A Place Where I Fit as a Woman in the Church

The future of the gospel includes a multiplicity of voices bearing witness to the kingdom of God... and these voices are most reflective of the good news when they remain who they are.

I was raised in a main line congregation. In my middle school years, my local congregation began to fight the battle to see women become elders, against the wishes of the national denomination. Campaigns, prayer meetings, slogans, angry voices, and a few candlelight vigils later, we had some female elders… called ‘adjunct elders.’ It was a hard-won victory, and as a teenager, I’m quite certain I missed most of the nuances and complex emotions involved on all fronts.

I was proud of my mother’s appointment as one of the first adjunct elders because I knew how important it was to her. But I was also a bit confused about the difference between men and women. According to my mom, the difference was that women did everything men did, but did it better, smarter, and more efficiently. I was always a bit too ‘girly’ for my mother’s liking… and the women I saw leading the church after this initial victory seemed to reflect a more aggressive and dominant type of woman than I was sure I wanted to be. No offense to them... they were used to having to fight to be heard.

In college, I lost my faith almost entirely. I flirted with gender roles I hadn’t been encouraged to play in my feminist home, got my heart broken and emerged more ‘angry-woman-hear-me-roar’ than I had been before.

As I was wooed back into the Church in my early 20s, it would make sense that I would end up in a feminist denomination… so you’ll be just as puzzled as I was to find that I wound up in a neo-reformed community (before neo-reformed was a label) that embraced traditional gender roles lovingly drawn by the likes of Douglas Wilson. Let me repeat that… lovingly drawn. I really did receive these understandings of men and women as love… because gender differences were finally celebrated in ways I had never heard them distinguished, let alone cherished.

But eventually, I realized the conundrum I was in. In hindsight, I think I had always known God was calling me to serve His Church. But, as a young woman, I hadn’t wanted to be the more aggressive women I had seen leading in my experience of main line churches and so I didn't see how I fit there. Later, I was told I couldn’t lead in the church because of my gender, and so how could I acknowledge a call to something that seemed unbiblical? Strong and incredibly gifted women were everywhere I looked in that community… but not in the pulpit, not as pastor.

And so, as grateful as I was (and continue to be for both of these faith communities and how they have shaped me), I wondered… where do I fit? What is God calling me to? I don’t believe women are superior. I don’t believe men are superior. I don’t believe men and women need to deny their gendered bodies or be androgynous. I still receive headship in my marriage as a good and loving thing. 

I ALSO believe men and women stand as equals before God, are equally gifted by the Holy Spirit, and are equally needed to proclaim the good news to all nations and faithfully participate in the mission of God’s kingdom.

In finding Life on the Vine, which joined Ecclesia Network, and now the Missio Alliance, I am finding where I fit. Yes, there are still a lot of white men in leadership… but they’re not content for it to stay that way. This is a place where women don’t have to become men in order to participate. This is a place where neither women nor men have superiority complexes. This is a place where women are invited, encouraged, supported, and celebrated as women. This is a place where gender in the Church and in the kingdom is being explored… authentically, honestly, humbly, prayerfully, faithfully.

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A Wake Up Call

Revelation... a book that has divided, distracted, and derailed the mission of God's people... but a book that can call us to faithfulness...

It is apocalyptic in that it enables hope and resistance by revealing truth about unseen present and future realities.  It is rich in symbols… one commentator said to imagine Revelation as a political cartoon – overdrawn, exaggerated and caricatured in order to appeal to the imagination and address profound realities which God’s people can experience and hope for (I think it was probably Gorman, but I didn't write it down).

One of those profound realities is that

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of earth.

It is prophetic – but not in the sense of future telling. Instead, biblical prophecy is meant to speak words of comfort and challenge to God's people then and now. Any depiction of the future is not the point… instead, the future is meant to serve as both warning and comfort to live into the present reality.

One thing we know about both the present and the future, which serves as both warning and comfort is the reality that

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of earth.

