can a woman be a foot-washer?

Thanks to my sister’s heads up, I discovered that a question I submitted months ago was answered on the “Ask N.T. Wright Anything” podcast this week. The question was not “Can a woman be a priest?”—I’ve already heard some of Wright’s thoughts on that—but it was related to holy orders, and it gave me food for thought as I continue to mull this question.

Perhaps the premise of my question is completely wrong. Questions about what women “can” and “can’t” do in evangelicalism are premised on power dynamics: When a woman can’t be a pastor, preacher, or elder, it has real-life implications for her life in the church and how she is treated and viewed by others. This is indisputable. When she can, it’s judged harshly as an overstepping of her role (in complementarian circles) or celebrated as a sign that men don’t have the universal upper hand in the church (in egalitarian circles).

But holding in tension the fact that a pastor or priest has the power of influence just by being the pastor or priest and the reality that the role is meant to be least in the church, not greatest, is where I keep struggling. Asking “Can a woman be a priest?” might sound more like “Can a woman be in charge?” than “Can a woman be a servant?”, but that’s because we start with a wrongheaded understanding of church leadership in general.

Wright said, in his response to my question, that the aspiration and ultimate fulfillment of every priestly calling is embodied in that priest kneeling before his parishioners to wash their feet. As priesthood in Leviticus was the unglamorous job of butcher, blood spiller, and meat roaster, priesthood/pastoral care today should be the unglamorous job of sacrificing self for the sake of the Church. There is a holy privilege in it, of course, but the cost is high—it’s more like parenthood than power.

When done well, that is. Which, sadly, is rare.

(As an aside: Perhaps it’s not surprising that so much of evangelical culture has historically viewed parenthood and power as very similar things.)

Nonetheless, it gives me pause. I wonder what the nondenominational evangelical church could learn from the Biblical vision of pastoral care—and how its structure might change if leading a church looked more like the thankless job of parenting children than the glory of a pulpit. I wonder how I might word my question differently to reflect the reality of right priesthood more accurately.

Can a woman be a foot-washer?

Can a woman be a bondservant of parish “children”?

Can a woman go to the end of herself for others, for the sake of the Gospel?

If I look at the many devout Christian women across my life, I’d say of course she can—but she’s already doing far more than her share of these kinds of activities. In church, at least, let her be served.

To reach anything like an accurate reflection of these truths, churches and individuals would need to radically alter how they treat and speak about men and women. Less “headship” and “submission,” more “lay down his life.” We inadvertently (or, sometimes, advertently) emphasize the exact opposite of Paul’s intent—the exact opposite of the truth—when we teach these passages in this way, and thereby create a culture of power hunger and oppression that perfectly mirrors the culture of the lost world.

What appeals to me about a position like pastor or elder? Frankly: being seen, heard, and respected.

What appeals to me about a position like a priest or deacon? I’d say walking intimately with Jesus while helping others do the same.

Here’s the thing. All humans, including women, should be seen, heard, and respected—whether they are pastors, elders, or laypeople. Women can and do walk intimately with Jesus while helping others do the same.

Can a woman be a foot-washer? She already is.

Perhaps the real question is, how many men can be priests?

can a woman be a priest?

You all know I’ve wrestled, and have been wrestling, hard over what it means to be a man vs. a woman in Christ’s church. I wrote out my rejection of typical evangelical complementarianism comprehensively in six parts a couple years ago, but that was a beginning, not an end. I needed to reject complementarian theology so I could make room for an exploration of right theology, rather than swing instantly to its polar opposite, which is a natural but flawed inclination.

Beginnings don’t translate very well to the internet, where any half-formed thought you hit “publish” on can be pasted over you like an everlasting scarlet letter, as if you are not in fact an ever-evolving human who is thinking and processing and wrestling with God.

Nonetheless, I claim this as another beginning—a start, not an end, at articulating my journey toward right theology of gender.

