AS I HUNG UP THE PHONE, I reflected on the conversation I d just finished with the director of the Metropolitan Detroit Lutheran Parish, a coalition of 15 churches that includes Christ Church, the congregation I serve. One of the other congregations in the coalition was interviewing a female pastoral candidate.
Apparently some of the members of the call committee had concerns about the ability of a woman to do some of the things inner-city pastors are called to do, specifically living in the church's neighborhood and visiting members and prospective members in that neighborhood. The director wondered if some members of Christ Church would be willing to meet with the call committee and answer the question, "What's it like having a woman as your pastor?"
I had said yes without even thinking about it. Yes, because the people I serve are uniformly ready to go anywhere at any time to help anyone. I knew they'd be willing to share their experience.
But now I wondered, why? Why should such a meeting be necessary? If a white congregation was interviewing a black candidate, would such a discussion even be allowed? Why wasn't the word of the director, that he was recommending the most qualified candidate, enough?
Should I raise these questions with the director, saying no one from Christ Church would attend such a meeting? Or was our participation the best way to help a sister receive a call? And the most searing question of all: Was I afraid to get involved because, even after three-and-a-half years together, I still didn't know what members really thought and felt about having a woman minister?
Still wrestling with these issues, I approached the men of the church property committee, explaining the phone call. Sure, they'd be glad to go meet with the other church. And then I asked the $64,000 question: Do you think there's any difference between having a male pastor and having a female pastor? The chairperson thought a long time, while I grew increasingly anxious. "Well, pastor, there is one big difference." "Oh?" "You dress a lot sharper."
I like to think the issue of women in the ministry isn't an issue. That, male or female, we're just "pastor," simply doing our job, distinguished in the eyes of the world perhaps only by our fashion sense. As a male colleague chided me recently, and as the first part of this story proves, that is a naive hope.
I HAVE NOW SERVED Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in inner-city Detroit for almost five years. I love what I do and where I do it. Pastoring the people I serve is a privilege that still humbles me. I love them, and they bend over backward to show they love me.
That does not mean that they don't notice I'm a woman. Just as we can't help noticing that our skins are different colors. Few of my parishioners' friends have a white pastor. Fewer still have heard of a woman pastor. Like it or not, I'm different.
Most of the time "different" isn't a problem. Sometimes it is. I confess that when it is, it still hurts. But increasingly I'm realizing that my "naive hope"--my own reluctance to admit that my being a woman could be a problem for anybody--gets in the way of talking out and healing my hurt.
Actually most of my pain and frustration about being a woman in ministry occurs through encounters at the synod or national level, not in the congregation. I often think of Mary Magdalene running back to the disciples with the news, "I have seen the Lord!" only to be rejected by the men who were supposed to be on her team.
It's my male colleagues who most often disappoint me--men who march against apartheid, risk arrest protesting nuclear weapons or U.S. involvement in Central America, men who sincerely and wholeheartedly throw themselves into painful racism awareness workshops--but who say, in so many words, that women's issues are not justice issues.
Not all my male colleagues are like that. Many are truly committed to "stepping aside" to give women and other traditionally marginalized people opportunities for ministry. But it's very painful when someone who has committed his whole ministry to seeking justice for refugees, for example, can say without batting an eye, "Of course there won't be any female bishops in our denomination. There aren't any qualified women."
On the other hand, there are many opportunities which come my way simply because I am a woman. I receive invitations to preach or speak at conferences and conventions that would rarely be extended to men with my limited years of experience. I am often elected as a delegate or appointed to a committee because of an intentional effort toward inclusivity.
But, as much as I love all of those experiences (many would say I thrive on them), I would gladly trade those personal opportunities for a decision in favor of job parity and salary equalization, or for the joy of seeing one full-time urban coalition director, or--God help us--a woman bishop in the newly formed Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
It is true, as someone said to me recently, that the door of the church has never been more open to women than it is today. The church has come a long way since the days when the only full-time ministry careers for women were director of Christian education or pastor's wife. There are many Christians--lay and clergy, female and male--working actively to see that women are given even greater and more varied opportunities to serve and to lead.
But for all that's happened and is happening, that door is still only open a few inches. And to be honest, a lot of the time it feels as though there's only one doorknob--and it ain't on my side of the door.
Susan Moore Ericsson was pastor of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Detroit, Michigan when this article appeared.
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