Bold women for the future
Sermon on Genesis 17:1-5, 15-16 and Mark 8:31-38
Happy Bold Women’s Day to all of you wonderful women out there. And Good Morning to all the men who are bold enough to share a space with us bold women. This is what makes church so beautiful. Boldness.
Which has a lot to do with women. Women make up the greatest numbers of parishioners and believers in churches all over the world with about 70% in the ELCA. Without us women, our pews and screens would be pretty empty. Of course, our pulpits wouldn’t be. About 35% of rostered leaders are women in the ELCA by now. It’s still fairly common for a clergywoman to be the first female Reverend in a congregation. Just like I am at CTK. 28 out of 66 bishops are female. We are moving in a direction of equal leadership but are far from a leadership representing our church’s demographic. Ok, enough statistics for today, promised.
Yes, church has a lot to do with bold women. And I know whom I am talking about because I have met bold women from all 4 of our churches by now. Women, that dance during liturgy. Women, that start initiatives for cooperation between our churches and follow up until everyone is on board. Women, that lead all kinds of committees, master any technical difficulties. Women who are president, making tough decisions. Women, stepping up, women, sowing masks to keep everyone safe. Women, supporting each other in any way possible. Cooking dinner for weeks for a sick friend, getting up in the morning before sunrise to bring a friend to a doctor’s appointment. Women calling on everyone in the congregation regularly. Women praying for a long list of names. And today, we installed another wonderful young woman at CTK and Holy Trinity to be our ministry in context student for this year. Tori studies to become a pastor at PLTS in Berkeley. She is young and smart, she has traveled the world and heard her call and she is ready to roll! We are so glad to have you. We are honored to walk along your side, exploring your call into ministry with you. Thank you for choosing us!
As I said, boldness has a lot to do with women of faith. With Sarah being bold enough to bear a child at that age. Risking her health and her life to have a Son. Not knowing whether she would even live long enough to see him grow up to be a man. Trusting God, taking up her cross, and walking the walk for a future generation.
With Mary being bold enough to bear a child when she was just a girl herself. Knowing that the father would always be in question. Risking her engagement to Joseph because who knew that he would be bold enough to stick with her? Risking her reputation. Trusting God, taking up her cross, and walking the walk for a future generation.
As Sojourner Truth, another bold woman, in her convention address professed:
"Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, because Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him." Bam! She used the Bible to liberate and set the record straight about women's rights.
Now, in our reading today, Sarah only is being spoken about. She not only has no say in this covenant, she isn’t even present in the moment. When God makes a decision over her body to carry a child. It had been a life-long dream of the couple, this we know. And they had eventually given up on it and opted for a surrogate mother instead. Hagar, another very bold, very strong woman, but that’s for another sermon. And now, God promises Abraham and Sarah what seems to be totally unrealistic in their situation: They will have a son, they will become the forefathers of a great nation. And they will have land to safely live at.
It’s the promise of everything one needs to thrive. It’s the “40 acres and a mule” from the Old Times. To make a living and to know that there is a future. That everything one builds will have the chance to be continued. Or to be sold to start something new. That’s what God promises Abraham: a future. That’s what the Restauration of the Civil War was all about. A future for freed and free Black people in this country. And, that’s what didn’t happen.
Today is not only Bold Woman’s Sunday. It’s also the last day of Black History Month. And even though I haven’t preached on that I have been reading quite a bit and watching an amazingly informative and moving PBS series called “The Black Church”. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s available for streaming via PBS. And it’s absolutely worth the 4 hours. But be prepared to dance and sing along to the Gospels and cry over the infuriating history and presence of Black people in this country. And in our churches.
And no, I haven’t lost my topic of preaching here, just in case you wondered by now. Watching the series really opened my eyes to the beauty and the struggle of Black Christians in this country. For their faith and theology. The question of whether fighting for justice is rooted in faith or “just” a political question, is nothing a Black church would ever wonder about. Justice is about their livelihoods, their health, their communities, their kids’ future. Of course, it has everything to do with their faith. With a God that promises its children a future through land and descendants. All of its children of any color. Even though the white part of God’s church has been misinterpreting this for an awfully long time.
Within the Black churches in the US, there is a lot of variety, of course. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be church. What all of them have in common though is the great importance of women in their pews. And among their leaders. Women that we hardly ever hear of, just like Sarah. But who played major roles in God’s mission to provide people with a future. Today, I want to introduce you to two of them.
