calling of these women and men to what I would call their vocation of prophetic leadership, their vocation of seeing to it that Christ's church exercises what power it has for ending oppression and establishing justice.
Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been many examples of the corrupting influence of power and of the church's failure to end oppression and establish justice both within our community and beyond it. Witness the church's shameful history of anti-Semitism and racism. But since eight of the nine persons we've installed today as elders and deacons are women and since both of those we've recognized as trustees are also women, this puts foremost in my mind today the fact that one of the most continuous corruptions in the church has been men's use of power to deny women roles of leadership, roles that women did in fact exercise in the very earliest Christian communities, roles fulfilled by the likes of Mary Magdalene and Junia and Julia and Phoebe and Prisca and Persis and Tryphaena and Tryphosa (cf. Romans 16:1-16)-but roles subsequently taken away from women.
Now, I know I'm two days ahead of the official start of Women's History Month, but herewith a little women's history anyway. It was not until the year 1915, only 90 years ago, that our Presbyterian denomination finally allowed women to be ordained to the office of deacon. As for our congregation, the Rutgers Presbyterian Church, it took another 12 years beyond that, until 1927, for us to finally elect and ordain a first woman deacon-Ella Turk.
And it was not until 1930, 75 years ago, that our denomination finally allowed women to be ordained to the office of elder. And to Rutgers' historical shame, the Session of this church at that time put itself on record as opposing this move. So it was not until 21 years later, in 1951, that Rutgers finally elected and ordained its first woman elder-Dorothy Groesbeck. Let me contrast the quite un-prophetic leadership displayed here at Rutgers Church with the wonderfully prophetic leadership displayed at the Presbyterian Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where in 1930 each and every one of the men on their all-male Session offered immediately to resign from their position in order to create the vacancy that would enable one of their women, Sarah E. Dickson, to be quickly elected and ordained an elder. And elected and ordained Miss Dickson was, on June 6, 1930. Wow! That was less than one week after the denomination had acted to finally allow women to serve as elders. Fast action-prophetic leadership-indeed.
And the first woman minister of Word and Sacrament was not authorized and ordained in our Presbyterian denomination until 1956. She was the Reverend Margaret Towner, then of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Over the past 15 years, Rutgers has benefited from the pastoral leadership of a number of ordained women ministers-Laura Jervis, Susan Ashton, Kate Dunn, Janet Parker-but Rutgers still has not had an installed woman pastor. So we're not so far along the road to justice as our friends visiting with us from the West End Synagogue, who are benefiting from the dynamic leadership of Rabbi Yael Ridberg. Still, I do have the expectation that this lack of ours will finally be remedied sometime before this summer, for we will soon have the joy of installing the new Designated Associate Pastor whom our committee is in the final stages of choosing.
So on this day of Ordination, Installation and Recognition, let me conclude by speaking directly to Juliet, Lynne, Ulla, Susan, Alice, Bill, Kim, Pamela, Sheila, Nicole and Valerie. I pray that over the years to come you will all offer the church and the world truly prophetic leadership. I pray that you will all speak and serve as forthright disciples of Christ Jesus, addressing issues like racism, and poverty, and homelessness, and homophobia, and anti-Semitism, and oppression, and terror, and torture, and the latest desecration of human rights to receive a name-"extraordinary rendition." I pray that you will all speak and serve as forthright disciples of Christ Jesus, keeping this pastor and congregation, this denomination, and, yes, our local, state, and federal governments as well-keeping us all from falling into the abuses of power that corrupt justice and further oppression. I pray that you will all fulfill for us the gift of prophetic leadership.
Let us pray:
O God, fill these women and this man whom today we have ordained, installed, and recognized-fill them with the gift of Your prophetic spirit. And renew us all in the kind of faithful leadership that can establish throughout this world justice, and mercy, and peace. In the name of Christ, we pray this. Amen.