'Worthy, Yes, Worthy.' Clergywomen to Mark 60 Years of Ordination

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“Worthy, yes, worthy. Thanks be to God”.

The UMC clergywomen are gathering again to celebrate what those words, called out in affirmation in ordination services, have meant for the world and for women for the last sixty years. 1956 to 2016. This clergy gathering, beginning next week in Houston, will remember those who were there at the beginning, women like Maude Jensen, the first full member of an annual conference (1956), Marjorie Swank Matthews, first woman elected bishop in a major denomination (1980), Leontine Kelly, first African-American woman bishop, rejected by her jurisdiction, but elected in the West, and Judith Craig, elected hours later. (1984).

So many stories of unnamed worthy women are assumed in this list; these three are women in whose shadow I’ve stood and received strength. Maude was a legend at Drew, attending lectures and concerts, taking time for tea and sympathy with a young pastor/teacher. She never took her place in ordination line too seriously; it was just a matter of timing, she said, since there were “plenty of good women already in ministry”. She was passionate, however, about the mission she’d shared with her husband in Korea and was deeply supportive of Korean ministerial students to the end of her life.

When I reflect on my own ordination, with its weight of a bishop’s hands, I have a double blessing to draw on. Bishop Wertz was first; I was ordained in 1975 as deacon, 1979 as elder. The second gift of touch came in June 1984. Bishop Matthews preached at our annual conference, and I got to drive her to the airport. On the way I asked if there were any hopeful signs of other women being elected. She was ill, retiring, leaving a big empty space. She gently advised me to trust that God knew what the church needed. I promised to try, but still I knelt on the hot tarmac at the small airport and asked for her blessing so I would remember a woman’s hands. By July of that year God provided what the church needed: Bishop Kelly, and Bishop Craig. My stories of their audacious ministry and radical discipleship will have to wait until another time.

It’s August. The women are gathering. I unpack tangible signs of times past. For some there are no artifacts, only memories (Nashville); a copy of the communion service I wrote for the Consultation (Dallas, 1979); a picture of purple water from Great Gorge; pink shirt, pink shoes, pink pin of a woman preaching, and a handmade mantle of joy from an unknown clergy sister from the 50th anniversary of ordination. These are visible signs of invisible grace. Unforgettable connections. Golden ties that bind.

It’s August. The women are gathering again, to celebrate the future, to midwife the birth of a worldwide church. but this time I will not be there.

I’ve wondered how to explain this missing link, this deliberate memory loss. My best answer: The personal is political. My reasons are personal, and political, and public. I believe that safety should be public and personal and political.

Here’s the problem, simply outlined on the Texas Department of Public Safety website: 

Open Carry, House Bill 910 Effective January 1, 2016. 

Campus Carry, Senate Bill 11, Effective August 1, 2016.

Guns at school. Guns at church. Guns in the playground. Some you can see. Some you can’t. All have a right to be there, so I won’t be.

So, no gathering in the Lone Star state, not even for the 60th anniversary of UMC clergywomen. I’ve gotten older, perhaps wiser. I need to pick my fights, and that means keeping my eyes on the Garden State to be sure we don’t weaken what others fought for. It also means I need to figure out how to stand my ground with my home conference, Almost Heaven. God knows what kind of hell we’ve invited in with a no registration required law that is pure lawlessness.

I study my pink preacher pin with her wild hair, open bible, cross, pink stole and pink shoes. She looks ready to kick up a gospel fuss, In body and in spirit, the women are gathering.

The Rev. Heather Murray Elkins serves as Frederick Watson Hannan Professor of Worship, Preaching, and the Arts at United Methodist-related Drew Theological School at Drew University in Madison, NJ. This post is republished from the author's Facebook page with her permission.