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January 2001
Dear Friends,
On January 7, 2001, Shirley Maria dos Santos Proença
was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament.
Those who arrived at São Paulo’s Fourth Independent
Presbyterian Church at 10:30 that Sunday morning would have had
trouble finding seats. I was spared the problem because they hustled
me off to the chancel, to sit with the presbytery’s ordaining
commission. The visitor would have seen a sight only too familiar
in churches of the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil:
a solid row of suited men, sitting in the chancel and facing the
congregation, eight pastors and a couple of elders. There was
a liturgy to follow in the bulletin. Hymns were sung and music
was made, accompanied by piano and violin. One of the churches
in the presbytery was represented by a men’s quartet—an
old Independent Presbyterian custom—and another church was
represented by a men’s trio. They asked me to do the prayer
for illumination, and the epistle lesson was read antiphonally
by the ordinand’s two children, who are in the fifth grade
or thereabouts. The ordinand’s husband, who was sitting beside
me in the chancel, had written his master’s thesis on that
same passage.
The sermon was of the kind sometimes referred to as a "strong
statement." The Rev. Leontino Faria dos Santos, moderator
of the denomination, preached on the story of blind Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus was on the edge of the road, as so many women and men
today are on the edges of society. Jesus Christ, Leontino proclaimed,
is their only hope, and we are called to hear and respond. The
exclusion of women was discussed and condemned, but Leontino’s
emphasis was on the ministry to the excluded, to which Shirley
and all of us are called. Reference was made to the long struggle
for women’s ordination in this Brazilian denomination, in
which Shirley was the
acknowledged leader. Today, said Leontino, was the day for men
to recognize what God recognized a long time ago.
After the sermon the ordinand was brought forward by a woman
elder and asked to kneel. Two years ago, when the denomination
approved the ordination of women elders and pastors, a few presbíteras
(elders) were ordained right away, but the future pastoras were
put through a series of mandatory waiting periods, which are now
finally over for Shirley and for several others. I won’t
tell you what the ordinand was wearing, because I’m not that
kind of a writer. The laying on of hands, including my hands,
was done in the familiar Presbyterian manner. The new "Reverenda"
was greeted and presented with a stole (All right, I’ll tell
you that much about what she was wearing).
The service did not end without the Lord’s Supper, celebrated
by the new Reverenda, with the participation of Reverenda Elena,
a Methodist pastor who is an old friend and companion in the struggle.
As women and men came forward to receive the elements by intinction,
those who had not laid hands on Shirley signified their acceptance
of women’s ministry by receiving communion from a woman.
After much greeting and rejoicing at the church door, I hitched
a ride to the center of São Paulo with my fellow missionary,
Virginia Gartrell.
Iris Hansen was ordained in another church the same morning,
but I couldn’t be two places at once.
This day had been a long time coming. Shirley has been a theologian
for some 20 years. She is my colleague at the seminary, where
she is Professor of Christian Education and Pastoral Theology.
She is the founder and leader of the denomination’s Women’s
Group for Theological Reflection. She has administered programs
of the denomination at the national level. There were people present
that morning who had looked up to Shirley for a long time. A new
phase of the struggle was referred to in the sermon and now begins:
to get women into the best pulpits, early and often. It would
be easy to talk about the unfinished business, about all the things
that weren’t done that morning. But one thing did happen:
after years of struggle on the part of women, Shirley Proença
was welcomed into the ministry by men, Latin men (except for me)
who want Shirley as a colleague.
Yours in the ministry to excluded persons,
Arch Woodruff
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 258
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