By Rev. Brian R. Louis
Saint Mary Magdalene
Giovanni Antonio Galli, painter.
Oil on canvas
The Walters Art Museum
(July 5, 2023) — Months ago, I planned to start an occasional sermon series on women in the Bible. That was long before the Southern Baptist Convention ousted a couple of churches from their organization because they had women in head pastor or senior pastor roles.
This writing is not meant to be a screed against the Southern Baptist Convention. They can do what they want; it is their religious body, not mine. The Roman Catholic church, same thing. I don’t agree with their position, and I think both groups are missing out on a lot of wisdom and fine leadership because of it. There is an opportunity cost of not having women in senior pastoral roles.
My denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been ordaining women since 1956. That fact was one of the reasons I joined the PCUSA when I became a practicing Christian again in 2017. I thought, and continue to think, that women should be in the highest level of religious leadership, just as they should be in the highest levels of government, business leadership, every kind of leadership, for that matter. Humanity is better off with a lot of women in charge.
I understand the argument behind the position that only men should be in leadership or clerical positions in a Christian body: Jesus only picked men to be his twelve apostles. I understand the reasoning. But one of my counterarguments to that came out of the preparation for a recent sermon.
The counterargument is that there were key followers of Jesus who were women: Mary Magdalene, the sisters Mary and Martha, to name some of the most prominent. Mary Magdalene herself was an apostolos, which means “apostle,” or “messenger” in Greek, the language of the New Testament. In the Gospel of John after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene, and tells her to tell the other disciples that he is alive, and he has yet to ascend off the earth to join God. Thus, Mary Magdalene is an apostle, a messenger to the apostles. Thomas Aquinas calls Mary Magdalene the “apostle to the apostles.” Mary, a woman, was an apostle of Jesus as well as the other twelve.
The twelve apostles of Jesus were believed to be the closest people to him. However, the women who were his disciples were extremely close to him too. Mary Magdalene followed Jesus around and was “evidently among Jesus’ dearest companions,” scholar James D. G. Dunn writes in his 2003 book Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1.
I see the past female pastors at the church I currently serve, Faith Presbyterian Church, as spiritual descendants of the Apostle Mary Magdalene: the late Virginia Studer; Renee Rico, and Kay Travis.
I am grateful to the women ministers I encountered in my faith formation. Without them, I wonder if I would be where I am today. They were evangelists for Christ. They showed me how to be a disciple. In their own ways, they made a disciple out of me. They were instrumental in my faith formation. I will be forever grateful to Pastor Nanette and Pastor Shannon at Fourth Presbyterian Church and Rev. Dr. Cynthia Lindner at the University of Chicago for their example and their encouragement. They are all spiritual descendants of the Apostle Mary Magdalene. Without them, I think the church would have one less disciple, the UChicago Divinity School would have one less graduate, and the PCUSA would have one less Minister of the Word and Sacrament.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/debt-gratitude-women-christian-leadership-brian-louis
A Reformed Pastor 