Sermon: Women of Power

Luke 8:1-3

When I was a little Joanna growing up, I often thought that it didn’t make sense that God created me a girl. According to the gender roles of the midwestern evangelical reality surrounding me, I was much more like a boy. I was outspoken and boisterous. I was sporty and argumentative. 

As I got older and sought out leadership positions in high school and college, I was good at those roles but I also never felt like I was feminine enough. It felt like I had to choose between being a young woman with guys who wanted to date me and being a leader. It was confusing and frustrating. And of course I thought something was wrong with ME, not with the patriarchal culture in which I was immersed. 

It wasn’t until I went to seminary and started to differentiate from my family of origin that I was able to start integrating my identity as a woman and as a leader. One very helpful experience along those lines was participating in a performance called the Michiana Monologues. It was a regional spin off of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues. That experience connected me with women who were bold and outspoken. Together we wrote and powerfully performed stories about the heartbreak and thrill of being a woman. Finally in my late-twenties I had female role models who empowered me to step into a more integrated version of myself. 

My first job with the MC USA denominational staff, after graduating from seminary, was to audit the numbers of women in leadership in the denomination. I was tasked with researching the numbers of women in different areas: pastoral leadership, executive leadership of Mennonite agencies like Mennonite Mission Network, as well as the numbers of women on the boards of these organizations. 

In this research I found that numbers of women in executive leadership positions were actually declining in the church. This included as lead pastors as well as executives in church organizations. That year I remember 6 women in a row were asked to be the moderator of the denomination. All 6 said no and the first man to be asked said yes. I interviewed each of those women for my project and they all said similar things that boiled down to – I could take on the role if I had a wife at home. Each of them had careers, families and aging parents, so adding an unpaid church role was out of the question. 

Although the denomination was technically supportive of women being in any and all leadership positions, the demands of the positions were, by and large, suited to men with wives at home. As a young woman it was clear to me that systemic change was needed for women to thrive as leaders – and of course for the church, writ large, to thrive as well. 

I decided that this audit needed to become an ongoing project of the denomination to ensure that systemic change actually happened. Along with other women across the country I started to get organized and build a structure for the ongoing work. I am very pleased that this work continues at the denominational level today, with a steering committee who has created conferences, workshops, curriculum, a podcast, and webinars among other things. This experience taught me so much about women claiming their power and voice together, for the benefit and thriving of all. 

Within the context of our scripture today we also see women who are empowered as they participate in Jesus’ counter-cultural movement. The gospel of Luke is unique among the gospels in the way it honors women and highlights their presence and leadership. 

This short passage packs in a lot of information that might not be initially apparent to us. I know it wasn’t apparent to me and in writing this sermon I’m indebted to the scholarship of Ched Myers and also Ben Witherington III in the Feminist Companion to Luke. 

First we learn that women are traveling with Jesus which would have been scandalous! Some women during this time were known to offer financial support to rabbis, but they would not have been invited to join as traveling companions. Being on the road means that they were not fulfilling the traditional female roles of care for biological family and household. This “deviant” behavior was one manifestation of Jesus’ call to embody a new way of being family not bound by blood, but rather a commitment to Jubilee. 

Next the text tells us that they have received healing. It explicitly states that Mary Magdalene had seven demons thrown out of her which would have been a dramatic healing. She is also named first which notes her importance among the disciples, and is named multiple times throughout Luke. Joanna is named next and noted as the wife of the steward of Herod’s estate. In other words, Joanna is a high roller! 

Healing for her is not readily apparent, but Ched Myers unpacks it by first pointing to the overall concern in Luke about wealth accumulation. Joanna is the first wealthy person in Luke who is traveling with Jesus and supporting his ministry financially. Just like Zaccheaus later in the story, she is healed of affluenza (or wealth hoarding) as she redistributes her wealth to this growing movement. 

Another important thing to observe in this short text is that given Mary and Joanna’s social positions, this discipleship community following Jesus encompasses opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. This is an inclusive community and would have been socially suspect to the prevailing culture. 

We can see the through line in the gospel – all these examples of the upside down nature of Jesus’ movement. He talked about welcoming children, not because they are sweet little innocent beings, but instead because they are the lowliest in society. He said that the last shall be first. He talked about liberating captives and healing those made sick by oppression. He talked about welcoming the stranger and those who are outcast. Jesus called this the kin-dom of God. 

Does the kin-dom of God sound compatible with authoritarianism? In first century Palestine this movement destabilized the power structures and was therefore very threatening to the men wielding power. The status quo was destabilized because poor people (like Mary) were trusting themselves – they were empowered – and rich people (like Joanna) were divesting their property and possessions (betraying their class solidarity with other rich people). And women were named and honored for their leadership. Authoritarians hate all of these things. They need people to NOT trust themselves and look to leaders (ie. men) to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong and what to think and do. 

As a discipleship community of women and men, rich and poor, sick and healing, this movement was shaking the Roman Empire and its collaborators to the core. What if everyone was empowered in this way? What if everyone practiced this kind of solidarity? I mean, wouldn’t that be GOOD NEWS?!

This good news was then and is now always bad news for authoritarians and empires. In sharing some of my story of empowerment as a woman, I wonder how each of you would tell your story? From what have you been freed or healed to claim your power and step into solidarity with the last, the least, and the stranger? How is your empowerment granting you the vision to be a part of changing systems, to boldly call out injustice, and to powerfully express your spiritual gifts? 

Yesterday our country had a big pep rally along those lines, and I know some of us got to participate. We need those collective experiences to remind us we’re not alone and to give us the courage to play our part in embodying the kin-dom of God which will always result in overturning authoritarianism.

May we like Mary, Joanna and Susanna, boldly claim our healing, generously divest from economies of death, and joyfully continue on the journey with Jesus. May we like Rosa (Parks), Dolores (Huerta), and Greta (Thunberg) defy those who would degrade our dignity, stand with those demanding justice, and sail to break every siege no matter the forces arrayed against us. 

For we know that even death could not stop the inbreaking of the kin-dom of God. And together we are heir to that power that filled the disciples in the upper room and flows through all of history to us today. Let us trust the Spirit to fill us with the courage and vision we need to bring forth the kin-dom of God in this time and place. Amen.