Yesterday a bee landed on my finger. It walked over to my pink nail and checked for pollen before flying away again. It felt like a promise to my six year old self. I had driven eight hours to attend the ordination of Pastor Maria Rudolph, the first woman in the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand to be ordained. I wanted to make sure I arrived in plenty of time and ended up being very early. As I sat in the car, with the window down and the sun shining through I had the visit from the bee.
The church has been debating the ordination of women for many decades. In recent years, faithful women and men have joined together to support one another in our desire to see it come to fruition and to thoughtfully engage with the politics of the synodical vote which was required for the change to be enacted. One group has adopted the symbol of the sunflower. Sunflowers turn to face the sun, and the sunflower symbolises turning lives toward the son. They are also symbols of joy and vibrancy. The hope for the ordination of women is reflected in Isaiah 43: 19-21
“Behold, I am about to do something new;
even now it is coming. Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The animals of the field will honour Me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert,
to give drink to My chosen people.
The people I formed for Myself
will declare My praise.“
This was the reading from the Hebrew Bible last week as we enter into a season of ordinations of women and men in the LCANZ. The lectionary is set years in advance and so this reading heading into this season feels like a God-incidence. My Dad was very intentional about including all the lectionary readings on a given Sunday and I remember him saying that it was amazing how many times the readings were very apt for the current event that was happening. My rational brain says that this is because the themes and issues we see in the Bible are evergreen. My non-rational brain says that there is something bigger happening here.
On the day before the trip, I mowed the lawns and pulled out the stumps from the spent summer sunflowers in my garden. I love sunflowers because they are enormous and majestic, and because they attract bees. As a six-year-old I would catch bees with my bare hands and play with them before releasing them. My Dad loved bees, too. One day I dream of having bee hives and harvesting my own honey. In a conversation with my Mum in the afternoon she mentioned how alike me and my Dad were. My Dad was an ordained minister in the LCA.
As someone who has studied theology, I often get asked if I will seek ordination. As I sat in the service yesterday, tears running down my face, I was very aware that I could not affirm the ordination vows. So even if I felt called (I don’t), I cannot affirm that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God. There are just too many contradictions for me to affirm this. I also can’t affirm that a 16th century text – The Book of Concord – contains a full exposition of the text. Surely the beauty and mystery of God means that many centuries later the Bible continues to reveal truths and meanings full of continuing revelations. Maybe had the path been open to my six-year-old self, the outcome would have been different. Maybe not.
I cried most of the way through the service. I started crying days before when I saw a message from the Moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia, Charissa Suli, standing in solidarity with the Lutherans. To know that now just the very small LCANZ was celebrating, but that so many were celebrating with us is a great comfort.
But alongside the celebrations there is deep grief. Grief for our fellow Lutherans who have chosen to create a new and separate synod, rather than allow women to be ordained. There is grief for the women whose hearts have been broken as they waited for their calls to be recognised. There is grief for those who stayed and for those who left. There is grief for all the heartache given in sympathy for many of us who have not felt the call to ordination. There is grief for all the years, time and tears that have been wasted over this issue. There is grief for all the girls who knew that they were not valued as much as their male peers.
As I sang hymns and songs that I have been singing my whole life, I was grieving for all that might have been while celebrating for all the things that now might come to fruition. I am still crying as I write this and will probably continue crying for some time. I have cried for all the young girls and boys at the ordination that they will grow up in a different church, a more inclusive one. I have cried for all the times and all the ways that I have been excluded.
Yesterday a bee landed on my finger. It felt like a gift from my six-year-old self.
In honour of the Streams in the Dessert team, those behind the Women at the Well writings, and for Maria, Sue, Tanya, Kathy, Tania and all the women called to be pastors in the LCANZ.
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