All About Eve

"I would have given her [the church] my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet in my mother's drawing room." - Florence Nightingale

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Westhampton Beach first Ladies Auxiliary, c. 1930

This morning I had the privilege of attending a book release for Carla Sunberg's new book, Reclaiming Eve: The Identity & Calling of Women in the Kingdom of God (co-written by Suzanne Burden and Jamie Wright).  Carla shared the above quotation from Florence Nightingale. What a powerful statement! I have felt the same way at times, and this post comes from my own struggle with reaching a theological understanding of my place in the church.

The Barna Group released a controversial book a few years ago entitled The Resignation of Eve: What if Adam's Rib Is No Longer Willing to be the Church's Backbone? Christianity Today's review of the book reported that some of the statistics have been questioned by other researchers and some of the writing about the various positions held by women is unbalanced. However, the title alone is thought-provoking and worth repeating here. Has "Adam's rib" become the "church's backbone"? Are women leaving the church en masse? What does this mean for the future of the church?

My Own Experience
When I decided to come to seminary, I had no definite plans for my post-graduation life. I harbored a somewhat secret desire to be a pastor, but I was hesitant to state such a bold ambition. In preparation for my future, I started testing my thoughts on different groups of people. The responses were telling.

I worked as a high school secretary. When asked in the public school context why I was going to seminary, I usually responded with something like, "I would like to be a pastor someday, but I know a lot of churches support the idea of women in ministry, but aren't so excited about having their own female pastor." I expected dismissal of such a religious endeavor in a stereotypically godless environment. On the contrary, my co-workers responded emphatically with, "Good for you! Don't let anyone hold you back because you're a woman! You can do whatever you want!" The gruff football coach even said he would be on the front row cheering when I preached my first sermon!

When I said something similar in my Sunday School class at church, however, the response was different. The class responded with knowing nods and "mmhmmm's." I meekly accepted their implicit opinion: they would not want a female pastor anymore than the next church. It was time to leave behind the idealism of educators and accept the reality of the church.

Women's Roles
"Note that you as a female are not given a role, but a responsibility, together with Adam. You (and every male and female in this world) are given broad, sweeping instructions to represent God by using and caring for and creatively overseeing his good world." -  Reclaiming Eve

It seems like every few days I come across a reference to Sheryl Sandberg's widely talked about book, Lean In. Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and a champion of female leaders in the corporate world. How would her journey have been different had she pursued leadership in the church? She is obviously a gifted leader, speaker, author and businesswoman. Would her gifts have been recognized and valued so highly in the church?

I like the idea of abandoning the language of "roles." I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having conversations in the church about gender identity in the midst of a culture deluged with mixed messages about macho men and metro men, militant feminists and submissive wives. However, rather than telling men and women who they should be, categorizing them according to their roles, I believe the church should be the place where men and women can discern their God-given gifts and accept their responsibility as bearers of the image of God.

In past years when many women worked at home, the church offered a venue for women to exercise their gifts of leadership, organization, and industry. Women organized fundraisers for missionaries. They coordinated support for families in crisis. They oversaw the spiritual education of children. Women even preached, although many women chose the less complicated route of traveling evangelist which conflicted less with established power structures.

As more doors have opened in the corporate world and more women have entered the workforce, the restrictive roles within the church have held less and less appeal for women. In a recent conversation with members of the pastoral staff at my own church, I asked if women were allowed to serve on the board of elders. The response was a joking, "Yes, in theory..." Apparently, there is recognition on the part of the pastoral staff that for all their interest in acknowledging that God calls men and women alike, the congregation is still a bit backwards and ignorant. (I wonder if the situation would be quite as funny if rather than a question of gender, the excluded group was a particular ethnicity that made up half the congregation.)

