Recently a friend and colleague, Christy Thomas, wrote a very
thoughtful post entitled “Red High Heels and Annual Conference.” She offered both practical and theological
reasons why she would not be joining
other clergywomen in wearing red shoes on the first Monday of Annual
Conference. While I have great respect
for Christy and her reasons, I would like to offer the reasons I will be wearing my new red shoes.
Now I will say, practically speaking, I am not terribly good
at wearing high heels. These are about
5-inches; the highest I have ever had. I
have been practicing walking in them. I can’t wear such shoes all the time, or
I would indeed wind up in the orthopedic ward. However, I can still manage it for a day or two at a time. But why go to the
trouble, the expense and (let’s be honest) the pain?
BECAUSE I CAN AND IT’S FUN
When I was a child in elementary school, I had to wear
orthopedic shoes. I hated them! Large
and ugly, they only came in the colors of gray, brown and black, and provided
lots of opportunities for being teased.
Even when I was older and could wear shoes that were somewhat more
normal, my feet were so narrow that the really cute, fashionable shoes never
fit. Not until after I had children and
my feet widened was I able to wear shoes in colors other than black, white,
brown and navy. Now, call me shallow,
but I have fun wearing cute shoes. I
don’t have many pairs of them; most of my shoes are still black (goes with the
robe) and sensible. But occasionally, I
like to splurge and wear something fashionable and fun. These new red shoes are fashionable and fun
and I am still young and healthy enough to wear them. So I will.
But I would not do this just because it is fun, if I was theologically
opposed to what the red shoes represent.
So I have my theological reasons as well.
BECAUSE I WANT TO BE SEEN AND HEARD
I actually agree to some extent with Christy, that one way
to understand our role in the pulpit is that the pastor should try to disappear
behind the glory of God. But there is
another piece to being a pastor who is a woman: invisible is particularly
difficult for me. My voice is different;
and I mean that both literally and metaphorically. I have a higher pitched voice than most men;
I have had some people tell me that their children paid more attention (at
least at first) because of the novelty of the way my voice sounds. But I also have a different voice as a
preacher who is a woman. I see things from a slightly different point
of view. I use examples that come out of
my experience as a woman. I talk about
giving birth and mothering children. And
frankly, I can’t get away from the fact that people see me as a woman who
preaches, even though I would prefer to be seen as a preacher who happens to be
a woman. And maybe that is not as bad as
I think. I want girls to know that a
woman is just as capable of being a preacher as a man. I can’t do that by being an “invisible
pastor.”
STANDING FIRM ON PRECARIOUS FOOTING
I always feel like I am going to fall when I wear these
shoes. Every step is a “step in faith”
that I won’t fall and break my ankle.
So, like Jeremiah, I am going to wear these red shoes as a sign-act.
Because God did not call me to be silent and safe. God called me to speak with my woman’s voice.
Sometimes God calls me to speak an unpopular word, take precarious stands, and
step out in faith. I stand with my clergywomen colleagues because we are different.
I continue to walk beside my clergywomen friends because we may need to hold
each other up and pick each other up. And I am willing to stand out in the
crowd because we have not come as far as we had hoped as women in ministry. The Bishop made that abundantly clear at the
meeting we had of lead women pastors.
So, someone needs to say that women don’t need protection,
we need support. Someone needs to say
that we really can fight our own battles, but we can’t fight alone. We need to remind others and one another that
the best way to convince people that women can be pastors is to preach Jesus
and be an effective leader. Competence
convinces. If we make disciples of Jesus
Christ, those disciples will not care that we are female. In my experience, when people are hurting
because their mom has just died of cancer or their child was drowned in a
neighbor’s pool or their teenager has just tried to commit suicide, they really
don’t care that I am female. They just
want a pastor.
If we are stepping out in faith, we are always going to feel
like we are balancing on 5-inch heels; like we might fall if we take a false
step. But that is our reality.
THE CONSEQUENCES
Will we lose members because people are opposed to women in
the pulpit? Oh, yes. Will we lose big givers for the same reason? Most
definitely. Does the church, does the
conference, have the guts to see it through?
Don’t know.
I do know this, however.
The truly “unchurched” couldn’t care less that the pastor is a female or
what kind of shoes she is wearing.
People who don’t consider the bible the “Word of God” are not going to
be influenced by I Timothy 2:11-14.
(Does this even need to be said?) If our goal is to keep our good
members from being stolen by nondenominational churches, then, okay, we may have
a problem in putting a woman in a church.
But if our goal really is to reach people with the message of Jesus
Christ, to build the kingdom, then we all may have to make some
sacrifices. We may have to step out in
faith – conference cabinets and bishops included and appoint someone besides perfect
young, white male pastors with lovely wives and 2.5 kids. (For the NTCUM’s among you, check out how
many of these appointments have been made to large churches recently.) We need
all the people we can get – people of color, and women in red heels included –
to preach the gospel and share the love of God. And if that causes a drop in
giving at a church, if a pastor is threatened with losing salary or not paying
apportionments because of gender or race or whatever, then other pastors need
to step up to the plate and make sure that salary gets paid, even if it is out
of their own 6 figure salary. Now that’s a radical idea! If we are all
committed to the kingdom, we need to make sure the kingdom doesn’t get cheated
out of servants.
This is a lot to get from red shoes. But for me the red shoes represent all of
this. However, I do have one more
comment to make. Christy is right that
many women don’t even have shoes. I
can’t solve all the problems of shoes in the world and not buying/wearing my
shoes because some don’t have them is a little like being told to eat all the
food on my plate because of all the “starving children in China.” But I can do this: in honor of clergywomen and
my red shoes, I will donate a pair of professional shoes in my size to an
organization such as Dress for Success (which helps women dress professionally
for job interviews). And I will wear my
red shoes to Annual Conference, even though (or maybe because) every step I take in them is a step
in faith.
Thoughts, comments, shoe stories?
