Sometimes baptism’s impact is like the effect of rain on earth: it seeps in, slowly but surely changing the scene.
I had those thoughts as I read Sue Gamelin’s words in the November 2009 issue of The Lutheran, an issue focusing on patriarchy’s negative impact on our lives.
Sue’s story opens with her childhood love of the Bible, continues with her pain of leaving the church (“good girls don’t ask questions,” for example), and returns to finding the church again at her first child’s baptism. Eventually her experiences bumping up against patriarchy and male privilege gave way to the magnetism of Jesus’ profound respect for women – until one day she headed off to seminary.
Looking back over her journey, she witnesses to baptismal spirituality seeping deeply into our lives and weakening patriarchy’s underpinnings: “Soon after my ordination in 1980, a male pastor, asked me what I was trying to prove. Taken aback, I couldn’t answer him properly then. But now I would tell him that I’m trying to prove that my baptism ‘took.’ I put on Christ – and that has made all the difference.”
When we are “in Christ,” being male or female isn’t the issue.
Read Sue Gamelin’s full story on page 25 in The Lutheran, November 2009.