The first one is Jarena Lee. She was the very first authorized female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Born in 1783 to a poor but free black family, she started working as a live-in servant for a white family at the age of 7. We would call that slavery through poverty.
When she was 24, she felt a strong call towards preaching the Gospel and reached out to her pastor and bishop Allen. Who was not amused. Because she was a woman. So, Jarena got married to a pastor (and probably helped him write his sermons) and had 2 kids. Then, her husband died. When she was 32 she listened to a guest preacher at her church. Suddenly, he began struggling and abruptly stopped preaching, staring into the congregation at a loss for words. And then, Jarena jumped up and saved the day. She picked up where the preacher had left off and preached. Bishop Allen was so impressed that he officially authorized her to preach the Gospel. Jarena Lee began traveling and preached the Gospel across the country. Trusting God, taking up her cross, and walking the walk for a future generation.
Now, this is already impressive enough. But besides being a preacher, she was also an abolitionist. And not as a side gig but as part of her preaching. Because to preach a God who frees people from slavery and promises them a future means to preach a God who actually wants everybody to be free. And everyone to have a future. That was a highly political message to Abraham and Sarah, it was so in the 19th century.
Unfortunately, it still is today.
Which leads me to the second woman I want to introduce you to. A woman who continues that fight for finally upholding God’s promise of a future for all her children.
That woman is Patrisse Khan-Cullors. You might not have heard her name before. But you have definitely heard about the movement she founded. It’s called Black Lives Matter. And I know, some of you now will be triggered. Thinking, come on, pastor, how can you get from Sarah and Mary to Black Lives Matter? I am glad you asked. It’s simple. They are interconnected by God’s great promise of freedom and future for all of his children. And no, freedom and future aren’t the same. Abraham and Sarah were free but they didn’t have a future without their own land and children. And God promised to change that. Jarena Lee was free but her children’s future was limited to working like slaves for white people. And God’s promise was still valid.
Black and Brown people in this country today are free but their future is disproportionally limited by a lack of resources, by being overly policed and underfunded. And yet, God’s promise is still valid. And bold women like Patrisse truly believe that. And work towards it.
Patrisse is 2 years older than me. But, boy, she has already lived through so much and achieved so much. I just finished reading her memoir “When they call you a terrorist”. If you still wonder what this BLM movement is all about and whether it’s anything good, read that book. Patrisse is a strong storyteller and all of her activism is rooted in her own experiences and the ones of her friends and family. She didn’t choose to become an activist. She was forced to. Growing up in poverty, all around her people were policed and incarcerated. The most moving story is the story of her brother Monte. A wonderful person who suffers from schizophrenia. But instead of getting professional medical help, he gets arrested while suffering an episode at the age of 19. In jail, he gets diagnosed with schizophrenia but is refused his meds most of the time. Too expensive for the jail, too much administrative work. It’s cheaper to just fixate him.
When he finally gets released, he is put on a bus just in his underwear. The jail didn’t even provide him with a pair of pants. I mean, what a humiliation. They also didn’t give him meds. Traumatized he comes back home to his mom into a community where everyone either works 3 jobs or is unemployed. Because felons don’t get hired usually. During another episode, he starts drinking from the toilet. Patrisse later learns that that was the only water he had for days in his cell, for the fun of the guards. The jail he was in later gets sued for torturing their Black and Brown inmates for years and years.
Her loving, mentally ill brother is treated as a thread and problem by society rather than getting the help he needs. He is being told that he has no future in his homeland. Or many of his friends. Or his father. Or his child growing up with a dad who is in and out of jail and with a mom who accidentally got shot when she was 19 and is now paralyzed.
And so, Patrisse has no choice but to be a bold woman, fighting for a future for her people. It all begins with ending Sheriff Violence in L.A., the violence her brother experienced in jail. And it continues because the violence continues. Because Black and Brown get shot for nothing and their murderers too often go unacquitted. Because Black and Brown lives still don’t seem to matter enough to even do justice to a lost future. Like the murderer or Breonna Taylor still run free, a few of the involved police officers just got fired. For murder. And Patrisse does what she has to do. Trusting God, taking up her cross, and walking the walk for a future generation.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”
It’s something bold women like Sarah, Mary, Jarena, and Patrisse know to be true. May it ring true to us as well. Trusting God, taking up our cross, and walking the walk for a future generation. Amen.
