REFLECTIONS
ON GENDER AND MINISTRY
Rev.
Kit Ketcham, PUUF, June 10, 2018
I
had never seen a woman minister, ever, during my growing up years. It just wasn’t done among the Baptists, and
though nobody ever said “women can’t be ministers; it’s a man’s job”, the unspoken
message was not lost on me.
However,
after graduation from Linfield in 1963, it took me a long time to find a job,
so I briefly considered going to Berkeley Baptist Divinity School in the Bay
area, but when I looked at what programs were available and talked to some of
my women friends who were already at Berkeley, I discovered that the routes
open to women were pretty limited!
My
women friends already at Berkeley were in training to become Christian
Education Directors, and I wasn’t fooled by the lofty descriptions of that
calling, because I recognized “glorified Sunday School teacher” immediately and
shied away. I had taught a lot of Sunday
School in my day and did not find it very fulfilling.
Finally,
a job as a caseworker in the Washington State welfare department came up and I
began working with families and the elderly and disabled in Klickitat and
Skamania counties; subsequent careers that followed (like inner-city missionary,
stints as a school teacher and counselor) kept me employed for thirty years. That was more satisfying but it was still “women’s
work”.
I
was attending a Unitarian Universalist congregation by that time, in Colorado,
when my church called the first woman minister we’d ever had. Rev. Sylvia was a controversial character;
she was divorced, a single parent, and a “flaming feminist”. And she started to date men in the
congregation which was sort of okay at that time, though not any more.
It
didn’t take long for Rev. Sylvia to be the center of dissension in the
congregation and she was asked to leave, under a cloud. There was another lesson---women were dangerous
in the ministry. No wonder they were few
and far between.
And
yet I kept meeting women who were studying for the ministry. Many of them reported that it was quite hard,
because they had to contend with male clergy who resented their presence, with
congregations who were wary of the issues of pregnancy, motherhood, divorce,
and all the other conditions that professional women often have to figure out
while trying to maintain their work schedule.
In
seminary, when I finally made up my mind at age 53 to start my studies, the
tide was starting to turn and my seminary, Iliff School of Theology in Denver,
was admitting women to all programs---parish ministry, community ministry, PhD
studies, and making academic positions available to women scholars.
Nowadays,
there are more women ministers in the Unitarian Universalist Association ranks
than there are men. Women hold the
position of Senior Minister in several large churches across the country and
the UUA has an outstanding woman minister as the president of our denomination,
the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, who is the first female president of the UUA.
But
still women struggle to deal with male colleagues who feel resentful or are
sexually inappropriate. Occasionally
congregation members also behave badly toward women ministers, not taking them
seriously or paying them less than their male counterparts or even being
sexually suggestive toward them. It is
still a struggle for many women ministers, even in UU circles.
There
are Facebook groups strictly for UU women clergy, in which a frequent topic is
“how do I deal with this male in this situation---he’s being creepy, OR he’s
patronizing me by his mansplaining, OR he’s being overly familiar with women in
the congregation, and so on.”
Ministry
can be hard on marriages, as well. Several
of the women I went to seminary with were divorced by the time they qualified
for ordination. I myself have found that
for the men I have dated over the past 20 years, my being a minister was either
a sort of creepy turn-on for him or an irritated turn-off because I couldn’t
devote more of my time to him. Neither
situation was sustainable and none of those relationships flourished for long. So I have chosen to be Single with a capital
S for many years.
Men in ministry
have their own challenges; a male minister often struggles to set his male
privilege aside and deal with women colleagues as equals. Some denominations still refuse to ordain
women due to mis-interpreted Biblical injunctions by ancient prophets.
In closing, I’d
like to say that gender is a tough row to hoe.
No matter where we are on the gender spectrum, we have challenges to
surmount and big decisions to make, as well as losses and gains that we could
not foresee.
I am so grateful
to our guests today and to the visitors who have come to take part in our
service. Thank you all for coming. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the
Pride picnic in Tapiola Park right after this service ends. We will meet at the park for our monthly
potluck and share our dishes with all who attend. There should be plenty for everyone. The Pride committee is providing burgers,
both meat and vegie, plus some beverages and plates and utensils.
Our closing hymn
is one we’ve sung many times and is one of our favorites, number #1053, “How
Could Anyone Ever Tell you?” Let’s sing
it through several times.
BENEDICTION: As Bree extinguishes our chalice, let’s pause
for our benediction.
Our worship service, our time of
shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as
we leave this place. Let us go in peace,
remembering that we are in this world not to see through each other, but to see
each other through. May we offer our
rainbow message to all we encounter in the days to come. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
