Women in Leadership

God did not create us to be loners. From the beginning He said being alone was not good. One value that others supply to our life is motivation. Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant write of this as they tell the story of a mother who wanted to be a superhero for her children.

When we focus on others, we find motivation that is difficult to marshal for ourselves alone. In 2015, U. S. Army major Lisa Jaster was attempting to graduate from the elite Ranger School. Having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, she thought she could complete the grueling program in nine weeks. But getting through land navigation, water survival, staged assaults, ambushes, mountaineering, and an obstacle course took her twenty-six weeks. The final event was a twelve-mile march carrying a thirty-five-pound rucksack plus nine quarts of water and a rifle. By the ten-mile mark, Lisa felt nauseous, her feet were blistered, and she thought there was no way she could make it to the finish line. But then an image flashed through her mind—a cherished picture of her and her kids. Her son had Batman on his T-shirt and her daughter had Wonder Woman on hers. On the photo Lisa had written, “I want to be their superhero.” Lisa ran the last two miles and beat her target time by a minute and a half. She went on to make history as one of the first three women to become an Army Ranger.

On May 13, 1965, Housekeeping Monthly offered the following advice to women in what they called "The Good Wife's Guide":

Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious dinner ready when your husband gets home from work. This is a way of letting him know you have been thinking about him and are concerned with his needs … Prepare yourself. Put on some make-up, put a ribbon in your hair, and be fresh-looking. He's been with a lot of work-weary people. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash them up, brush their hair, and change their clothes if needed. Remember, they are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part … Have a cool or warm drink for him, and arrange his pillow and take off his shoes … Over the cooler months you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. After all, catering to his comfort will bring you immense satisfaction … Let him talk first. Remember that his topics of conversation are more important than yours … Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or entertainment without you. Instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his need to relax.

Possible Preaching Angles: Bryan Wilkerson comments, "Obviously, times have changed. The irony is that there really is some wisdom here—it's just buried under layers of stereotype and patriarchy. There really is something good and noble about doing these simple, everyday tasks for another person. It's just that it was never meant to flow just one way—from wife to husband, or from woman to man. In the New Testament, Paul tells us all to serve one another, to defer to one another, to submit to one another. He tells husbands to love their wives, to care for their wives as they care for themselves, and to lay down their lives for their wives."

Editor's Note: Like this illustration, sometimes a good sermon illustration raises a challenging issue or question that the sermon must address.

The 1963 non-fiction book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan is often credited as a catalyst to the modern feminism movement in the U.S. In essence, the book examined the general state of unhappiness of many middle-class American women. According to Friedan's research, a comfortable, predictable suburban life didn't give women the fulfillment they were expecting.

The first chapter of her book, titled "The Problem that Has No Name," raised a question that resonated with many women across the nation:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—"Is this all?"

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Women; Women in Ministry; Spiritual Gifts—Namely, women have so much more to offer the church and the world than just making beds, matching slipcovers, and chauffeuring kids to activities.

Historian Rodney Stark argues that one of the reasons why Christianity spread throughout the ancient world was due to its revolutionary new attitudes towards women. He writes:

Recent, objective evidence leaves no doubt that early Christian women did enjoy far greater equality with men than did their pagan and Jewish counterparts. A study of Christian burials in the catacombs under Rome, based on 3,733 cases, found that Christian women were nearly as likely as Christian men to be commemorated with lengthy inscriptions. This "near equality in the commemoration of males and females is something that is peculiar to Christians, and sets them apart from the non-Christian populations of the city." This was true not only of adults, but also of children, as Christians lamented the loss of a daughter as much as that of a son, which was especially unusual compared with other religious groups in Rome.

One day I had a speaking engagement in Florida and I shared a table with three elegant young women. I felt fat, forty, and somewhat futile.

Suddenly and unexpectedly God inquired of me, "Why do you think everyone is so tense?"

"Competition," I replied with sudden understanding.

I distinctly heard his next words: "Jill, you'll never be competition."

For the first time I thanked God for my ordinary good looks. I could be a big sister to women, a friendly mother, an aunt. I could relax, knowing I would never threaten anyone. God had made me just right for my ministry of teaching women, and that was all that mattered.