Ashley's Blog

The launch day for The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of the Bible throughout the Year is tomorrow! I have so many feelings about this, including excitement that it's finally almost here, and amazement at just how long a process this has been.

This past week, I have been working with Anna’s family and friends to honor Anna’s wishes. I think we all know how much this memorial feels like Anna! And so it seems fitting that the text for my sermon is Revelation 22:1-5, about the tree of life.

On March 11, I posted on social media, “A lot of my life right now looks like what I was doing as a teenager: swimming at the Y, singing in a choir, and really into church stuff.” Over the following two days, everything shut down.

Pastors wear a lot of hats. Pastors’ roles include preacher, worship leader, provider of pastoral care, counselor, teacher, and administrator. And those are just the official expectations.

For two years, I pastored a church that met primarily online. As coronavirus continues to spread, many people have been looking for ways to provide pastoral care to those who are at risk or isolated. Here are five of my suggestions.

Although the woman has often been portrayed as a temptress in this story, she is actually the protagonist. She is the one who moves the story forward. Unlike her passive husband, the woman is curious and thoughtful and she makes a decision to learn more.

While I was walking in my neighborhood this week, I had a mystical experience. I saw a vision of myself with my heart cracked open and my arms held open at my sides. I could see Light streaming out of the cracks in my heart and coming out through my hands.

Some may be wondering why a Quaker is writing a lectionary. That’s a fair question. I am part of a tradition that, at least historically, completely disregards the liturgical calendar.

Rachel and I were both bloggers who traveled a lot—though she did this on a much larger scale than I did. I remember bonding over an ice cream place in the Atlanta airport, a place we both ended up frequently. Now I blog a lot less, and my stomach won’t let me eat ice cream anymore. And this morning I found out that Rachel Held Evans has died.

If we want the Religious Society of Friends to be prophetic—and that’s a big if—we are going to have to get a lot more willing to sit with discomfort. What if we take our old practices and try to reimagine them? Give them new life? When someone comes with a strong leading (or even a hope) can we listen together? Or will we say, “we don’t do things that way” or “we tried that before and it didn’t work.”

We have adopted this at the Church of Mary Magdalene as our conflict resolution policy.  And it’s how I personally try to resolve conflicts.  It’s a practice that I’m committed to, like yoga.  And it’s one that I’m really bad at, also like yoga. 

I want little girls like Talia to know that Jesus chose a woman to be the first preacher.  I want women to know that their gifts are precious and valuable.  And I had a dream about preaching for women, which led to this Wednesday night worship.

I love semi-programmed worship because I think it is the most welcoming form of Quaker worship.  In semi-programmed worship, someone in the community explains each part of the worship, and everyone knows what to expect next.

In some ways, I want to encourage you to be like Joseph: Wear your princess coat!  Wear your rainbow flag!  Be who you are.  Queer it up!  But I also want to encourage you to not be like Joseph, who could not see the way his brothers were marginalized or his brothers’ pain and fear.

I tell Hannah about a dream I had the night before about preaching for women. I dreamed that when I looked out at the congregation, the chairs were mostly empty, but there were women sitting in chairs near the back. As I looked out at them, the women moved their chairs to the front to listen to me preach.

Church of Mary Magdalene is a place where women preach. It is a community where the voices of women, queer people, and others on the margins are centered. This is not just a worship where women and queer people are welcome, but rather a worship by and for women and queer people.