Women of Valor

Recently I've been moved by ways that some women who are very dear to me have been invited to use their voices to enrich the church and to honor God.

One of my friends led singing for the first time in her life a couple weeks ago. God has given her a beautiful voice and a heart for the church, and in this act of leading the gathered congregation in worship, these two gifts got to work together. Not segregated to using her voice outside the church in musical theatre and using her ministry heart behind the scenes in a church . . . but to share her voice with us--the church--in leading hymns and songs of worship.

Another friend was asked to read a Scripture and lead a prayer in front of a different church-like gathering. Only within the last month or two have women been permitted to serve in these ways in that particular context! Many of us are guilty of treating public prayer almost flippantly, wandering up to a podium to spit out a laundry list of requests for health and safety and the like, with little to no forethought about what we'll say to God on behalf of the congregation. This friend spent days thinking about what to pray in that moment, feeling the weight of the responsibility to approach God on behalf of a crowd of people, and considering the impact her words might have on people--both because it was a prayer and because it was a prayer being spoken by a woman. It was a joy to witness the intentionality with which she approached this opportunity.

Because I think her prayer was so beautiful and wonderful, I'd like to share it with you, along with the Scripture she read before the prayer:

From Psalm 36:
But your loyal love, LORD, extends to the skies;
your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains;
your justice is like the deepest sea.
LORD, you save both humans and animals.
Your faithful love is priceless, God!
Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the bounty of your house;
you let them drink from your river of pure joy.
Within you is the spring of life.
In your light, we see light. 

God our father, God our mother, today we drink from your river of pure joy.
You, who saves us.
You, the loyal, the faithful, the righteous, the just.
Fill us with the joy and peace of your refuge.
Pour into us the spring of life so that, just as people look at my daughter and see my face, people will look at us and see your face.
Thank you, God, for your mercy. Thank you, God, for your sacrifice. Thank you, God, for Jesus.
Amen.

Several hours before actually leading this prayer, she circulated what she'd written to a handful of friends and colleagues, asking for our feedback. Two of the women (myself included) suggested she take out the "God our mother" phrase, for fear that it would be too shocking to some and would distract them from the rest of the prayer. (Though both of us are big believers that God is both Mother and Father.) Two of the men, though, encouraged her to keep that phrase in the prayer and leave it up to the congregation to decide for themselves how to react to it. I'm so used to language and efforts like this being suppressed, that it was so unbelievably refreshing to see these two people defend this depiction of God so adamantly.

Somewhere in the midst of my friends leading in these amazing ways, I came across this article on When We Need Women behind the Pulpits on my Facebook mini-feed. I appreciated and identified with many things in the post, and here are some favorite tidbits:

• Put a woman behind the pulpit so I can hear the words of God in a new voice.
• Put a woman behind the pulpit so I can hear what it’s like for Mama Mary to watch her Son bleed.
• Put a woman behind the pulpit so I can hear He is risen! in the tone it was first shouted.
• Put a woman behind the pulpit so I can see that the kingdom of God is bigger than my expectations.
• Put a woman behind the pulpit so I can know that this long line of Faith handed-down came from Mothers and Fathers.

While reading these exhortations, I couldn't help but think about these two friends of mine--and the many female friends I have who are exceptionally gifted in public ministry. I couldn't help but think of the ways they intone God differently than my male friends (not necessarily better, just different; I'm not hatin' on the guys here!). I couldn't help but think about the ways that they, as mothers who cherish their children, provide glimpses of the way God mothers me.

I'm glad to see them at the front of a church, leading the congregation in song and prayer. I appreciate getting to hear a voice like mine from the pulpit. I'm grateful for the opportunity to glimpse in each them another little piece of God. 

Lavender and Honey Crock Pot Chicken

A couple months ago several friends from my house church got together to kill, pluck, and gut some chickens. Yes, we slaughter chickens together. No, we are not a cult. I promise!

So at the end of that night, I got to take home two organic, free-range chickens that cost me nothing but a few hours of labor. Well, that, and the feeling that I still smelled like chickens after two days and three showers. As one who doesn't even like to handle raw meat from the store, that was certainly an experience! Perhaps I should write a whole post on that. But lest I ruin your appetite . . .

Since I worked hard for these chickens, I felt like I needed some really epic recipes to cook them. And since they were older chickens, one of the chicken experts in the group warned us that the meat would be tough--so she recommended soup or crock pot cooking methods.