And it is pastoral. John writes to specific people, specific churches in Asia Minor. The letter speaks to real children of God and treats their life of faith as central. Everything else is peripheral.

And the outstanding call to the children of God, throughout the letter, is to remain faithful, no matter what comes… and this is possible, because no matter what it might look like here and now, 

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of earth.

But we are often asleep to this reality... calling ourselves, our comfort, our families, and our goals kings. We need a wake up call.

Revelation is that wake up call. Revelation is full of shocking language and startling images to wake us up to what is real… Call it imaginational whiplash! to force our eyes open and to surprise us into seeing that, whether we realize it or not, we are giving our allegiance to powers other than Jesus Christ. 

Revelation wakes us up to what is real.

John uses cosmic, extraordinary language… and here’s an interesting tidbit.  Out of the 404 verses of Revelation, there are 518 references to the scriptures that have come before… but there are no direct quotations.  It’s as if God knew that if we read the words in the same way we’ve heard them before, we might miss them… and so, by his Holy Spirit, and through John, He gives us this wake up call to everything we’ve heard before… but said in a completely different way.

But saying, clearly, distinctly, something that we’ve already heard, we’ve already read, we’ve already believed… but said in brand new ways:

Revelation proclaims loudly, boldly, and clearly:

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of earth.

When is the last time you read the book of Revelation? And what was your response to it?

Moment of Shifting

New Year's Eve as a kid... The privilege of being up until midnight was something I couldn't afford to miss. Starting at 11:45, I would just stare at the clock... waiting for that magical moment when the old year would pass away and the new year would burst in! My sister and I would bang pots with spoons (for the sake of the noise, rather than protesting anything), shout, run around the house, and make that first minute of the new year the most exciting minute of the whole year! 

A few weeks ago, we said goodbye to 2012 and hello to 2013. Personally, I slept right through the actual moment of passing from one year into the next (like I have for the last several years). But even if when I've stayed awake, the moment has slipped by unnoticed many times. It's get old... we do it over and over again, and it loses the excitement, the thrill, the magic. Year after year, we realize that the shifting from one year to the next is not necessarily worth losing sleep over.

In the same way, I think we can approach the eucharist at Christ's table in a lethargic, sleepy stupor... something that was once worth shouting about becomes commonplace.

Being the season of Epiphany, I am trying to dwell on the moments of Jesus' life that might have caused the jubilant banging of pots for those who witnessed them... moments where it might have been clear that the old had gone and the new had come.

One of these is a sort of pedestrian moment of running out of wine at a wedding.  In a moment, scarcity bursts forth in abundance. The stone jars that hold the water are the kind used for ceremonial washing. Stone doesn’t hold contaminants and so it cannot become unclean on its own. But these jars belong to a system of scarcity... each sin has a cost, each crime has a consequence, and each washing only goes so far. One is always aware of falling short, of being in need, of lacking and of needing to be washed again and again. 

But Jesus turns all this shortness, need, and lack into long and tall, full to the brim, abundance of the choicest wine – superior to all others. The old has gone, the new has come!

I'm not sure that, as a mother, Mary celebrated this moment. Instead, it may have been a moment where she suddenly wondered what she had been thinking when she said, "I am the Lord's servant... may it be as you have said." In a small moment, Mary loses her son.

It's likely that Mary is a widow at this point and has been depending heavily upon Jesus to provide for her, care for her, to be her resource and her problem-solver. Something is not right at the wedding and so she goes to Jesus to take care of it. Mary has had special access to Jesus, special claims on him as her son and her caretaker. Mary is Jesus’ mother. 

But in a moment of clanging confusion, she sees that her son is no longer her son, but her Lord. If she wants to continue to be near to Him, it will be as His disciple rather than as His mother. The way He responds to her pleading for help makes it clear... from this moment forward, all of his relationships, all of his obligations are subordinated to his purpose... the coming of his kingdom. She may have been less excited about this shift... she may have preferred to sleep through this moment, rather than having to watch it all shift before her eyes.

