by Victoria G. Curtiss

A sermon preached on May 29, 2005, at Central Presbyterian Church, Eugene, Oregon, celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the ordination of women as elders.

Texts: Exodus 1:8-22; Acts 18:1-3, 18, 24-26; and Mark 16:1-11

The Bible is full of accounts of women who were faithful instruments of God. Deborah and later Esther courageously helped save their nation, Hannah witnessed to the power of prayer, prophet Huldah helped shape the canon, Ruth showed unusual loyalty, Anna and Elizabeth proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, several Marys, Martha, Joanna and Susanna were Christ’s disciples, Lydia bankrolled Paul’s ministry, Phoebe served as Deacon, Priscilla taught and evangelized alongside her husband. Plus there are many women of faith whose names we don’t know or whose stories are not often told: such as the five daughters who convinced Moses to allow women to receive an inheritance, or the four daughters of Philip who were prophets. All these women lived in a patriarchal society, without power politically or economically. Nevertheless, God spoke to them and through them.

Jesus broke through oppressive cultural norms regarding women in visible ways as he listened to women, stayed in their homes, discussed the Kingdom with them, was followed and financed by them. Jesus praised the faith of the women who sought his healing for their children or themselves. It was to the women at the tomb that the risen Christ first appeared, and though others did not believe them, there were in fact the first evangelists. In the early church, women carried out priestly functions – teaching, baptizing, and blessing the Eucharist – on par with men.

Yet, amazingly, by the year 200 A.D., women’s participation in worship was explicitly condemned: groups in which women held leadership were branded as heretical.1 It appears that in the early church there were two traditions regarding women. The first could be called the revolutionary tradition, which included Jesus’ intent and practice, which today we would call “feminist” and egalitarian. This tradition, preaching a gospel of liberation and mutuality, treated women as equals. “But soon another tradition asserted itself, the patriarchal tradition, with its antifemale, body-negating spirituality, insisting on the dominant cultural taboos and sanctions concerning women. This tradition, which had started long before Christianity, viewd women as naturally inferior and as the property of men, associating women with matter, flesh, evil, and sin.”2 Still today there are churches which teach that women are “second in creation, first to sin,” and women are not allowed to fill any leadership roles.

The patriarchal tradition has dominated. The accounts of faithful women in the Bible were either overlooked or twisted. Mary Magdalene, named by the Eastern Orthodox Church one “equal to the apostles” came to be known in the Western Church as a fallen woman. The transforming teaching which Paul wrote: that in Christ there is “neither male nor female,” was overshadowed by words which were ascribed to him but probably not his: that a woman is to be submissive, keep silent, and have no authority over men.3

Starting in the middle of the second century women and men no longer sat together for worship. This continued until fairly recently – in fact, this church’s first building in 1859, had a partition in the center of the sanctuary, thus dividing the men’s side from the women’s.4

In the beginning of the Presbyterian Church in this country, there was no official stance on women speaking in public because it was thought to be an obvious rule – they may not. However, starting in the early 1800s, this was not so obvious to many people.5 In 1832, General Assembly made its first statement about women speaking and praying in public. After much debate (remember the voters were all men), the Assembly voted 126-122 to send a pastoral letter to the church which read:

“Meetings of pious women by themselves, for conversation and prayer, whenever they can confidently be held, we entirely approve. But let not the inspired prohibitions of the great apostle to the Corinthians and to Timothy be violated. To teach and exhort, or to lead in prayer, in public and in promiscuous assemblies, is clearly forbidden in the Holy Oracles.”6

Over the next 87 years, there were at least sixteen times in which the General Assembly was asked to address the issue of whether or not women should speak in public or become ordained as elders and ministers. Restrictions continued, based on this citation of Scripture.

Nevertheless, the Spirit called forth the gifts of women, who worked hard in the church. In the history of Central Church, two missionaries had their wives as partners in ministry: Henry and Eliza Hart Spalding and Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established missions with native peoples. In the 1880s, Central’s pastor Edward Geary and his wife, Nancy Woolbridge Geary, established a girl’s boarding school in Eugene, which Nancy, a graduate of Holyoke College, directed. During Geary’s pastorate, the office of “Deaconess” was created and six women were appointed to look after the sick, the poor, and strangers of the church and city.

Later, in 1922, when Central’s pastor, Rev. William Case, was in France during W.W. I, his wife Mabel took over the responsibility as pastor for eight months as well as was a leader in her own right. In later years when her husband became ill, she took over the pastoral responsibilities again. In 1928, the recently opened Westminster House, now known as Koininia Center, had as its staff Mrs. F. M. Carter, who served as “Hostess.” She was succeeded by other campus ministers, both male and female.7

In the late 1880s, women across the denomination were encouraging one another to form their own Presbyterian organizations, even though conservative men decried this effort as “un-scriptural, un-Presbyterian, and un-womanly.”8 In 1893, PCUSA women’s societies supported 21 physicians, more than any society in the world. Over the years they developed an extensive program for mission, which they planned, administered and financed raising more money for mission than the rest of the church.