Since writing that six-part series, I have left one extremely complementarian, conservative evangelical, non-denominational church and entered into a traditional, hierarchically-structured, Anglo-Catholic leaning mainline Protestant church. Not exactly the feminist flag-waving egalitarian situation anyone expected (least of all me).

In the Anglican Church of North America, the ordination of women is an open question. It is debated among the College of Bishops. Some dioceses have decided that women should be ordained as priests; others (including mine) have decided they should not, although a woman discerning the priesthood could technically be ordained under the oversight of an affirming diocese outside her own. I don’t know which side has it “right,” but I am certain that this space of tension and debate is healthier than the prideful, fear-based shutdown of either extreme.

That’s why I remain.

When there is enough respect between the differences of opinion to hear one another’s best cases, to assume good faith, and to acknowledge there is merit in both sides, there tends to be more respect for everyone—including the women whose lives hang in the balance of the debate. For example, my priest is of the opinion that the diaconate and priesthood ought to be reserved for men, but he is also willing to learn from women. He is able to see the God-given wisdom in women. He is not afraid to discuss even the hottest of theological debates with women.

Perhaps this is what I wish complementarian pastors and Christians knew: Even if I think there are problems with the complementarian position, the biggest problem I’ve seen is a lack of respect for women (and their advocates) as thoughtful human beings who deserve to be heard—not shut down, not treated as dangerous or deceptive, not whispered about in elders’ meetings behind closed doors. If you can’t be respectful in debate, how can we trust you to respect us in any other setting?

A serious handling of the differences between men and women must be willing to see and consider the nuances of where women are welcomed in Scripture. Jesus welcomed women as apostles (John 20:16-17); Paul welcomed them as deaconesses (Romans 16:1); Philip welcomed them as prophetesses (Acts 21:9). If we are still asking questions like “Should women have any co-ed leadership positions in the church?” we are hardly having a serious debate, because clearly they should and did, and the current efforts to shut them out of preaching and teaching and leadership ministries are merely a reaction to a cultural moment, not a reflection of God’s heart or God’s Word.

But “Should a woman be a priest?” is a serious question that I’m still mulling over. There are no Jewish or Christian priestesses in the Bible, though there are women teachers, preachers, evangelists, missionaries, prophets, judges, rulers, and worship leaders. This demands us to ask further questions: “What makes a priest different from a teacher, preacher, evangelist, missionary, prophet, judge, ruler, or worship leader?” In most evangelical churches, not much: the pastor is the teacher, the preacher, the evangelist. If a woman is endorsed by God to do all those things, what stops her from being a pastor?

I think this is where being in an Anglican setting has helped me understand. The priest in an Anglican church isn’t just the person who leads the service and gives the sermon. Anyone could do that—in fact, women are welcome to lead prayer services and teach co-ed catechesis in my church. But in the communion service, the priest acts in persona Christi, “in the person of Christ,” to distribute Christ’s body and blood to the people in the Eucharist.

That’s a completely different set of responsibilities than anything else on our list.

If the Eucharist is all symbol and no sacrament—as it’s treated in non-mainline churches—then it makes very little sense to me why a woman couldn’t be a pastor. But if it is a sacrament, if there is mystery, it makes a lot of sense to me that she couldn’t be a priest.

A woman can’t act in persona Christi. Christ came as a human male, not a human female.

Christ came as the new and better Adam, not the new and better Eve—He came to correct where Adam failed, for the sake of Eve, not where Eve failed for sake of Adam. Adam’s failure was in tending to the garden as the guardian of the sacramental fruit. The priest, in persona Christi, tends the sacramental bread and wine for the Bride of Christ.

If we overgeneralize the maleness of Christ to give all men a spiritual calling or status that all women can’t have, we fall directly into the Genesis 3:16 power dynamic that Jesus lived and died to abolish. But if we erase the maleness of Christ altogether as a meaningful distinctive of why He came, we lose a vital pattern-key to exactly how He fits into the whole Biblical narrative, and what He continues to accomplish through His body and blood.