Around the same time I decided to try my hand at cooking with lavender, which I'd eaten twice but had never been brave enough to cook with myself. And then this recipe happened. It used lavender, it featured a whole chicken, and it was easily adaptable to the crock pot. Sold.

I decided to skin my chicken for two reasons: 1) the skin brings a lot of fat to the party, and I wanted a leaner dish; and 2) whoever plucked that chicken (quite possibly me) didn't do the best job, so there were still some feather remnants. However, though I basted this little lady every 30 minutes, she still came out really tough. So if you make this, I'd recommend using more liquid, cooking on low instead of high, leaving the skin on, or a combination thereof.

But the flavor was excellent! The lavender definitely came out, but the dish didn't taste flowery or perfumey, as can happen if you use too much lavender. I don't think I'd change a thing about the marinade ingredients or amounts. For the past couple days I've been using this chicken in some peach quesadillas, and I plan to use the bones to make home-made chicken stock (a first for me).

Lavender and Honey Crock Pot Chicken

Adapted from food.com

Yield: 1 chicken

Ingredients

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp. dried lavender flowers

1-2 sprigs fresh marjoram, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 red onion, finely chopped (2-3 Tbsp.)

1 whole chicken

Salt and pepper

2 lemons (oranges would probably also be good)

Additional sprig or two of marjoram or other herb(s) of choice

Directions

Combine first eight ingredients (honey through red onion) in a 1- or 2-cup measuring cup. Cut one of the lemons into wedges and slice the other one.

Skin the chicken, if desired, and remove any giblets or anything else that came packaged inside the chicken. Season with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Place the lemon wedges inside the body cavity and place chicken in a greased crock pot.

Pour honey-lavender mixture over the chicken, place additional herb sprig(s) on top of chicken, and spread lemon slices on top of that. Cover and cook 4-8 hours* or until chicken is tender and juices run clear. Since I skinned my chicken and since I was home all day, I basted my chicken every 30 minutes or so to try to keep her nice and juicy.

* Crock-pot.com suggests that, for a 6-lb. whole bone-in chicken, you cook on low for 7-1/2 hours or on high for 6-1/4. Obviously, individual crock pots vary, so adjust your cook time accordingly based on your crock pot and the size of your chicken.

Song Leading

I got to lead singing in chapel last week, which was both awesome and terrifying. I appreciate graduate chapel SO much, and one of the biggest reasons is because it's one of the only places I've worshipped where gender really, truly doesn't matter. Any and all positions of leadership--from planning to praying to preaching--are equally open to women and men.

But back to last week...

As many experiences are apt to do, it got me thinking about women in church leadership. You see, this was only my third time ever to lead singing. No one has ever taught me how to do it. I don't know how to do the hand-waving tempo-keeping thing. It didn't even cross my mind to direct the congregation to stand or sit. Everything I know about song leading, I've just picked up by watching other song leaders over the years. Because, while we do an excellent job of training our boys to lead from a young age, girls just don't get that same training (maybe things are better now, but when I was kid, that kind of training wasn't an option for girls). So while many men my age have been leading singing for 15+ years, I didn't start until last year. When little Billy Bob gets up, leads a song, and bombs it, people think, "Aww, he's 12 and cute! Let's encourage him to keep doing this and keep getting better!" It's less cute when a 27-year-old leads singing and bombs it.

I was talking about this with a friend last night, and she made a really good point. For us women, it feels like there's more pressure to be excellent at any act of leadership we perform. Since there are so few women doing public leadership tasks in church, each woman who does do something up front--at least to an extent--sets the tone/expectation for how women do that particular thing. For instance, say Billy Bob grows up and never becomes very good at leading worship but still volunteers every now and then. When he gets up and leads poorly, people just kind of accept that he's not awesome at song leading, but most people probably don't make assumptions about the rest of the male population's ability to lead singing. But as a woman, I feel like my performance--however good or bad--is a reflection on ALL women who may want to lead. "She really messed up the tempo on that last song. Maybe Paul was on to something when he said women should keep silent." Or, "She did a great job! We should get more women to lead singing!"

So here are my pleas:

Church - bear with us. So many of us desperately want to lead but don't know the ins and outs of how to perform certain functions within a worship service. Just because we're adults doesn't mean we've ever led a public prayer or served communion--much less done so lots of times. When we stand behind the pulplit and read a passage of Scripture, extend the same level of grace and encouragement you would extend to a 12-year-old. Oh, and starting teaching girls how to lead from a young age.

