Confronting Sexism in the Church: Heather Matthews' Story

Church of the Savior member Heather Matthews recently released Confronting Sexism in the Church (InterVarsity Press, 2024). In the opening chapter she tells part of her journey.

I was one of those kids who was at church every time the doors were open, not because my parents forced me to attend but because I loved church. I came to faith in Jesus as a child, and when I was in high school, I sensed a call from God into ministry.

I was excited to follow and serve God, but I had no vision for what this looked like as a young woman. While my church affirmed that men and women could receive a call from God, there appeared to be no opportunities for a woman to follow and develop that call. Since I had never in my life seen a female pastor, I certainly couldn’t imagine myself as a pastor. It seemed obvious that God wanted me to be a missionary. …

Fast-forward a few years. … My fiancé and I were negotiating our future plans after graduation. I didn’t realize at the time how strong the messages were from the competing spheres of my life. As a female student at Northwestern University, I was surrounded by smart and talented women who were ready to take the world by storm. At the same time, I was part of a Christian group on campus [in which] leaders and students talked often about male headship and female submission, and that a woman’s highest calling was to be a wife and a mother.

I felt paralyzed. How could I follow my calling to be a missionary doctor while also supporting my husband in his career? It was clear from family and friends that my fiancé’s career was most important. I ended up giving up my dream of becoming a missionary doctor. I took the route of following my husband as a supportive wife. After college, I enrolled in seminary instead of medical school.

I noticed immediately that other students, mostly men, would not look at me in the eye or speak to me. I felt small and invisible. I could not be my full self, a confident and accomplished student with plans for my future in ministry. I was expected to fit into a traditional “pastor’s wife” role.

After three years of seminary, I graduated summa cum laude with two master’s degrees, but I had trouble finding internships and a ministry job because many churches only hired men. Although my degree required me to have “field education” credits for graduation, my church would not let me teach an adult Sunday school class without my husband coteaching with me. Even the job placement office at the seminary declined to assist me because they didn’t have any employers interested in interviewing women.

Attending seminary broke me like no experience in my life had. I realized something was wrong when I found myself crying on a regular basis, and I am not prone to crying. Christian institutions and Christian individuals were actively restricting the abundant life that I thought was available to me, and doing so in the name of Jesus.

 —From Confronting Sexism in the Church. Reprinted by kind permission of InterVarsity Press

Meet the Larson Family

The Larson Family, Eric, Liz, Zeke, and Eli

Eric and I have the joy of living at Jubilee Village with our sons, Zeke (age 4) and Eli (age 2). Jubilee Village (“JV”) is a residential program run by Outreach, which provides affordable housing for young moms, as well as wraparound case management services. We serve as “houseparents” at JV, which means we build community, offer relational support, and crisis intervention a few nights a week. During our weekly “community meal,” the entire building gathers for dinner, conversation, games, and life skills activities. Our family has happened to live in a series of different “communal living” situations over the last five years, and these experiences have deeply enriched our family’s relational structure, sense of communal belonging, and faith in the Triune God of love. Our strong value for community is one of the many reasons why we love living at JV. 

When I came into JV, I anticipated the relationships with the women to feel similar to past “client relationships” I’ve had in other social services jobs over the last decade. However, I realized quickly that these relationships are quite different. My client relationships were (rightly and healthily) guarded by clear professional boundaries, where activities like talking about my personal life or cooking food for someone simply did not happen. The women at Jubilee Village, however, are not my “clients.” We do share life together in many ways: our kids play together, they come by to borrow band-aids or eggs, we take each other’s laundry out of the dryer, they see how our marriage works. Though there will always be some power dynamic between myself and the residents, this shared life and, specifically, my shared motherhood with these women, does help to “level the playing field.” There is no pretense of superiority to hide behind when we both know we share the same struggles of how to mother while also taking care of ourselves, when we have shared the gruesome details of childbirth, and when the walls are just thin enough that I know anyone can hear when one of my kids is having a meltdown, or when I myself have lost my patience. 

That being said, I felt so moved and encouraged by Fr. Kevin’s sermon on November 11 on the New and Improved Earth, I realized it helped put words to my experience of living at Jubilee Village. I believe Jubilee Village is a place where “heaven is coming to earth” (the main theme of Fr. Kevin’s sermon), and I feel this most acutely during community meal. I do not say that in a romantic or idyllic way–lots of people (including myself) can show up to community meal feeling worn out, not willing or able to participate or contribute to “community building” with much energy or joy. Sometimes there are awkward conversations and lingering pauses in conversations. Nonetheless there is a deeply humanizing, mysteriously sacred, and distinctly vulnerable element to this liturgy of community meal: of cooking for a crowd, taking your seat around the giant table to eat together and share our imperfect lives together.

