There’s a woman in the pulpit

Mark 14:9

Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

“Do you have a desire to preach?” The question posed by 11  men seated around a manse lounge as they explored with me my sense of vocation to full time ministry in the church. “Do you have a desire to preach?”

My voice left me that night - both literally and metaphorically. I was unable to answer affirmatively the one question that mattered to them. 

This was not the first time and, sadly, would not be the last time I was silenced by men.

Now, some 30 years on, despite going forward for selection without their blessing, I dare to call myself a preacher! A preacher in a great long line of women who preach. Women who take the Word, give it flesh, embody and share it wherever life takes them. Be it in Zumba class or belly dancing, in the supermarket or nursery. In the pub or coffee shop, school or shipyard. Sometimes, even, in the pulpit. Occasionally with words, more often in action.

Standing on the shoulders of a great line of mouthy women, women like:

Sarah

Hagar

Shiphrah

Puah

Hulda 

Deborah

Vashti

Esther

Ruth

Mary

Martha

Photene

Phoebe

Dorcas

Julie

Kathryn

Amy

Rachel

Sally-Lodge

... And countless others who have persisted in finding their voice and enabling others to do so too so that, history becomes herstory as the word is spoken and lived out wherever it needs to be seen and heard (Everywhere!)  

I give thanks for those women who discovered their desire to preach, not as defined by men, but as a response to the action of God in all of life and I take my place in that company, beloved of God today.