Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

This morning's sermon was delivered by Rev. Dr. Phil Snider and Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler.

Lead Pastor: Rev. Dr. Phil Snider (he/him)

Associate Pastor: Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler (she/her)

Youth Director: Paije Luth (she/her)

Children’s Church Coordinator: Valerie Bush (she/her)

Executive Assistant: Wacey Rivale (she/her)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Today's reading is from Luke chapter 24, verses 1 through 12. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. Then they remembered his words and returned from the tomb. They told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen clothes by themselves. Then he went home, amazed at what had happened. May we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

So this morning we are continuing our summer sermon series in which we are looking at what the Bible really says about some hotly contested topics in North American society. And so today we are looking at what does the Bible really say about women in ministry?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Am I gonna have to walk off in the middle of the sermon? You know, last week you heard me preach from the letter to the Romans. At the end of that letter, we find out who it was who delivered that letter to the community in Rome. Her name was Phoebe, and she was a deacon of the church. Now, for Paul to give this letter to Phoebe and have her travel to Rome to share this letter, probably to a large community of people that were illiterate, which would mean Phoebe would have had to read this letter to this community. So this is someone who clearly was entrusted as a leader in the church, someone who was empowered to preach the good news to the people in this community of faith in Rome, someone that Paul trusted to carry out this important task of continuing the sharing of this message. She was a minister in every sense of the word.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

So this morning we're going to be looking at a few footnotes that appear in the Bible. Now, these were not like in the original Greek, you know, parts of the Bible, uh, but they're footnotes that appear because sometimes translations are difficult. And sometimes translations reflect the viewpoints of those who are doing the translating. Uh, translating is an interpretive act. So whenever you take a Greek text, uh, if you're interpreting the New Testament, or if you're interpreting uh the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, you would be interpreting the Hebrew language into a different language. So when you are translating, you are interpreting, you're making decisions about what is being said and what is what is not being said, what is being expressed here. And so um there are some times in which uh an English translation of the Bible might include a footnote. And in this passage from Romans 16:1, there is the footnote. And you could see that the word deacon could also be translated as minister. Uh, and there are a lot of Bible translators who have no issue translating uh the word deacon as minister, naming Phoebe as a minister. But there are others that are like, well, I don't know, let's soften it a little bit, let's say deacon. Um and and we're gonna we're gonna wrestle with some of these uh footnotes that appear in the Bible. Um the footnote here in Romans 16:1 reminds me of Junia, who we read about in Romans 16:7. So uh here's the verse from 16.7. Greet Andrinicus and Junia, footnote, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me. They are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. Seems pretty straightforward. So um, what is hiding in that footnote? Let's take a look at the footnote in Romans 16, 7. Or Junius. Other ancient authorities read Julia. So why Junius as an option here? It is the masculine form of the name Junius. And some folks wanted to erase Junia from this text because they did not believe that women could be apostles. Now, to be an apostle is like the highest calling. You're one who is called out, sent out, equipped to be a leader of the church. And and and so the word junior as a name appears hundreds of times in Greek text as a feminine name. How many times do you think that the word Junius appears in the ancient Greek text? The masculine form of this name? Zero. But that did not stop Bible translators from trying to erase Junia from the text, reflecting the patriarchal assumptions uh that they were bringing to the text. This is a classic example of people reading their own theology and placing it onto the text, not what the text actually said. Uh even St. John Chrysostom, who wrote in the fourth century, uh, he said, Oh, how great is the devotion of this woman Junia that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle. And in today's scripture reading from the Gospel of Luke, which Pat read uh earlier, we hear about Mary Magdalene. Mary is the very first preacher, evangelist sharing the good news. So she and uh some other women came to the tomb. They were expecting to care for Christ's body, but they see that Christ is resurrected. And they become the very first to go and proclaim this to the men who didn't believe them at first. They thought it was an idol tale, as the text describes. But they proclaim Jesus' resurrection. So let us never forget that women were the first evangelist apostles and the very first preachers in the Christian church, even though people tried to erase them and tried to erase women as leaders later on. Okay, there are some like problematic texts in there too. So so we gotta we gotta talk about what's in the Bible, right? And and and I'm just gonna like say a general rule of thumb when you're reading and interpreting the Bible. So, like as Christians, we associate God with the love that was expressed in the figure of Christ. And anytime something falls short of that love expressed in the figure of Christ, then it falls short of being what God intends. And so whether it's a teaching from the Bible, uh, no matter, you know, whether whether it's some teaching from Christian tradition, if it falls short of the love expressed in the figure of Christ, then it falls short of of the love of God. And and we always as Christians go with what that love of God expressed in Christ. We we go with that. Uh the Bible tries to point us to that, but sometimes the Bible reflects prejudices of its day. And sometimes there's even infighting in the early church. And we're gonna learn a little bit a little bit about some of that infighting. So um let's look at 1 Corinthians 14, 34. I'll I'll read this one, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

