Evening Prayer: Women and Church Leadership

Gracious God, the whole creation groans tonight — and so do your daughters who have heard your call and found the door bolted shut.

Paul wrote that creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. Not the sons only, Lord — the children. And yet for centuries, women who felt the fire of your Spirit have been told to sit down, keep quiet, hand the microphone to someone else. Phoebe carried Paul's letter to the Romans in her own hands, a deacon trusted with the very words we read tonight. Junia was named among the apostles before the scribes tried to change her name to a man's. Priscilla taught Apollos the fullness of the gospel in her own home.

Tonight we pray for every woman sitting in a seminary classroom wondering if her denomination will ordain her. For the hospital chaplain whose patients call her "Pastor" even when her own church will not. For the girl in the third pew who feels a sermon burning inside her chest and doesn't yet have the language to name it as a calling.

Creation is groaning, Lord — groaning toward something beautiful. Help us not to mistake the birth pangs for a funeral. Give us the courage to fling open every door your Spirit is already pushing against, until your Church looks like the kingdom you promised — where there is neither male nor female, but all are one in Christ.