How Long Will We Reject God Our Mother?
“I wonder if the unresolved pain we still bear from the rejection of our mothers, an ancient wounding from the womb, is being re-enacted in our rejection of women from the sacred elder boards and pastoral pulpits.”
It’s the Sunday after our pastor has left and the congregation we’ve been with four years feels different to me this morning. There is an unusual energy, a buzz that I can’t quite place. Is it excitement or nervousness? Relief or worry?
Stepping to the platform to deliver the morning’s sermon is a late middle age man in sweater with shaved head. He’s white. His delivery is smooth and ease apparent with a congregation who has never seen or heard from or of him. He begins easily into his presentation. This sermon is one of his good ones that has been skillfully shaped through multiple renditions. It is particularly relevant for us the audience. I am a partly jaded former-pastor and pulpit preacher but I find the sermon engaging, note-taking worthy and enjoyable.
But my own story and recent personal work, is swirling in the back of my mind as I listen. And I consider what others are hearing and feeling. I wonder how this sermon is landing for others in the quietness of the space. It is hard to eavesdrop on my neighbor’s thoughts behind their COVID mask and six feet of social distance. What is happening within them? Is it similar to me?
Today, I think I want to hear from a woman, not a man. When a child is disrupted, grieving or crushed, he or she naturally turns to his or her mother for nurture, assurance and kindness. A loving “I’m with you, you’ll be okay and I care about you” offered with a mother’s unique tone and through a feminine voice would communicate more of the Spirit’s presence than anything a man could say today.
I am writing this today because I believe that what I need and desire is something those making decisions, the “power brokers” of many Christian churches, would not be permit. And this fills me with deep grief, for myself, everyone present, and especially for all the men sitting in the service.
Dear church leadership, how long will we reject our mothers?
I’ve heard the extrapolating of biblical texts arguing for women’s exclusion from primary leadership and teaching roles. Adherence to ancient tradition and inflexibility of church or denominational bylaws are also used to advance the argument. This type of debate is as unfruitful as a husband arguing for validation by insisting his wife abandon her views he finds disagreeable. She is not going to be de-valued and he is not going to be wrong. Around and around the dialogue goes and finally shuts down. Time passes and the chasm of disconnection widens costing the couple unity, growth and joy. Soon the only friends remaining are those who are willing to dance around the disconnection so apparent. I’m baffled that Christian congregations first recognized for their unity in the first century, stubbornly carry-on differences today. Christian congregations must move back toward the defining characteristic of the church. It feels like the Acts 15 disagreement brought to the Jerusalem church by the Apostle Paul has returned in a new form. Now instead of the full inclusion and participation of Gentiles in the Jewish congregation, we are invited to consider the full inclusion and participation of women in the male congregation. The ancient church made the decision to include Gentiles because the Spirit was clearly present and their expression of faith was valid and true. How could they argue with that? The result was the blessing and inclusion of the Gentiles in the Christ-community. How much longer will we, the male congregation of Christ nod to a woman’s validity of faith and exclude her from shaping the congregation? And why is this our continued posture?
I wonder if the unresolved pain we still bear from the rejection of our mothers, an ancient wounding from the womb, is being re-enacted in our rejection of women from the sacred elder boards and pastoral pulpits. We have turned on the sex that we felt turned on us. Add to that our inability and lack of permission, especially in conservative Christian circles, to identify with our mothers or feminine qualities, and there is a cocktail of disconnection, rejection and contempt. What are men afraid of? Women are mysterious and their physical and internal differences so stark that it is frightening to men. Women are so attuned to their bodies, feelings, others, and read men so accurately that we can be terrified of their god-like abilities. We men have felt overwhelmed and out-of-control and inadequate so we reject women, we turn on them, and shut them out. This is what a child would do. The Spirit of Christ is inviting us to mature as men. Our childish fears are debilitating and destructive and exhausting.
This must end. We are too far in our congregational development as the Christian church to circle back again and again to these younger grievances that perpetuate disunity. Confession, forgiveness and restoration must be welcomed and pursued. The single greatest defining quality of Christian comm-unity is unity. I believe that if a church cannot unite with the opposite sex, that usually shares the same ethnicity and race as the rest of the congregation, there will be little progress to unite with those racially diverse. Consider for a moment what a congregation might look like that is first and foremost about uniting and confronting the way it has marginalized its own? I long for a church capable of being shaped in a fresh way.
Bottom line, a congregation that deems an individual disqualified from leadership or authority or responsibility based on one’s biological sex is perpetuating an ancient wound that Christ has come to heal. Let’s take a risk here, bracket our fears and hurts, and lean into something Jesus Christ invited us to restore.