Worship planning teams/individuals - be intentional about inviting women to do things. Since public leadership roles in church are new to us, we may be hesitant to volunteer because we fear we'll do a bad (or even a mediocre) job. So we may need some extra pushing and encouragement. And if a woman bombs a Scripture reading, ask her to do another one anyway! Pretend she's 12 years old.

Women - jump in there and lead! Yes, it's terrifying. But it's also wonderful, and it gets less terrifying with time and experience. And the more your sisters in Christ see you lead, the easier it may be for them to step up and do the same. The church so desperately needs to hear your voice. Let it be heard.

This guy believes in women preachers

Earlier this week I was chatting with a faculty coworker who had recently been contacted by a church that wanted to know if he believed in women preachers. He wrote them back saying he absolutely does and pointed them to some web-based materials that express his views on women in ministerial leadership.

While telling me the story, he had a carefree attitude that I appreciated. Many people in his position might have tried to avoid rocking the boat by watering down their beliefs about women in ministry. Yet this professor unapologetically shared his views and moved on without fear of backlash and with no concern for his own reputation with that congregation. In his typical laid-back manner, he shrugged and said something along the lines of, "If they send me a nasty email or corner my family member who attends there, that's nothing compared to what some women who want to be preachers deal with."

Things I appreciated about his response to this congregation:

• He knows what he believes, and he stuck with it. He didn't try to sugarcoat the aspects of his beliefs that might be offensive to the congregation.
• He championed the inclusion of women in the pulpit.
• He recognized that what women go through in our struggle with identity in the church and ministry (particularly in traditions that don't make a habit of being gender-inclusive) is significant. And he recognized that that ongoing pain is more significant than the short-lived hurt feelings that may have been caused by backlash from this church (and more significant than the temporary discomfort created for his family member if he/she gets cornered because of what he advocates).
• He acknowledged his own privileged status--he's a white male with a comfortable income, who is tenured and therefore guaranteed this job until retirement. And rather than focus on protecting his secure privilege, he advocated better treatment of a marginalized demographic. 
• He placed the interests of others above his own. 

How Sweet, How Heavenly

Side note: I wrote this from my desk, which I don’t recall using since I moved into this house in September 2007.

Several months ago in chapel, we sang “How Sweet, How Heavenly,” a hymn that celebrates unity among believers. It praises Christian unity and genuine community in which people truly know and care for one another. I’d sung this hymn many times, but this particular time, the second and third verses kinda rubbed me the wrong way:

When each can feel his brother’s sigh,

And with him bear a part;

When sorrow flows from eye to eye,

And joy from heart to heart.

When, free from envy, scorn and pride,

Our wishes all above,

Each can his brother’s failings hide,

And show a brother’s love.

Now, maybe I was feeling particularly sensitive or feminist or critical that day. And I know the song was written in the 1700s when songwriters didn’t care about gender-inclusive language. But I still felt a little excluded from the song and, therefore, from the community with whom I was singing it. These verses paint a beautiful picture of what Christian community should be: deeply sharing each other’s joy and pain, and loving one another despite each one’s failings. But all the Christians in these two verses are male. I find it sadly ironic that this song about unity actually excludes half the members of the community.

Since I was already distracted, I indulged my imagination, wondering what would happen if that masculine language had been written as feminine:

When each can feel her sister’s sigh,

And with her bear a part;

When sorrow flows from eye to eye,

And joy from heart to heart.

When, free from envy, scorn and pride,

Our wishes all above,

Each can her sister’s failings hide,

And show a sister’s love.

My suspicion is that one of the following things would happen: 1) we wouldn’t ever sing the song in church—it would be one of those songs that no one is quite sure how it made its way into the hymnal; 2) we would still sing it, but only the first, fourth, and fifth verses; 3) women would occasionally sing the full song at women-only gatherings (women’s retreats, women’s Bible classes, mother-daughter banquets); or perhaps 4) we would occasionally sing it corporately as part of a woman-focused service, such as on Mothers Day.

And if we sang those verses with feminine language, I suspect that the vast majority of the men present would (understandably!) feel the song didn’t fully include them because of the exclusively feminine language.