Many of the women that come to JV are escaping hardships of various kinds: abusive relationships, domestic violence, homelessness, addiction, or exploitation. But at community meal, none of these past experiences are stamped upon the women. In social services, there can be a tendency or an inclination to “pathologize” those whom you are working with–to see them primarily through their weaknesses. At JV, I have noticed time and again that houseparents and staff relate to the residents from a fundamentally different starting point than pathology. The joy of living at JV is the privilege of bearing witness to the journeys these mothers are on, these journeys that are inherently marked by their daily choice to sacrifice in order to build a life where they and their child can flourish, where their inherent worth and dignity can be recognized first by themselves and secondly in the new relationships they form in hope. It is our prayer that the beauty, goodness, and love of God may be known and felt by all the women and children who call Jubilee Village their home. We so appreciate Savior's regular prayers for the ministry of JV - thank you!

p.s. Jubilee Village is regularly looking for volunteers and donations to the resource room; please let me know if you are interested in learning more about this opportunity!

Resource List: Living in God’s Family as a Gay Person

Resource List

By Fr. Kevin

Following my sermon on Living in God’s Family as a Gay Person, some people asked for more resources.

 On reading the Bible

· If you want a quick overview of the biblical verses in question, see What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

· If you’ve wondered or heard, “Christians ignore so many commands in the Bible, like executing people for breaking the Sabbath, but still condemn gay sex. Aren’t you just picking what you want?” see Tim Keller’s blogpost, “Making Sense of Scripture’s ‘Inconsistency’.”

·If you’ve wondered, “But the church has moved on overturning slavery and in freeing women to serve as leaders, why shouldn’t we move on homosexual behavior for believers?” see William Webb’s book, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals.

· If you’ve wondered, “But what about same-sex marriage?” see Preston Sprinkle’s book, Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?

On making the church a welcoming place

· 2 celibate gay Christians talked about their experiences on the C4SO podcast: Wesley Hill on Human Sexuality and the Church; and Pieter Valk on a Traditional Sexual Ethic. 

· Costly Obedience: What We Can Learn from the Celibate Gay Christian Community by Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets

· The websites Spiritual Friendship; Equip; Revoice; and The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender.

The Holy Trinity: Bible Verses, Quotations, and Prayers

The Holy Trinity: Bible Verses, Quotations, and Prayers

5 Key Bible Verses on the Trinity

 

Matthew 3:16-17: As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Matthew 28:18-20: Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

John 14:16-17, 23, 26: [Jesus said to his disciples:] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. … Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Acts 2:38-39: Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Romans 8:9-11: You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Many others could be listed. A few: 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 * 2 Corinthians 13:14 * Galatians 4:6 * 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 * Titus 3:4-6 * Hebrews 2:3-4 * 1 Peter 1:2 * 1 John 3:21-24 * Jude 20, 21 * Revelation 2:26-29 * Revelation 22:16-18

Prayers to the Trinity

O my God, Trinity whom I adore; help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your mystery. … —Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, early 20th century; entire prayer at https://ocarm.org/en/item/3270

You, O eternal Trinity, are a deep Sea, into which the deeper I enter the more I find, and the more I find the more I seek. —Catherine of Siena, 14th century

Quotations on the Trinity

 

God the Father is fully God. God the Son is fully God. God the Holy Spirit is fully God. The Bible presents this as fact. It does not explain it. —Billy Graham 

It is commonly said that the Trinity is a mystery. … It is not a mystery that keeps us in the dark, but a mystery in which we are taken by the hand and gradually led into the light. —Eugene Peterson 

Where Jesus appears, the Blessed Trinity is understood. —Lady Julian of Norwich

If Christianity were something we were making up, of course we would make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he doesn't have any facts to bother about. —C. S. Lewis 

What does it profit you to enter into deep discussions concerning the Holy Trinity, if you lack humility, and are thus displeasing to the Trinity? —Thomas à Kempis

The Trinity is the life of God. It is in and through Christ that we enter into that divine life.    —Eirik Olsen                                                                 

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. —Thomas Merton