From Principles to Partnership

Who will hold the power?" is the pressing question of our age. We live in a country that is frantically clinging to the values and structures that have made it the most powerful nation among nations. Power that has reached its peak by imposing its will on other peoples does not easily learn how to cooperate as a peer among equals.

All of us have been schooled in the top-down method of exercising power. To be anybody in this culture means being better than somebody else. Success means being the smartest or the most attractive, having the biggest, the most expensive, the most comfortable.

But our desire for superiority is not only a result of enculturation. It is an innate part of being human; it is sin. Inborn self-centeredness coupled with the values we have absorbed growing up in this country produce people in need of some major re-creation if we are serious about conforming our lives to the way of Christ.

The vision of Sojourners community grew from people who were aware both of the misuse of power in our society as it related to sex, race, and class, and of the reversal of power which Jesus taught and modeled. Three theological points were key to the shaping of our perspective on the leadership of women and men in the church: Jesus' relationship to women, the evidence of women leaders in the early church, and Paul's Galatians teaching that in Christ there is "neither male nor female."

We shared a struggle common to many of being well-steeped in academics and articulation of our vision, but less practiced at conforming the flesh and blood of our lives to it. We were clearer on the principles involved in the kingdom of God than on how to live out those principles.

The vision for our community was born in the primarily male environment of Trinity Seminary, near Chicago, in the early 1970s. The backgrounds of the seven men in whom the first fire was ignited ranged from that of a trumpet player in a barbershop quartet at Moody Bible Institute to an anti-war activist at Michigan State University. Their personalities and perspectives interacted and produced a strong vision of the gospel's call for social justice. The publication of the Post American, forerunner to Sojourners, emerged from the group.

A year later a small community of people in their early to mid-20s drew together around the magazine and began living together. Women came to be a part of the group, participating in the shaping of both magazine and community. Evangelical feminism was an important issue.

My desire to be part of a church attempting to live among and serve the urban poor resonated with what I read in the Post American during my last year of college. I joined the community two years after it had begun. By then it had moved into Chicago from its suburban setting.

I vividly recall my perceptions of the group's dominant characteristics: good minds, skilled at verbal and written articulation, aggressive, proud, stubborn, energetic, task-oriented, independent, and captured by the radical nature of the kingdom of God. The raw material in all of us had promising potential, but a vigorous refinement process was in order. I sensed a need for growth of emotional and intuitive attributes, humility, gentleness, and expression of personal love for one another. I felt the presence of God among us in an unusual way--not so much in the communion that we shared together, but in the hope for and expectation of God working deeply through and with this handful of people who had great strengths and weaknesses.

In those days I was a feminist in that I believed women were equal to men; I respected myself and women as a whole, having had competent female role models and friends; and I was responsible before God for my identity, not looking for a man through whom to live my life. However, there was a part of me that resisted rallying to the cry of liberation for women, the two primary reasons being that I had not consciously tasted bondage and that my passion at the time was to rebuild the church, to build our evolving community internally.

I felt very strongly that the vision we offered to the church and world at large would ring hollow if a visible, ongoing life together was not functioning on the home front. So while some among us brought the gift of seeing the broader context of the church and world in which we lived, others of us brought the gift of concern for our own context: our relationships to God and one another, and our corporate worship. The two tensions were not easily wedded and, in fact, vigorously and violently competed with each other most of the time, as did the people for whom each aspect was holy ground.

On the practical and tangible level, our corporate life reflected the beginnings of role integration. Cooking, food shopping, house cleaning, and general maintenance were shared by women and men, yet each of us brought our socialization and acquired skills to these chores. We found that it took a deliberate commitment, more time, willing teachers, and patient spirits to take up jobs that we were not trained to do. I recall a spirit of needing to prove how radical we were by being willing to do tasks that were new and uncomfortable to us.

Social change was happening. But the changes in housekeeping roles were simply the beginning, skimming the surface of a deep reservoir of conscious and unconscious attitudes and behaviors we had accumulated throughout our twenty-some years of being either male or female.

As we journeyed on together, God's spirit painfully probed into deeper areas of our lives that needed transformation. Our conflicts with each other became too overwhelming to go on together, and we changed our living arrangements.

Our expectations of community building were shattered, replaced only by a stunned, numb silence which asked, "What did we do wrong?" The magazine continued to be published by only two male staff members for most of a year, and the energy and time that had been expended to build the community were being channeled toward self-reflection and God-wrestling.