I guess I shouldn't read it, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate. Which can make us feel like this in the next slide. This is similar to 1 Timothy 2, verse 12. Uh, I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she is to keep silent.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I had this one read to me over the phone one time. I kid you not. I answered the phone and someone asked to speak to the minister, and I said, I am one of the ministers, and they proceeded to share this Bible verse with me to let me know that I should not be one of the ministers.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

How lovely.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Um if you like that, Emily does have a top ten list of things she's experienced as a woman in ministry that's coming up shortly in this sermon. Um, so this is complicated, and and this this speaks to a lot of the infighting that was taking place in the early churches about the role of women. Um this verse from 1 Timothy uh was copied from the one in 1 Corinthians 14. And notice the parentheses in 1 Corinthians 14. Okay, this whole section of 1 Corinthians 14, if you look in the New Revised Standard Versions, it is in parentheses as its own section. Why? It's because a lot of scholars conclude that this section of 1 Corinthians was later inserted by someone who wanted, in their view, to fix the text because women were leading far too much in the early church. It was very, it was much more egalitarian. So early Paul, uh, well, Paul, you know, deserves some criticism uh for time at different points along the way. In the earliest days, women were strong leaders in the early church. And and Paul named several of them in the book of Romans. We've already named two of them, Phoebe and Junior. Um also you have folks that that Paul will describe, and you can read about in the book of Acts as well. But you have within the context of the early church, women who are leading. Remember, Paul wrote in the book of Galatians that in communities of Christ, there's no longer slave or free, Jew or Gentile or male or female, all or one. Those hierarchies break down. We've we've talked about that. That was not a message always received well. So some folks wrote later on in the name of Paul to insert some things in ways they wanted to like push back on that early egalitarianism, and so they read some of the, so they took their patriarchal kinds of assumptions and tried to put that into the text. So this leads preeminent New Testament scholar John Dominic Cross and to say 1 Corinthians 14, 33b through verse 36, that's the parentheses part, it's a post-pseudo and anti-Pauline insertion in an authentic Pauline letter. Um I know it's weird to say that like some people would write in the name of Paul, like that would feel like if I was to write a letter and claim it was not my own, like I'm gonna write in the name of Emily, it would feel like plagiarism. Um but in the ancient world, people would write in the names of those they revered, kind of as an act of sign of honor, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And and in the earliest church, women were strong leaders, but as the church developed, there became a lot of pushback about that. And 1 Timothy was written a generation or more after Paul. It's one of one of the latest books that was written in the New Testament. And these words from 1 Timothy would not appear if women were not already leading. They appear precisely because women are leading and folks don't like it. That's why the words appear. And so you see in the early church tensions. So in the modern day church, you know, there are some denominations in which women can be leaders, ministers, and there are some denominations in which they can't. That tension we experience today was also being expressed in the early church, and we can read about it in the Bible itself. Okay, so um I tried to create this next image on my own, but I needed some help. Um, this is a cartoon of a pastor in her office.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

A real life moment.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

A real life moment inspired by Emily's life.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

And so many other women in ministry.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