One author describes this phenomenon as insider/outsider status. She writes, "Accustomed to hearing the preacher speak to them and about them, women traditionally have not been encouraged to discover that they have voices of their own and distinctive experiences to contribute to their communities." As women have found their voices outside the church, they have taken their considerable leadership and organization skills elsewhere where they are welcomed unambiguously as insiders. Statistically women still receive lower pay than men for doing equivalent jobs, but at least that distinction is not upheld as fulfillment of a biblical mandate.

Moving Forward
As the church in America hemorrhages members at an alarming rate (the exact rate depends on the source of your data), how can the church specifically address women struggling to find their place? I would like to offer some suggestions.

1. Unambiguously embrace women in all levels of church leadership. In her essay on lay leadership, Janet Fishburn writes, "If lay leadership roles are seen as stepping stones in a power structure this is a sure sign that 'church work' is not being experienced as the service of persons gifted by God for particular ministries." If the best man for the job is a woman, then let's give her the job! And let's stop worrying so much about who is over whom.

2. Work to right gender inequalities. Sometimes the biggest hurdle for doing something new is simply that it's never been done. If no woman has ever been elected to the elder board, then it might be time for the nominating committee to offer a female-only ballot to the congregation. Often, in the space of a few years, people can't imagine a time when women were excluded from formerly male-only roles, but it may take intentional action to get the ball rolling.

3. Give women a voice. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire believed that "for human beings the essential decision is between speaking or remaining embedded in a culture of silence, between naming ourselves or being named by others, between remaining an object or becoming a subject." Use sermon and teaching illustrations written by women. Cite female theologians and scholars. Listen to the concerns of women. And share the pulpit with women. As women in the pews hear other women's voices, they will find their own voices and be more empowered than ever to serve the church.

4. Pay attention to your language. I recently heard an illustration in a sermon about fad diets. The pastor referenced the "diet guru who is followed quickly by another guru as soon as he fades from popularity." I was somewhat taken aback because I was imagining a female nutritionist. If every story you tell, every verse you cite, and every person you reference is a man, women become disengaged and disconnected from the life of the church. The implicit message is that salvation isn't for me.

5. Follow the "crowds, praise, and power." Which ministries are given the most visible space in the church? Which ministries are talked about from the pulpit? Which ministries have the most well-known leaders? Are any of these ministries led by women? Do they involve women? Are women allowed to speak on behalf of the ministries in which they participate? People tend to move towards the crowds, praise and power. If women are excluded from this movement, their sense of belonging diminishes.

6. Consider the theological rationale for traditional "women's ministries." Janet Fishburn writes this: "Where the pastor gives opportunities to laity to discover and use their gifts through mutual ministry to each other, they are more likely to see that the whole world is in need of their ministry. A congregation in mission is first of all a caring community where persons can grow through relationships." Love is learned, experienced, and discovered through a caring community. The ministries traditionally assigned to women--caring for children, providing meals, gathering financial support for ministries--are too often overlooked as theologically insignificant in the overall mission of the church, but these ministries are actually central components of Christian formation in the lives of congregants.

7. Listen. When women complain of being overlooked, don't dismiss their concerns. When women feel that they are without a place or a voice, take their concerns seriously. When women ask questions, think carefully before answering. When we ask questions, we are often trying to understand a past experience that left us confused, hurt, excluded, and even ready to walk away from the church. Don't take these experiences lightly.

Like Florence Nightingale and countless other women, I would give the church my head, my hand and my heart. But I don't want to fight. If giving my life to the church requires a fight, then I don't want to do it (although I suspect that the Holy Spirit may have other ideas). I want to be part of a community where everyone is welcomed, valued and encouraged to discover their unique gifts--regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, position, or gender. I want to be able to say to a young woman who feels a call to ministry with the same passion and enthusiasm of my co-workers, "Great! Go for it! You can do whatever God calls you to do in this church!"

A Tribute to My Grandma

My 89-year-old grandma passed away last week. As we talked about her life and began the process of cleaning out her house, I was amazed by the disciplines that she cultivated in her life and filled with the desire to emulate those disciplines.

