How to do church Part 15: just how do women fit in?

Dear reader,

As I became a teenager, my dad used to say I was a rebel. I wasn’t. Well, I didn’t think I was. I just didn’t get it and I wasn’t prepared to pretend that I got it. I wasn’t prepared to play the game. From a really young age.

Even as a little girl, I didn’t fit the mould of what a little girl should be. I wasn’t pretty or dainty or quiet or nice. I was boisterous and noisy and chunky and lively. And I didn’t understand what made men better than women. I didn’t understand how men were allowed to share from the Bible and pray in our church and women weren’t. Were men really that much more wise than women? Why would God create us as women to be inferior to men? And why did women have to wear ridiculous hats to go to church?

I remember one Christmas when I was about 5. We were sitting in church and as my mum leaned forward to pray, I noticed a chocolate Christmas decoration in the wide brim of her ridiculous hat. I couldn’t stop giggling. You know how it is when you start and there’s nothing you can do to stop. Yes, I was aware of the disapproving looks and my mum’s elbow in my side. But come on, this was the funniest thing ever! Of course I was going to laugh, even in church. Even God would have seen the funny side of that, surely.

The whole thing about hats seemed ridiculous to me. My mum dressed up for church each week as if she was about to meet the Queen. Is that really what this God required? And did he really require women to keep quiet? And were all husbands really masters of their wives? And as girls and women, were we really expected to just accept this and not ask questions or demand an explanation?

Of course, the explanation was there. It said so in the Bible. It said so very clearly in 1 Corinthians 11. In a letter written to a specific faith community in a specific time and culture, which was just beginning to work out how to do church in that context. What was I going to do with that clear instruction from God? I guess I came to see that that instruction was for that context. And in fact, this was a revolutionary step forward in the treatment of women at that time in that place. This was offering women a seat at a table they had never been invited to before. And this head covering was for their protection, for them to gain respect at a time when women were often considered as possessions and sexual objects.

Before I got the age where I was expected to wear a hat for church – that was never going to work, not with my big head! – our family moved to a different church and suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter any more. Women still couldn’t speak in a service but there were no more hats – hurrah! It seemed odd to me that something that had been so important was no longer significant. The Bible still said the same thing – so how had ‘the men’ changed their minds? You see, maybe they weren’t so wise after all!

And gradually over the years, women were given permission to do the Bible reading, share a testimony, maybe even pray. Things were changing, but the man was still head of the house and the leadership of the church was all men. That was God’s way, apparently. So why did I find that so hard to accept deep in the core of me?

About 20 years ago, a woman I deeply respected told me she felt God was calling me to consider ordination. Me, a vicar? But I was a woman! Yes, that was my initial response. A woman’s inferiority in all things spiritual was what I’d been brought up on, even if the reality felt so very different to that. No, I didn’t become a vicar, but that incident caused me to challenge that core belief that I held onto – and still, I have to challenge that core belief as I wrestle with any kind of spiritual leadership (even though that appears to be what I am sometimes called to).

I believe that God created men and women as equal: complementary, two reflections of the divine image, two perspectives of the human experience. In fact, more than two – we’re a whole spectrum of reflections and perspectives that needs no boundaries and labels and set roles.

The modern world is still not a level playing field. We have such a long way to go.

And maybe the church is the place to model a mutual respect between men and women that extends into every aspect of life.

In fact, no, not maybe.

Definitely.

With love,

from Helen the little girl and Helen the woman

xxx

This message for us as church today was based on 1 Corinthians 11:1-16.