Then, in 1923, the women’s mission program was co-opted by the denomination into the new mission agencies of the church, leaving the women token control. Women were angry that they had neither voice nor vote in that decision, and that their power had been taken away from having control over the money. Plus, less money was raised and allocated for mission. “They reacted by working to rectify their lack of representation – and eventually won the right to become elders” in 1930.9 The strongest support from presbyteries for ordaining women as elders came from Western states.

The first woman elder elected at Central was in April, 1935 – one might say out of necessity. This occurred after a conflict between the pastor and the session in which nine elders resigned. At an ensuing congregational meeting, there were ten vacancies to be filled for Session and only seven nominees on the slate. Clara Beitel was nominated from the floor and elected. A second woman, Genevieve Turnipseed (who had been ordained elsewhere) was elected and installed as an elder in 1936.10

Twenty-four years later, in 1960, five years after the 1956 approval of the ordination of women as ministers, Central ordained its third and fourth women elders: Sarah Brown and Margaret Weise, both with us today. They have some stories to share during fellowship time.

These women who were eventually elected as elders were not seeking status or treating ordination as an entitlement. They had already been doing ministry in the church, or felt a deep yearning to use their gifts for the church. God’s call to them for mission came before the institutional church was ready to recognize it.

For example, take Louisa Woolsey. In 1889, she was the first women ordained as minister – in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Long before, Louisa had experienced a strong yearning to be a missionary, to teach and preach. But she resisted – she was a wife and mother, and besides, no other woman was doing such things. But she went through two severe illnesses, and during the second, close to death, she promised God she would obey God’s call. Like Shiprah and Puah, she followed that call despite the obstacles.

It may be such a given for us that women are ordained as elders that we may take it for granted. The revolutionary tradition which Jesus set in motion is more apparent now, with the rise of women as deacons, elders, trustees, teachers, preachers, Biblical scholars and theologians.

But it’s important for us not to take this for granted. This anniversary can serve to remind us that throughout history, God has always preceded humanity with a purpose larger than we can imagine and through people beyond our restricted lenses.

Remember - the disciples were surprised when the Gentiles – and not just the Jews - received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Later the church realized slavery was wrong, and that persons of all colors are fully God’s people. The current debate in the Presbyterian Church is about whether gays and lesbians should be ordained. Not surprisingly, the churches that are most open are those which have already addressed issues around the exclusion of women and racial ethnic groups. Today, in addition to the inclusion of gay and lesbian persons, challenges to the use of exclusive power include one nation dominating other nations, or with the environment, one species overpowering all the rest. God’s design for creation is radically inclusive. We are called to live in harmony, in which all gifts of all creatures are to be celebrated. No one group is to dominate over others, whether by gender, race, nation, or species.

Prior to the ordination of women as Ministers of the Word and Sacrament in 1953, Lillian Alexander, known as an unabashed feminist, said, “The whole emphasis of organized Christianity has been the extension rather than the limitation on the number of those called into the service of Christ.”11 This is Christ’s church, and we must always yield to the radical inclusivity of God’s work.

So today we praise God for the persistent efforts of women and men that led to the ordination of women as elders in the Presbyterian Church (USA). We thank God for all the gifts and leadership which women have given the church. And let this also be an occasion to remind us that we still have frontiers to tackle, calling on the couragous witness of those who have gone before us. For despite all obstacles, God will not be stopped.

Endnotes:

1. Nunnally-Cox, Janice. Foremothers – Women of the Bible, p. 151 quoting Elaine Pagels, in The Gnostic Gospels (New York:Random House, 1979), pp. 61, 63.

2. Kidd, Sue Monk. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Harper San Fracisco, 1996, p. 69.

3. Galatians 3:28.

4. “Central Presbyterian Church, 1855-2005 – Growing From our Roots” compiled by Historical Booklet Committee.

5. “Women’s Ordination Timeline” from web site of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, 2005.

6. General Assembly Minutes, 1832:348).

7. Pratt, Scott. A History of Central Presbyterian Church, 1855-2005, p. 6-8, 13.

8. PW in America, p. 217.

9. Verdesi, Elizabeth Howell. In But Still Out: Women in the Church, Philadelphia, PA: Westminster House, p. 109.

10. Pratt, Scott, p. 14.

11. Quoted in General Assembly Minutes, 1955:96.

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