A Woman in Ministry

As a Mary in a world of Martha ministry, I confess I have been drawn to deeper theological spaces. The type more affiliated with men. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy cooking as much as anyone else, but I'd rather be at the feet of Jesus. 

And honestly, I never thought it really mattered that much. I believed that truth was gender-neutral, that God simply speaks and if it's true, it's true, no matter what voice speaks it. It simply shouldn't matter. 

I think I've told this story before, or at least touched on it, but it's worth touching on again because it is foundational to this conversation. 

Thirteen years ago when I was starting out in ministry, when I was serving as a chaplain for the first time, one of my supervisors sensed this in me, I think. We were talking about what we bring into the room with us, and I was listing off all kinds of things like truth, Gospel, goodness, that non-anxious presence we always talk about. And all of that was well and good, she said, but what do you bring in the room with you? 

What do you bring in the room with you as a person created by God? What do you bring in the room with you as a woman created by God? 

I immediately told her, having come of age in a church that did not affirm women, that my womanhood had nothing to do with my ministry. That it shouldn't matter. That it shouldn't be a barrier, and it wasn't a particular blessing, either, but it was something that simply was. I so happen to be a woman - why should that make a difference?

Over the course of that conversation, and many to follow, and many years that have passed since, I have kept coming back to that question. Because as it turns out, she was right and I was wrong and it does matter. 

We joke a lot about the differences between men and women. Most of the jokes are funny precisely because they are true. 

Ask a man for details, and he might just shrug. He doesn't know what they were wearing, who they were with, what was going on besides the things he was very specifically told - he didn't ask any follow-up questions, didn't make any mental notes. A woman, however, has twenty follow-up questions and then a few follow-up questions to that. She knows exactly what someone was wearing and who they were with and all the things....

You could say, I think reasonably, that men tend to end up with facts and women tend to end up with context. 

And I think the same is true when it comes to theology. 

The theology that we have had handed to us, mostly by men, is very factual. Like they sat down with the Word and picked it apart and labeled all the pieces and drew us a diagram. "This is what this says; this is what this means." 

Meanwhile, women have this more fine-tuned ability - I don't want to say it's innate because I think God gave it to all of us, male and female, but it is certainly more tuned by our society and cultural roles at present - to put context around it all. To put the Word into the story and not have it come out like an encyclopedia. 

So there is something you bring into the room as a woman of God...something I bring into the room as a woman...and it does make a difference.