And the uh man is uh at this pastor's office, and the pastor, she's behind her desk, and the man is saying, Could you tell me where I could find the pastor? So, um, Emily, could you tell us a little bit about your experiences as a woman in ministry?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Okay. I've got my top ten sexist moments in Emily's time in ministry. I was trying to decide how I should rank them. Uh, so I'm gonna rank them in the order of the ones that ignited the biggest feelings in me. Because some of them, I can talk about them and they don't really make my blood pressure rise, but there are a few on here that still make me real mad. So, anyway, we're gonna go from 10 to 1. Um, so number 10, in the early days, especially when Phil and I went to meetings together, there was always the assumption that Phil was a pastor and I was his wife, because why would I be one of the pastors, also, right? So, whatever. I can roll my eyes at that one now, right? It doesn't have that sting. Um, oh, I talked about answering the phone and someone reading scripture to me when they found out I was one of the ministers. Um, answering the phone and being asked if they could talk to the minister and then they wouldn't believe that I was the minister. But this also goes hand in hand. Sometimes I use that to my advantage if I decide it's a person I probably don't want to talk to. Oh, I'm so sorry. He's not here right now. Sometimes I can tell pretty early on whether or not I need to do that. But um, there have also been times where I make phone calls to either get a bid for something or for something that we need done at the church, and I'm just not taken seriously. I can't get them to return my phone call. And finally, out of frustration, I go and have Phil do it, and they immediately respond to his phone call. So that drives me crazy. That doesn't happen quite as much as it used to, but it did happen for a while. Um, I also learned in the early days of Phil and me serving together. So Phil and I have been at Brentwood, both serving at Brentwood for 23-ish years, something around there. Um, so a lot of these things happened over 20 years ago, but not all of them. Um so I learned in the early days that there were some people who were timing the amount of time that Phil spoke and the amount of time that I spoke in order to prove that Phil was letting me speak and that I was dominating the worship service. I have to share with you now, those of you who have only been at Brentwood for the last 10 or 15 years or less, um, I do speak a whole lot more in worship than I used to. This was happening back when I only did the pastoral prayer or communion. I wasn't doing both, and I wasn't speaking at any other point in the service. The only way someone could have come up with me speaking more is if they counted me singing and leading all of the hymns because my microphone would have been on for those. So I don't know how they thought that was going to prove their point because it was physically impossible. I only preached when Phil was out of town. So if Phil and I were both in the worship service, obviously he would have been the one who had was speaking more. Also, there was one time where a woman who was a beloved member of the church came into my office and she told me that she loved me, but that she had to leave the church because she just could not remain in the church if there was a woman presiding at the communion table. She had grown up with a man serving at the communion table, and she just could not feel at home or comfortable in a church where a woman was breaking the bread. And so I told her I loved her and I wished her well on her journey. Um I was secure enough at that point in my ministry to not take that personally and recognize that was a her thing and not a me thing. Forgot to tell you what numbers I'm on. I'm on number six. Number six, I'm counting down. Um, someone once wrote a letter to Phil complaining that I cultivated California liberalism. Which, to be fair, I did come, I did move here from California, but I cultivated California liberalism. But the thing is, Phil and I were pretty much sharing similar messages when we were speaking and doing prayers and stuff. So that seemed a little targeted when I was not the only one saying those things. Uh, number five, one man was so angry when I preached a sermon where I dared say that all Muslims were not terrorists. He told Phil that someone ought to fire that girl. Pro tip don't call women girls. It drives us crazy. Anyway. Okay, number four. Having people be dismissive of things that I share in meetings, and then seeing them be accepted when a man says the same thing that I said. I think probably there are other women in here who have had that experience. I'm watching heads nod. I don't think I'm the only one. This one still brings up big feelings in me because it still happens sometimes, and I don't understand why, because I have been in ministry for a really long time, as evidenced by the fact that I have to have these words written so big on this paper so that I can read it with my glasses on and see your faces. But the fact that that happens definitely feeds into that imposter syndrome, and so I try to silence that voice and just remind myself of my worth. I know that I have worth and that I have an important perspective to share, even if everyone's not willing to listen to it. Again, that's a them problem, right? It's not it's not a me problem. Um, number three, back in the early days again, Phil and I serving together, we made the dumb decision to send out a survey to everyone in the congregation to ask them for feedback on things.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Anonymous.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

And it was anonymous. Don't ever do anonymous surveys. Um, so I say dumb because a lot of people took this opportunity to give us feedback, not on the things we were asking for feedback on, but feedback on what they thought of Phil letting me do too much in ministry. Um, they wanted to air their grievances about the ways that he was allowing me to speak so much. So people wrote things like Phil treats Emily like an equal when she is not. Or Phil is letting Emily wear the pants in this ministerial partnership.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

We have been here a very long time and the church has changed a lot.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

This does not happen anymore. It really doesn't. Um, but you know, it brings up big feelings because whenever I think about trying to get feedback from the congregation, I'm gonna be like, but not anonymously. Like, hey, you know what? If you have a complaint, come tell us. Let me see your face or put your name on it, because then we can have a conversation and we can really try to find out what's at the heart of it and address that. And we're all adults here, right? So, so yeah, anyway, there's my feedback in the same moment. Um I know. That's a funny thing. I tend to wear dresses, but you know, what can you do?

unknown 20:41

I do have a little bit of wearing pants color.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

