The last three years of the Advent season have been particularly powerful in the way they have changed me. Three years ago, I traveled the Advent season nursing a newborn and being nursed by an incredible partner back to health and wholeness. The strangeness of not preaching during the high and holy season provided space to wonder and awe in new life and new identity. The following two seasons of Advent were filled with hope and grief. Wondering whether I would carry the promise of new life again and grieving empty arms after the promise of new life and the unexpected loss of new life. This year, I’ve traveled the Advent season the same way Mary did with swollen ankles, restless nights, and the knowledge that this new life will change everything.
This Advent season whispers of a new season of life not only for us as a family, but for me as a minister as I anticipate stepping into the role of Pastor at Garden of Grace UCC. As this new journey nears, I can’t help but carry the promises of the advent season with me. For thirty-three years I have been Baptist, even in the seasons when I was worshipping with Lutherans, Methodists, and Episcopalians, I have been Baptist. With the new year, I will begin the journey of dual recognition of ordination in the UCC. My identity as a minister and as a person is changing.
And yet, there is a part of me that feels like I’m giving up hope. Since I walked into my first seminary class, I have held onto hope. Hope that there would be a Baptist church that would call me as a pastor, even though I was a woman. I have held onto hope that systemic sexism would be named and perhaps even changed. I have held onto hope even when comments like, “There is no woman who could ever pastor such an important church,” and “We did have women candidates for the pastor position, but they were all eliminated pretty quickly,” and the stories of sexual harassment of Baptist women in ministry from colleagues, parishioners, and denominational leaders burdened my heart and mind. But this season is a call for me to let the hope that Baptist women will be fully and wholly affirmed go into the hands of the Divine.
With the new year, there is a new call for me: to treasure this new life and new season for us as a family and for me as a minister. It’s a call to rest and immerse myself in the full inclusion and affirmation of me as a minister, not as a woman minister, but as a minister called to lead God’s people. Thanks be to God for this new season!