January 29, 2024

The Dean’s Desk 

A Reflection

Preaching before the Gatekeepers 

What does it mean to preach enfleshed as a female-identifying person in the Spirit’s power? It often means that ecclesiastical hostility will result as a consequence. One might label the hostility a type of crucifixion of that female-identifying preacher.  And it is especially painful when blessed by that preacher’s denominational tribe. The Rev. Dr. Gina M. Stewart, senior pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis and the first woman to ascend to the presidency of the historic Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Missions Society, preached at the National Baptist Joint Convention this past week. Her sermon was based on Mark’s and Matthew’s accounting of Jesus appearing before an indecisive Roman governor who is pressured by the Sanhedrin council - the Jewish religious gatekeepers – to sign Jesus’ death warrant for blasphemy. 

The proclamatory claim of Dr. Stewart’s sermon could be summed up in this way: In the face of religious propaganda and social pressures to conform to idolatrous practices that promote spiritual hypocrisy and social injustice, Spirit-reliant ministry leaders who preach truth to established power without regard for political expedience honor the witness of the crucified Jesus and courage of Claudia, Pilate’s biblically unnamed wife. 

Howard Divinity’s student population is 58.5% women and 41.5% men. Ironically, in my experience as a preaching professor at Howard, self-discovery, and the embrace of one’s authentic preaching voice for female-identifying students come with a greater degree of timidity than for their male-identifying counterparts. For this reason, seminary classrooms must be safe spaces for sermonizing.  If they are not safe, how will performance proficiency be developed? How will one face the homiletical adjudicators who padlock pulpits and lose resumes to uphold patriarchal norms? 

Delivered before in-person participants and streamed for remote viewers, Dr. Stewart’s sermon  "What We Gone Do With Jesus of Nazareth?" - Rev. Dr. Gina M. Stewart displayed a type of holy boldness in content and delivery. Make no mistake, boldness is requisite for homiletical outsiders, and finding preaching agency becomes all the more important when the ministerial climb for respect is all uphill. 

This is why modeling matters. 

But doesn’t the Bible say to women to stay in their place and keep quiet? Does not the Bible tell them so? If this is the case, doesn’t that settle it?  More than a few women have concluded that because of “the Bible tells me so” hermeneutics that maybe, just maybe, the public pulpit is not the gate to transgress. But what if it is? 

What I have discovered as fact is that interrogation of one’s biblical and theological views is a studied preacher’s work, and the cruciform life must be the lifestyle in which a preacher must make peace. Some sermons end in celebration and the public’s affirmation of the preacher’s words, and some are met with silence and indifference. In either case, both can be gospel faithful. Whether met with silence or celebration, sermons that matter most seek to please an audience of one.  

 

Divinity Forward,

Dean Gilbert