In a Lenten reflection, Rev. Amy Zimbelman invites us to experience transformation, as modeled by Mary Magdalene and today’s women in ministry.
This blog includes storytelling and findings from an 18-month mixed-methods research project on the experiences of women in ministry in MC USA, conducted by Amy Zimbelman and Elizabeth Johnson. See other articles on this project HERE and HERE.
Rev. Amy Zimbelman is the conference minister of Mountain States Mennonite Conference. She holds a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School, and has also served in Zambia through Mennonite Central Committee and in South Dakota with Mennonite Voluntary Service. In South Dakota, she met her husband/best friend, Matt Zimbelman, and they live in Colorado Springs and have two young sons. She loves spending time with her family, cooking/eating food, board gaming with friends, going outside to walk or hike, learning about other cultures, hashing things out in long conversations and trying to follow Jesus.
The season of Lent is an invitation to transformation: death to life, sin to repentance, doubt to belief. Women in ministry, from Mary Magdalene to today, can show us the way.
Mary – once tortured by seven demons (Luke 8:2) – found transformative healing and became a leading disciple of Jesus and was commissioned by Jesus to be the first preacher of the Gospel (John 20:17-18). Our research on women in ministry found that, likewise, the journeys of MC USA women ministers have the power to transform their own lives first and the communities around them.
Many women in MC USA ministry who participated in the study cited a struggle to affirm their own ministries, especially at first. Factors including societal norms, a lack of female role models, or scripture used abusively against them, contributed to a sense of imposter syndrome or a reluctance to pursue a pastorate at all.
Multiple women named a lack of role models as a reason they did not consider ministry or a reason they assumed their only option for ministry would be as a pastor’s wife. “I think it was probably in high school or college before I even heard of a woman pastor,” said one participant. Pastoring as a career “was just not a thought that I had.”
Others described overt oppression. One participant was informed by her pastor as a teen that her leadership in the youth group was a sin. “I was convinced that I had been rebellious and bad and sinful. I was so upset because I had put in so much work to try and be as helpful as I could to this church, and it was me sinning. It was me being selfish.”
Womanist theologian and author Renita Weems posits that over 2,000 years ago, Mary Magdalene may have struggled with some of the same forces working against leading women today.
Even though we don’t know the details of Mary Magdalene’s illness, once she was healed, Weems says that “Mary proved to be an able leader among the women: articulate, loyal, and persuasive. And because, once she was healed, she was so charismatic, it is not far-fetched to suppose that at least some of Mary’s illness was brought on by her inability to express herself fully.” Picture a smart, gifted, charismatic woman living in a society which had no place for such women.
In the First Century, Weems says that “mental disorders were believed to be manifestations of demonic spirits.” Could it be that Mary Magdalene’s “demons” were the type that anyone would struggle with whose full self is not welcome, whose contributions are ignored? What if Mary wrestled with self-doubt, anxiety, fear, depression, self-pity, rage, and bitterness?
As Weems puts it, these struggles of the mind and soul can “comprise the profile of every woman who finds herself in circumstances – whether family, career or church – that prevent her from reaching for … and developing into the woman God intends of her.”
But Mary Magdalene and the women in our study experienced (and continue to experience) healing. Women described finding freedom – whether through a new role model, a shoulder tap from a congregation or an individual, or a miraculous event – from the forces holding them back from ministry, enabling them to share their gifts.
Some women finally found the role model they had lacked growing up, which gave them renewed confidence. As one participant described: “[Pastor name] was the first woman pastor I ever met where I could see myself in her. … That sort of example is just really, really important.” When that pastor tapped the young woman on the shoulder encouraging her to consider seminary, she did.
While shoulder taps noted in the study were often mediated by humans, the shoulder tap was often from the community and the Spirit through mystical or miraculous events.
One woman was struggling with the decision to go into ministry; her local church was calling her to the role, while her conference did not ordain women. “I just felt like it had come down to a yes or a no. God had given me an invitation, like an engagement. …I said, ‘Yes.’ I had this vision of God running around waving his arms saying, ‘She said yes! She said yes!’”
Another participant dreamed of the name of a seminary, and the next morning, she felt “the deepest peace I had ever felt in my life. … [Soon after that] I turned on the car and the first words I heard were in a song. ‘Sometimes your calling comes in dreams.’” It was an experience powerful enough to change her career trajectory. “I just cried. … I guess I’m going to be this person that I never thought I would be, this occupation, this calling.”
And perhaps most miraculously, the perspectives of many experiencing the ministries of women were themselves changed from doubt to belief. Though we did not specifically ask about this in the study, almost one-third of interview participants shared of once-doubting congregants and community members changing their minds to become affirming of women in ministry after they got to know a woman thriving in the role. This change usually occurred over the course of years as the person in doubt slowly came to realize that the woman’s ministry was effective.
At the Mennonite church she was pastoring, one participant described a leader who would turn to the side when they were in meetings so he wouldn’t have to look at her. She explained how she didn’t shy away from communicating with him, even with his disrespect: “You gotta have a sense of humor. … I started asking him questions and he’d always answer to these people over here [points to the side]. Well, you know in the end, that guy became one of my very strong advocates.”
Multiple pastors received heartfelt apologies when folks realized their error, including in-person verbal apologies, handwritten letters, or explanations of how the person had once misinterpreted scripture about women in leadership and now understood they were wrong.
Sometimes the changes happened close to home. After being invited to preach at her childhood church that had never previously allowed a woman to preach, one pastor describes a change in her father:
“My dad, who never once in his life ever said, ‘I love you’ to me … and also never gave us compliments because that would lead to pride, was able to come to church that Sunday [that I preached], and after church, he looked over and said, ‘Say, I just need to tell you: you did a good job.’ … That was really significant for me.”
And, sometimes, women owned their callings, knowing that the change in their own hearts and minds was intricately connected to the changes in others. As one woman who had once doubted her own ministry put it, she was now “the kind of pastor that those who don’t believe women should be pastors seek out. Watch me. Because this is real. … This isn’t something that I got at Walmart. It’s not going away. This is who I am.”
She continued: “If you don’t think I should be a pastor because I’m a woman, that’s OK. These are the very people who, when their wife had a miscarriage and would call our house before cell phones and [my husband/co-pastor] would answer, they would say, ‘May I talk to your wife?’”
The women in this study have gifts capable of strengthening their churches and broader communities – gifts such as preaching, teaching, pastoral care, administration and communication. While it seems like accepting the power of women’s ministries should be a settled issue post-Mary Magdalene, the need for transformation to happen for ministers and their communities continues.
May we, like Mary Magdalene and all who follow in her footsteps, lay down doubt and death in favor of belief and life this Lenten season. And may our transformation, full of resurrection power, be contagious.
Citation:
Renita Weems, Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible. San Diego: LuraMedia, 1988.