She had an amazing work ethic. Of course, I never knew my grandma when she was young. She was the second of ten kids. She was born in 1925, which means that most of her childhood was in the midst of the Great Depression. Her father was confined to a wheelchair, so she grew up in poverty. I really don't know how they made money or how their standard of living compared to those around them, but I can't imagine that my grandma ever knew much besides hard work.What I did see firsthand was the Christmas dinner my grandma prepared for us in December just a few weeks before she died in February. She was planning her dishes carefully so she could do as much ahead of time as possible. She knew her limits and knew that any activity would exhaust her. That exhaustion, though, did not stop her from working in the days leading up to Christmas to prepare a wonderful meal for us. She told me over and over to exercise everyday, and her good health throughout her long life was certainly a testimony to the power of exercise.

As we went through closets, we found all her things very well-cared for. Her clothes were hung carefully with cedar rings on the hangers. She had potpourri in her drawers. Her shoes were stowed in labeled boxes. Her sewing supplies were all organized in her sewing desk. Her crochet magazines were in wire racks on the inside of a closet drawer. She had a few small junk drawers, but for the most part, she took great care in preserving her possessions. It was evident that she did not take all that she had accumulated for granted but rather cherished all that she had worked so hard to acquire.

One of my current interests is learning how to manage a house. In Cheryl Mendelson's book, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, she opens her tome on housekeeping with her philosophy on keeping a home. She writes that housekeeping "makes your home alive, ... turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else." My grandma's care of her home went beyond simply preserving possessions. As I went from room to room, I could feel my grandma's "ways and rhythms." They were in everything from the beautiful copper print of the Last Supper hanging above the refrigerator to the clippings of encouraging verses and poetry taped above the phone book to the boxes and boxes of cards she had received throughout the years. Her home reflected her values. Her home was her haven and also a welcoming place to anyone who visited. When I got back home, I immediately started cleaning out closets, organizing, and planning ways to rearrange the furniture so that my home could more effectively reflect my "ways and rhythms."

Both of my parents are engineers, and I definitely inherited their analytical, logical approach to the world. My grandma, for the most part, lived at the other end of the spectrum. She had "feelings" about things that the rest of my family mostly dismissed as unfounded and irrational. You never knew if her conversations would include rants about Catholics, Asians, or some other archaic prejudice or insight into profound spiritual truths. More than once, she managed to cut right to the heart of a situation that the rest of my family seemed blind to. I wish she would have found a church home that would have helped her to listen to her intuition and use it in service to God's work, rather than too often dismissing her as a crazy, old woman. Regardless, I don't know what I will do without her wisdom and insight that she shared both in conversation when we visited and in her frequent cards and letters. I do know that I want to follow her example and cultivate whatever abilities I have to listen to my intuition.

Even more than her intuition, though, I want to follow her example of faith. I know she struggled with her fear of death. I often think about her experience with loss. She lost a younger brother at age 7 and a younger sister a few years later (age 11, I think) to scarlet fever. Her fiance was killed in World War II. Her younger son (my dad's brother) died at the age of 19 in a car accident. I can't imagine how deeply each of those losses must have affected her life. When I was in college, though, I was visiting, and we stayed up late one night talking and she told me how afraid she was of death. That surprised me because I thought that old people were all prepared to die, especially someone like my grandma who had come face to face with death so many times. But she was terrified! When my grandpa died, though, she was with him and saw his whole demeanor transformed in a moment from the agony of the last stages of cancer to a look of deep peace. Every time that I visited after that, she always wanted to talk about how real and deep is the love of God. Instead of growing bitter or withdrawn, she seemed so at peace and blessed. I will miss the richness of her faith.

The week of the funeral was a whirlwind of activity, and we had to come back sooner than expected because of the weather, so I don't feel like I have really had the time to process the loss of my grandma. These few thoughts are some of the things that struck me immediately. I expect that I will continue to miss her and grieve her loss in the days to come, but I look forward to the Lord's Day when all will be well.