Having a priest hold up the bread and the cup each week and say, “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sin of the world. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb,” has become a comforting reminder that God Incarnate came to right every wrong—all the way back to when Adam failed to tell Eve the whole story of the sacred trees and then stood by silent while she chose death. Sure, untold numbers of such priests and pastors have also failed miserably to protect the Bride as they ought (the ACNA’s own current archbishop being a prime example), but Jesus didn’t. Jesus loved her as His own body and laid down His life for her.

Does all this mean I think it’s wrong for a woman to be a priest? No idea. Maybe. Maybe not. I waffle between wondering how much sleep God really loses over the chromosomes of the person handing out the bread and remembering that He struck dead the two priests, Nadab and Abihu, who offered “strange fire” in Leviticus.

Either way, I trust that there is something that matters about being created male or female. Women have a distinct capability that no man can have in the bearing and nurturing of children. In the human family, only women can be mothers. Perhaps in the family of Christ, only men can be “fathers”—though sometimes the fatherhood of a priest looks more to me like mothering, as he is charged with all the motherly activities of nourishing, discipling, catechizing, nurturing, knowing, guiding, and loving the “children” who make up his parish. (And like a mother, he never gets a break.)

Or to say it another way, maybe women are made to be priests—of a different sort of church. We are the priests of the temples of our homes, a different kind of sacred space. As much as I sometimes wish otherwise, I am not replaceable in my home—my husband can help me and try his best to imitate me, but only I will ever be Mama. Only I will ever be the one who can nourish and disciple and catechize and nurture and know and guide and love like a mother.

Unfortunately, the churches that most need to wake up and have this discussion in a productive way are also the ones who have thrown the baby out with the Roman Catholic bathwater. Priests, Eucharists, sacraments, mystery—they’re all just parts of the pre-Reformation boogeyman. So I doubt this post gets much further than helping me think through my own ideas with more clarity. But that’s okay.

as a beautiful olive tree in the field

I type this while intermittently staring at “Our Lady of the Olives,” which rests against the wall just above my computer screen. It’s a print of a painting by Nicolò Barabino: A white-and-deep-blue clad Mary holding an infant Jesus on her lap, framed by olive branches and a floral-wreath border. The top of the painting says Quasi Oliva Speciosa in Campis.

As a beautiful olive tree in the field.

Serendipitously, Trader Joe’s was selling little potted olive trees today. I bought one. Today is the anniversary of the day my girls and I went to the little white Anglican church for the first time.

One year of being weekly washed in the water of the Word.

One year of dwelling in the body of Christ, and inviting Him to dwell in me, at the sacramental table.

One year running free, unencumbered by the burden of needing to know and be right about everything.

It’s been a year of asking questions (so many questions), learning, and consistently being humbled by the rigidity of my paradigm or the incompleteness of my understanding. A year of noticing how many things I have gotten exactly backward, and never thought twice about before. A year of discovering—as if for the first time—who God is.

Thus, Our Lady of the Olives graces my desk. A reminder that God humbled Himself to come to us fully human: the kind knit together cell by cell in a mother’s womb, the kind birthed through blood and travail, the kind that becomes an inconsolable newborn or a tantruming toddler or a strong-willed child. A reminder that the Father crucially partnered with Mary—and many women before her, all the way back to Eve—to enact redemption, and that for a time, she was His very tabernacle dwelling. Somehow a holy God did not think Himself too good for us, even though we so often think ourselves too good for Him.

A reminder, too, that the Creation project began with a temple garden, lush with life and color and goodness, like the flowers that frame the figures in the painting. That the Creator delights with me in my garden’s blossoms, my children’s antics, my home’s sanctuary. He tabernacles here with us.

I went looking for Him in so many places—across the country, overseas, at a certain type of church, inside a certain version of the Bible, in my own ideas and projects and “glorious purpose”—and though He never abandoned me in any of those things, I found Him here.

Little old here.

Common and nondescript, but simultaneously significant. Like a beautiful olive tree in the field.

Like a little white church on the corner.