But so I have to tell this aside. I was in a conducting class in um college because my undergraduate degree is in music education, so we had to do conducting, and we for our final we had to um video record our conducting so that we could watch it and kind of see the things that we needed to change. Every single woman except for one was wearing pants because intrinsically we just knew this was a male-dominated profession. And so we just were kind of projecting that. Like we didn't even think about it, but it just kind of just kind of happened. Number two, one Sunday I preached a sermon where I sang Amazing Grace as part of it. I used to hear this is another thing. You get you're gonna get some insight into the brain of Emily. I used to sing a lot as part of my sermons because I didn't trust my preaching voice. And also because I knew I could sing and I knew people would like my sermons if I sang, and so I was gonna sing in my sermons, right? But I realized later part of it was because I didn't trust my speaking voice and my preaching voice. And I I feel much more secure in that now. But this was in the earlier days, and so I was trying to find a, and the song worked with the sermon. I was trying to find, I'm like, I wanna find a song or a hymn that will really, I know so many people in the church feel like we never choose music. They love, and so I chose Amazing Grace because I knew that would be a hymn that was familiar to so many people, especially to the older members of the congregation. So I sing that as part of my sermon. Well, there was one of the older members who wrote on an offering envelope and put it in the offering plate. I came to church to hear the minister preach, not the choir director sing. And yes, I am the choir director at Brentwood, but that has never been my title at Brentwood. My title has always had the word minister in it. Choir director is one of the jobs I do as part of my ministry here at Brentwood. So that kind of, you know, that was that little dig. But I do have to say, this guy signed his name. So kudos to him. I knew who wrote that note. Anyway, okay, the number one, this is this is number one. I don't know that this is the most egregious, but it is the one that as I was typing it up, I could feel my blood pressure rising. So, and no one in this church did this one. This was totally an outside of Brentwood incident that happened. I was at a meeting with other ministers in the area, and we started off at the area office to have this meeting, and I think it's important to note that I was the only woman in this group. So it was a lot of male ministers, and then me, the sole female minister. Um, one of the male ministers had a lot to say, and I think he really liked hearing the sound of his own voice. And so he shared a lot during the time that we were together, and he would tell some crude jokes that I was like, or crude stories, and I was like, really, dude, why are you sharing these things? Um and he had this very big laugh that would fill up the whole room when he would share these crude stories. So I really just didn't talk very much during this meeting. Well, after the meeting, we decided that we were gonna go to lunch. We went to Ruby Tuesday. It used to be over at the mall. I don't know what direction the mall is when I'm inside a building. I know what direction it is when I'm outside, so I know I pointed the wrong way as soon as I did it. You all know where the mall is. Wherever the mall is, that's where we were. So we were at Ruby Tuesdays. They used to have this great salad bar. Most of the people in our group got the salad bar, but three of us did not. And so we remained in the booth. We were in one of those six six-seater booths, so three on one side, three on the other, and I'm sitting against the wall. That's important for later in the story. So I'm sitting in this booth, and one of the men who I have to, I think it's important for me to lift up, lift up. The man who said who did said this following thing to me, he noticed that I hadn't spoken very much. So he wanted to give me a chance to share, and he figured everyone else was gone, so he wanted to find out how I was feeling about ministry at Brentwood and how things were going. And I think it's important for me to lift up that he was one of the more conservative ministers in our group. But he noticed I hadn't been speaking and he wanted me to speak. So he asked me about ministry, and I had some stories to share. So I was very animatedly sharing about some of my experiences that I'd had. The rest of the group came, and then one of them, the person who feels really um sure of his own voice and making sure that everyone hears him, just really just kind of leaned over and said, Oh, can you pass the salt? And I was like, Oh, yeah, sure, you know. So I hand him the salt and I start to go back into my story. He then interrupts me again and says, Sorry, you know, I I I really hated to interrupt, but I just I just seemed like it was gonna be a long story, and so I wanted to get in there that I needed the salt. And I was like, Okay. So then I went back to my story because I was still sharing. And then he interrupted me again and said, Yeah, I was waiting for a breath, but when it seemed like I wasn't gonna get one, I figured I just needed to interrupt you right there. Message received. I was young at the time. I stopped speaking, I didn't talk anymore in that meeting, and I wanted to leave so badly, but I couldn't because I was against the wall in that stupid booth, sitting next to this stupid man. Sorry, I shouldn't call him stupid, but um anyway, and so I was trapped in between the wall and this braggadocious man who I have to say prided himself on being really progressive. And I'm sure he preached sermons about women in leadership in the Bible and celebrated women in ministry, but he sure didn't know how to treat women in ministry as though they had dignity and worth equal to his own. And so that would be my number one most sexist moment that I experienced in ministry. Um we do the wave for Emily. I love it, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

