tint or taint

A few years ago I was asked to preside at a Eucharist which was out of the tradition of the Church who invited me. It was during Lent and they were exploring different ways of using Anglican Liturgy and someone decided a High Mass would be a good idea. This was not going to be a stretch and I was vaguely amused by the deliberate inclusion of having a woman president so I agreed. When I arrived I found, to my horror, that the vestments were borrowed from a Church which I knew to be completely against the priestly ministry of women, they were very distinctive and I had seen them in situ.
My horror was that I respected this other church’s right to their opinion and felt that the priest who had done the borrowing could not have been completely honest in doing so. But now, my patience is wearing thin. Not that I want to thumb my nose at those who are against the ordination of women and neither would I revel in rather childishly being deliberately deceitful or hurtful. But I would really ask that I am afforded the same respect  – if not as a fellow priest – then at least as a human being.
The problem with the robes, of course, was taint. I tainted them by using them – at least I suspect I did. Just by performing a sacramental act as a woman wearing something I almost certainly ruined it.
Hearing the word taint this week is evoking a very different reaction in me. I am beginning to lost patience and respect. Whilst I understand the theological arguments this word is part of a misogynistic apartheid that has no place in the Church of Christ. In no other organization would it be allowable, on the basis of gender, to say that someone, by performing the role to which they are called, they would be tainting and ruining anything.
I would not deliberately force my priestly ministry on those who cannot accept it – but the Church of England has spoken and spoken decisively – women are called to serve Christ as priests just as men are. There will always be those, on an individual level, who, for whatever reason, find receiving ministry from a particular gender easier. But does this still really need to be institutionalized? And certainly, should language, which is veiled as theology , but which is downright hurtful, be allowed to continue.
Women in the Church of England have put up with a lot, especially those called to ordained ministry. We do not choose priesthood just to be annoying, God calls, even through the fog of ancient prejudice.
I do not taint things. I cannot taint things unless somehow Christ’s sacrifice for me means nothing – unless somehow in that holiest of moments, that moment of consecration, God can be overpowered by humanity, and there is no hope in that. Jesus does not stay hidden in the tomb because of me. Bread and wine cannot be changed or not changed because of me. Christ died for all, all are washed in the precious tide, tinted not tainted.
I will accept the taint and malaise of sin, of separation which is just being human, but not because I am a woman – because I am a person, made in God’s image and called to serve in this sacred and blessed ministry.