If it were just this one song that was infused with exclusively masculine language, I would be mildly annoyed but would move on fairly quickly. But it’s not just in this one hymn. It’s in many of the hymns/worship songs we sing corporately. It’s in our translations of the Bible. It’s in ancient writings and prayers of antiquity. It’s in our sermons, our communion thoughts, our everyday conversations.

I wonder (worry about) what we as a church can do about this. Even if we all agreed that gender-inclusive language was important and formative, how would we incorporate it into our worship services that include songs and prayers that are rich with history and filled with non-inclusive language? We can’t just turn “Faith of Our Fathers” to “Faith of Our Fathers and Mothers” or “Faith of Our Ancestors.” Not only do the inclusive options contain too many syllables, but changing these words penned in 1849 just feels wrong. It would feel weird to suddenly alter the words of songs we’d grown up singing a particular way. (And don’t even get me started on the use of gender-inclusive language for God, because that affects pretty much every song in the Christian tradition.)

This post has gotten far too long. So I’ll end by asking your thoughts. How can we use more inclusive language (particularly in our songs) without compromising the rich history of these songs (or throwing them out altogether)? Especially given the reality that not everyone in our churches is on the same page about the importance of inclusive language.

Mother God

This morning I had a new, very exciting, experience. For the first time I can remember, I had the joy of participating in corporate worship specifically directed to God as our heavenly Mother as well as our heavenly Father. I have often privately prayed or sung to God as a mother, but this morning was my first time to sing to Mother God along with other people. It was exciting, touching, moving, and weird, all at the same time.

In our various types of Christian gatherings, we do an excellent job of celebrating and honoring God as our heavenly Father, and most of us could probably rattle off at least a dozen passages (even if we can't quote them exactly) that depict God as a Father. But we're not as good at celebrating the less common and less accepted metaphor of God as Mother. Yet there are a handful of biblical passages that do depict God that way. For example:

"For a long time I have kept silent,
   I have been quiet and held myself back.
But now, like a woman in childbirth,
   I cry out, I gasp and pant."
--Yahweh speaking in Isaiah 42:14

"As a mother comforts her child,
   so will I comfort you;
   and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."
--Yahweh speaking in Isaiah 66:13

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
--Jesus speaking in Matthew 23:37

I appreciate the metaphor of God as our Mother, and I hope we will become more comfortable with using maternal language to describe God. There's certainly nothing wrong with the Father metaphor, but, as with all metaphors we use to try to understand and talk about God, it's incomplete and should not be used as the exclusive metaphor to describe God. Because when we limit God to just one image, we miss out on the vast array of other qualities that don't fit that particular image. For two excellent discussions on the language we use to describe God, check out this Metaphor, Idolatry, and Theology blog post by Jamey Walters and this Why Language for God Matters article by Naomi Walters.

Also, as a woman, it's sometimes easier to relate to a female image rather than a masculine image like King or Father, or an inanimate one like Rock or Shield. I will never be a dad, and I can't necessarily identify with how Fathers (or men) think and act. But I might someday be a mom, and I do know what it's like to think and feel and act as a woman. And speaking to and about God with female language helps me feel just a bit more like I actually am fully created in God's image.

So, this morning's experience was an exciting one, to first sing to God as Father, and to then sing to God as Mother. Hopefully my first time to do that corporately will not also be my last.

Singing the Women's Part

I had a new experience today in chapel. We sang one of those songs where the guys and girls split, singing completely different lyrics and melodies, for much of the song. Neither part is really the lead--we just take turns with who sings what. I have always sung that song either led by no one, or led by a man who naturally sings the guys' part, leaving the women in the congregation to band together from our seats and hope we come in at the right time and can hear each other well enough to carry the tune correctly. This morning, however, the worship leader was a woman. And for the first time in my life on a song that split like that, I sang with the worship leader the entire time and sang the girls' part the entire time.

There are other songs where the women's part leads and the men echo, and I've usually seen the male song leader sing the female part along with the women. Which kind of makes sense but also sounds a little weird.

Now, I have nothing against men or male worship leaders. But my experience this morning in chapel was refreshing--and kind of validating! This once, I wasn't just singing the extra part that wasn't important enough to have a worship leader, and I wasn't singing the women's part that still had to be led by a man so the song wouldn't fall apart.

Honest to God Lament

I invite you to listen to this sermon on lament, delivered by my friend Laura last semester.