It’s Monday of Holy Week.
It’s Monday of Holy Week.
Yesterday at the Lord’s Table, Rev. Chesna Bancroft at Northway Christian Church invited us not to rush from Palm Sunday straight to the meal of Maundy Thursday, but to walk Holy Week one day at a time. At the same time, the sermon from Rev. Virzola Law is still ringing in my ears, ”Rome enters to be feared; Jesus enters to be followed.” ”The Gospel is not given to be admired; it is given to be enacted.”
I’m thinking about some of the incidents that sit between the Triumphal Entry and the Upper Room.
In Mark 12, Jesus sat opposite the Temple treasury and watched as people put their offerings in. The wealthy gave from a place of security. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins. Our English translations usually say she gave “all she had to live on.” That’s accurate enough, but Mark’s wording is better translated as, “she put in her whole life.” She doesn’t just give generously; she gives herself. In that sense, she prefigures Jesus. She shows us what it looks like to offer one’s whole life for God and for the sake of others which is the very thing Jesus will do a few days later on the cross.
She stands in the company of other women in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark 14 at Bethany, an unnamed woman came with an alabaster jar of costly ointment and anointed Jesus. Jesus rebuked the critics, received and affirmed her act: “She has done a beautiful thing for me… she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.” Of all the people in the room, she was the one who understood. Jesus even said that wherever the good news is preached, what she has done will be told in memory of her. She interpreted Jesus’s mission in advance. Then in Mark 16, after the Sabbath, women came to the tomb to anoint Jesus’s body. They were the first to hear the announcement that Christ is risen, the first to be entrusted with the message. Across these scenes, women are not at the edges. A woman prefigures Jesus’s self-offering (the widow), a woman enacts his mission in advance (the anointing at Bethany), and women carry the first proclamation of the Resurrection (the empty tomb). They don’t just receive ministry; they interpret, enact, and proclaim the heart of the Gospel.
I’ve been holding those stories alongside the recent Consecration of Rev. Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury and the reaction her appointment has stirred in parts of the Anglican Communion. It’s not my faith tradition. So, perhaps my opinions don’t matter. Yet, there are bishops and archbishops who resist her leadership simply because she is a woman. Even now, in the twenty‑first century, there are churches that deny ordination, or even a public voice, to women. They will not have women as primary lay leaders, elders, or deacons. Regrettably, sexism is alive and well in the church.
One of the most common and worst arguments against women in ministry is that ministers “represent Christ” to the people, and Christ was a man, therefore only men can stand in that role. This is sinful resistance to a plain reading of the Gospel. If representing Christ is fundamentally about offering one’s whole life in costly love and service, then the poor widow in Mark 12 is as clear a representative of Christ as anyone in the New Testament. If representing Christ includes understanding and enacting his mission, then the unnamed woman at Bethany belongs at the center of that conversation. If representing Christ includes bearing witness to his resurrection, then the women at the tomb are the first preachers of Easter.
These women together show us that a woman’s life, devotion, wisdom, and voice can be a living icon of Christ’s self‑giving and a bearer of the Gospel.
This is where Sarah Mullally’s story matters to me. Before she became a priest and then a bishop, she was a nurse. Nurses are entrusted daily with people’s vulnerability, anxiety, and confusion. They carry the trust of patients and families at their most fragile. They interpret the doctor’s words into language that can be understood. While physicians move quickly from room to room, the nurse’s role is to remain in the hard spaces until understanding forms, as long as it takes for the patient to grasp what has been said, what the plan is, and how to move forward. If someone can be trusted with that kind of vulnerability, it seems to me more than a little absurd to say they cannot be trusted with the care of Christ’s church.
When she began her role as Archbishop, she did not start with trumpets and motorcades. She began with an 87‑mile walk from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral. After a brief service at St. Paul’s, she set out in sensible clothing with a daypack, accompanied by her husband and a few others. Along the way they visited hospitals, churches, nonprofits, greeted tourists, and talked with whoever they met—doing the kinds of things both pastors and nurses tend to do when they walk slowly through a community.
On the day of her installation she changed from those walking clothes into the regalia of an Archbishop, approached the great doors of the cathedral, and knocked. She was received and welcomed. Before she processed toward the altar, three young people asked her questions, including what qualified her for this ministry. Her answer was simple: “I know nothing except Christ crucified.”
Watching her in the grandeur of that cathedral, and knowing a little of what her journey has been, I can’t help but hear Jesus’ words about the widow: “She has given her whole life.” I see the unnamed woman of Bethany, pouring out all that she has. I see the women at the tomb, bearing the news that changes everything. Whatever one thinks about ecclesial structures, I am convinced that those who recoil from Archbishop Mullally’s leadership on the basis of her gender should at least pause in the presence of a life so clearly and fully given to God.
My home congregation is led by Rev. Virzola Law, Senior Minister, and Rev. Chesna Bancroft, Associate Minister. My denomination is led by Rev. Terri Hord Owens. I know from my own interactions with them and with other women in ministry that the congregations and systems I love and depend on are not free from sexism or racism, no matter how much progress we think we have made.
As I watch the deference that is still paid to less qualified and less capable men in ministry and church leadership, I find myself questioning a lot about the last thirty‑four years of my own ministry and service. But on this Monday of Holy Week, sitting with the widow who gave her “whole life,” remembering the unnamed woman who “got” Jesus’s mission and the women who carried the first Easter proclamation, and watching an Archbishop who walked wise traveling attire before vesting in regalia, I am reminded that Christ is represented not by maleness, but by whoever offers their whole life to God and neighbor.