That is a true Britwood verse.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

I love it, I love it, that's great. Well, you know, I preached last Sunday about how harmful policies start in the pulpit and then they radiate outward, as the Reverend Tracy Blackman wrote. I I shared this quote last week as well. But before oppression is written into law, it is almost always preached into legitimacy. And so one of the reasons we're addressing women in ministry at the time that we are is because last month the Southern Baptist Convention voted to ban any churches that have women serving as ministers from being part of the convention, right? So they cannot have any churches as part of their denomination that have women in ministry leadership positions. That doesn't just affect women in the Southern Baptist Convention, it radiates outward. It affects how people then treat women in other places of work. Diminishing women in the church lays groundwork for diminishing women in other parts of society as well. Just ask Pete Hegseth's minister, Doug Wilson. He thinks we should abolish the 19th Amendment, which is the amendment that gives women the right to vote. I think about movements like Tradwives, and I don't want to diminish women who choose that their work be the work of caring for their children, of raising their children, of doing all of the work that keeps a household going, because that takes a lot of work. I'm not diminishing that at all. But to lift that up as the only example of how a woman can be a good, loving, and healthy contributor to her home just seems like a really unfair thing to do. But we're watching that happen in different segments of our society right now, setting it up so that that will become the only acceptable. I hope it won't become, but it feels like there are moves being put in place, making things like childcare further and further out of reach for people, for women who work outside of the home and maybe need help with childcare. So there are a lot of things that are happening policy-wise that are alarming and and are radiating out from some of these moves that we see happening in churches and from the heads of some denominations and from the pulpits of some churches.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Theological sexism harms all of us. Um I want to draw like a line between the desire to silence women and the patriarchy that goes with that, to also slavery and toxic masculinity. Um there's a quote from Pastor Ben uh Kramer I want to share. He writes, I will always find it so ironic how Christian nationalists advocate such a hyper-masculine, muscular, aggressive, and all-powerful God. But that God can't even succeed if women have the right to vote. Uh quite frankly, that is such a supremely weak, insufferable, petty, and misogynistic God who has obviously been invented by supremely weak, insufferable, petty, and misogynistic men. The Bible talks about God creating humans in God's image, and the old joke is that human beings have returned the favor. People create God in the image that they want to hold up. Theologian uh Ciara Jones, she writes theological sexism isn't truth, it's masculinity enshrouding itself in fake spiritual authority to avoid accountability for systemic harm. It's not coincidental that the Southern Baptist Church was formed in order to preserve slavery, in order to preserve white supremacy. There's been a long line, not just within Southern Baptist, but in large part in the history of American Christianity, particularly in the United States. There's been a long line linking slavery, patriarchy, and also homophobia and transphobia. Because the God that is being worshipped is the God that wishes to preserve white male power. That's a false god. That's an idol. And it needs to be called out. It was just earlier this month, whenever the um MMA fighter on the White House lawn praised Jesus as his Lord and Savior, and then in the same breath yelled loudly, Michelle Obama is a man. And the crowd loved it. They ate it up. What's the line? What is going on there? Like the displays of toxic masculinity on the White House lawn with the UFC, all of that kind of stuff, how it's connected to Christianity, what is going on there? Why do people just roar whenever they hear that? Um the idea that a strong, powerful woman uh is not to be subordinate to a man is unthinkable. So someone who is a strong woman like Michelle Obama, someone who is a strong woman cannot be understood as being a woman.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Well, and there's also a long history of black women, especially being misogynised and being diminished as and and dismissed as men if they do something well in sports, always wanting to target black women as though they're men. And that's that's like a thing that's been happening throughout history to undermine the accomplishments of black women, too. So sorry to have to do that. No, no, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

I just want to name that too.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Yeah, and just the the line I'm drawing is is the patriarchy and and theological sexism, it assumes that men must be the strong ones who dominate. And so the idea of equality within the context of this white supremacist patriarchal world, which is so entwined with Christian nationalism, the idea of equality is a non-starter because it is trying to set up a God in which you have the powerful God and then men, and that is just a false idol that needs to be called out time and again. Um Mainliners also have to be careful. I know we're run out of time.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah, this well, you know, I I think it's really easy for us to criticize denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention, but as my number one example on my list of 10 shows, um, we have to be honest about what ministry looks like for women in mainline denominations that have been ordaining women for decades. Uh, Kate Penny Howard wrote, Ordination and opportunity aren't the same thing. A denomination can ordain women for 150 years and still systematically limit their careers. Ajudicatory can celebrate women in ministry while quietly quietly steering them into the same struggling congregations over and over. A church system can proclaim equality while the most prestigious and well-paid pulpits remain remarkably reliably male.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