The old has gone, the new has come! 

And every time we come to eucharistic table of our Lord, it's a moment of shifting. At his table, we can only approach Christ in as our Lord. We are his disciples. Whatever small things we have thought we have been able to manipulate, control or manage are ripped from our hands as we recognize His Lordship.

And yet, He is our loving host, our Messiah. He can take all of our shortness, all of our need, and all of our lack... all of our scarcity... and He can fill all the empty places up to the brim with the lavish provision of the new kingdom. 

      The old has gone, the new has come!

This is worth banging on pots... worth staying awake for (or waking up early for).  But we can only attend to the moment of shifting if we're watching, waiting, preparing, celebrating. 

May every time we approach His table be a moment of shifting... a moment of passing from the old into the new... a moment of receiving the kingdom... a foretaste of the great wedding feast to come!

Love Keeps Knocking

When I was a naturalist, teaching at an outdoor education center, part of my job was to put on campfires for our students. These campfires were a combination of ecology, natural history, and plain old-fashioned camp evangelism. And so my fellow naturalists and I would dress up in wacky costumes, sing campfire songs, and do skits of all varieties.

William Holman Hunt
"Light of the World"

One of those skits played on something I was all too familiar with: guilt. It went like this... a girl was having a party with a bunch of her friends and they were doing something questionable like playing truth or dare or spin the bottle. While they are playing, she hears a knock at the door. Expecting another of her friends, she answers the door and finds Jesus (one of the male naturalists wearing a long white robe). In her surprise, she says something like, "Oh! Jesus (which, in this context sounded close to breaking the third commandment), what are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you... what? you want to come in? Well... now is not really a good time. You see, all my friends are here and some of them don't know who you are... and, well, they might not understand why we hang out. Can you come back when the party's over? How about tomorrow?" And she closes the door and returns to her friends and her questionable game.

A few minutes later, we hear a knock on the door again. She goes back to the door, and there's Jesus again. She hems and haws again, explaining that this really isn't the time or place for him and that she appreciates his friendship and all, but she can't really afford to have him at the party. She shuts the door again. He keeps knocking. She turns up the stereo to block out the sound and returns to her friends. 

The lights go out and every camper is guilty... every naturalist is guilty... and every time we did this skit, I probably squirmed more than anybody else. During this time in my life, I was trying to adjust to living among Christians - the real kind - the ones that, by my standards at the time, had gone off the deep end... and I still hadn't dared to jump off with them. And so, on my days off, I could still be found occasionally sitting at the blues bar, sipping whiskey and hanging with the 'regulars' who were closer to my kind of normal. And this was a part of my life where Jesus just wasn't welcome... not yet.

And so every time we did this skit, I felt guilty. I felt dirty. I felt ashamed. But nothing changed...

In our wacky costumes and youthful enthusiasm, we had it all wrong! We focused on the wrong part of the skit. The girl at the party was front and center. She was the main character. She was the focus. We all identified with her behavior, thought of areas in our own lives where we have turned up the stereo... and then returned to our party. We felt terrible for a time... but then the lights went back on, there were more songs, there was a thrilling hike through the dark, and by the time everyone went to bed that evening, the sting of the guilt had worn off.

But what if we had done the skit differently? What if Jesus had been the main character (as is truly the case)? What if the whole skit had taken place from the other side of the door? We would have seen Jesus standing at the door... possibly amused, definitely patient, positively in love with the girl... but not in a pathetic sick puppy kind of way but in a bold and persevering way. 

If we had done the skit from this perspective, we would have all seen the lavish love of our Savior. Love that keeps knocking. Love that never quits when rebuffed. Love that perseveres. Love that draws us away from shallow loves. Love that pulled God into flesh and won't let go until the kingdom of love is complete... until no doors divide.

Until then, love keeps knocking. That's the focus. That's the point. That's the message that has the power to change me... not the message of how horrible and wretched and guilty I am... but the good news that, despite me, Love keeps knocking.