So um I think the question, maybe in the spirit of the wave that Becca got started, uh maybe the question is um what keeps you going in this thing called ministry? And how does that connect to um the way that women oftentimes are treated secondarily in the system?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

So many things. It's gotten so much better, I have to say. So, I mean, that keeps me going. I haven't had to fight those same battles all along. But I remember when we were in the midst of some of these big battles in the early days, I'm gonna name her just because she was a bastion of this church, D. Brooks. She was an elder in the church. She had, I'm sure I I am sure she had served as board chair. She just was a great leader in this church. And I remember her coming downstairs, and I was standing in the fellowship hall, and she came over to me and she said, I've been at Brentwood for its entire existence. And this church has a pattern of running out associate ministers and women who are working here, and I'll be darned if I let them do that to you. She didn't say darned, but I had to say that for the sermon. But just she felt so strongly that it was really important for Brentwood to celebrate and recognize the call that I had in ministry. And then I also have to name Jamie Kessinger. You wrote something. I shared a Facebook post after the um after the SBC had that vote. And Jamie wrote, You are the first female pastor I have ever had, and it has been so incredibly healing. I grew up being told it was only a man's job, which never made sense to me. So very thankful for you and all the women who follow God's call to lead to preach and lead. And so just hearing words like that. And I also, in response to that post I made about women in ministry, one of our former youth who grew up in this church sent me a message. I just have to read this to you because this just was beautiful. Hey Emily, long time no see. I saw your post yesterday about being a female pastor in the area and the pushback you've seen. I just wanted you to know that Brentwood, and more specifically you, have always had a profound impact on me. I've never been a very religious person, but you and the overall Brentwood community was a rare light throughout my childhood. I think about the memories there on Wednesday night dinners frequently and the time that you helped me make musical sense of a song that I wrote. Anytime I hear anyone talking about looking for a church or just community in general, I go on a rant about how much I love Brentwood. I just wanted you to know that you have always been an inspiration and a light in my life. And all of that really is truly possible because of this congregation. This congregation is doing wonderful things and is creating space for so many different people. And you know, despite all of the struggles at the beginning, despite graduating from college and seminary, ready to tackle homophobia and heterosexism in the Midwest and learning that I actually had to contend with sexism, I have way more experiences in ministry being incredibly fulfilling, of seeing firsthand the ways that my voice in the pulpit has given hope to those who felt little, that my perspective shared in a sermon made them feel seen and understood, and recognizing that my voice sharing certain stories was able to be received in a way that perhaps was more healing than hearing those same words come from Phil. So we have so many in the congregation, sitting in this congregation, who have walked in similar shoes and knew the struggle that I was addressing in some of my sermons. And it, though, even though Phil is incredibly empathetic and a good preacher, again, there are just sometimes those things need to be spoken by a woman or spoken by a person of color, or spoken by a person in the LGBTQ community. We need to find ways to lift up the voices of people from so many different perspectives because we all deserve to be represented in this pulpit, right? We all deserve to see people who look like us serving in positions of leadership. So to all of the women who sometimes feel overlooked, no matter their vocation, from the boardroom to the operating room, from the counter to the garage, know that in God's eyes you are seen, and you have been from the very beginning. With every single one of us, you are made in the image of God. And there, while there are times that Christians have tried to erase women from history, we are still here standing on the shoulders of Miriam, who led her people singing as they found their way to freedom, of Deborah, a woman who was a prophet and a judge among a sea of men. Ruth, who found a way through a patriarchal system to survive as a widow and make her own way to become an ancestor of kings. Esther, who used her power to save her people from the murderous impulses of Haman. Mary, the mother of Jesus, who recognized her role in nurturing the one who would turn the world upside down. Mary Magdalene, who preached the good news of Christ's resurrection. Phoebe, the deacon and minister entrusted with sharing the good news. Junia, an apostle of the church that history tried to erase. We are standing on their shoulders and on the shoulders of so many more. Thanks be to God for these women of faith who show us a way through a barrier laden land.