For some of us, a very painful recognition and acceptance of our own failure to love one another took place--a deep humbling of ourselves before God and eventually a forgiving of each other for the interpersonal violence we had done. God's grace enabled us to be vulnerable to each other; we were able to take off the protective shields that made us invincible, inaccessible, and inflexible, revealing our hurts, fears, and questions to one another. We were no longer striving to build a community, yet through this dying process and our fleeting glimpses of resurrection, people were drawn to the love present among us.

Prior to the first community's disintegration, we had grasped the principles of the kingdom. Out of the ruins that remained, we began to dramatically experience those principles working among us, primarily that of forgiveness and deeper love for one another. This was a lesson which was powerfully learned then, but one that we continue to learn again and again.

As the only woman who came through that battle and is still part of Sojourners, I can reflect only my perceptions about what connections this history has with the reshaping of my identity and the identities of the three men who came through it with me. My willingness to function as a named leader in the emerging community was integrally related to a renewal of my faith in God and a vision of the church. Aware of my own insecurities and fears, I could offer myself, knowing that God was able to use me. I was willing to carry new responsibilities, risk making mistakes, share leadership with men without being intimidated by their strength, and develop new skills such as teaching, preaching, and speaking. I discovered a deeper integration of many aspects of my person. Integration for the men went on as well. They became more sensitive, humble, nurturing, and loving; more accepting of their own and others' weaknesses; more able to listen to others.

In 1975, 20 of us moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., with the intention of growing together as a church. Much listening, mediating, and discipling was needed to nurture the seedling Sojourners community. I entered naturally into a pastoral role, listening and absorbing others' problems. Willing to do whatever was needed to facilitate the birth of the community, I took very little concern for my own needs. Eventually I began to feel like an empty shell into which everyone else's life was poured.

Unknown to me, much of my self-worth came from my ability to meet others' needs. When my internal resources were expended, I found myself seriously questioning my value as a person and confused about my identity. Sorting out the proper place of self-understanding within the gospel's call, to servanthood became a pressing question for me.

My first child, Peter, was born last year in the middle of this process. The demands of mothering a young child surfaced new and stronger questions about my identity. I had given all I had to others, and now I had a helpless, clamoring infant needing from me what I did not have. I was tempted, yet refused, to resolve my identity questions by becoming the "total mother." My emotions were in turmoil: Withdrawal and depression progressed to expressive rage, which is now moving toward greater self-awareness, acceptance, and creative change. I have leaned heavily on sisters and brothers throughout this time; but I also realize that I need to take primary responsibility for my own healing.

I have considerably cut back on counseling and share Peter's care with my husband, Bob. I enrolled last winter in seminary to acquire additional theological training and pastoral counseling skills. My return to school was suggested and confirmed by the community. It was a decision to invest time and energy toward the leadership development of one of our women, knowing that the skills and strength I would gain would benefit the whole.

Our understanding of the New Testament has led us to structure our corporate life in ways that enable women to exercise their gifts freely and equally. Women carry leadership in many areas of our life. Two women serve in our elders, or pastors, group; both celebrate the Eucharist. Preaching and speaking are regularly done by women. And female leadership is significant in neighborhood, church renewal, peace, and counseling ministries. However, we are seeing that structures alone will not overcome deeply ingrained patterns and expectations that we have because of our sex. We find that our blockages come from internal forces which are much more difficult to change than external structures.

The most crucial change-producing element is a caring environment to which we can entrust our interior dark sides. A trust of God and each other must be flourishing or we cannot reveal our weaknesses. Even when trust is strong, the fear of rejection or personal pride can be stronger, causing us to retreat or put on masks. Yet in those rare moments of grace when we are able to risk ourselves regardless of our fears or pride, communion happens. We learn again that we are accepted and loved with all our sin. This security gives us the desire and power to turn away from destructive patterns of relating.

A significant catalyst for personal and corporate change in our community is the monthly women's meeting, which involves most of the women at Sojourners. The meetings began in February, 1979. The first few were open-ended sharing times.

A small planning group then began to envision direction for the group. The first planned series focused on how we felt about ourselves, including discussion about sexuality, singleness, marriage, roles we play or do not play. We also did some reading and discussion on Jesus' relationship to women.

This spring we began to look at feminist theology, reading excerpts from Letty Russell's Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective and Rosemary Ruether's New Woman/New Earth. An insightful paper by Carol Pierce entitled "Women and Victim Behavior" provided a thorough summary of typically female behavior with which each of us found points of identification. We are seeking to understand the roots of oppression of women and to see our personal experience in a historical and socio-economic context, making connections with the oppression of other peoples.

Exciting to all of us is the personal and corporate growth that we sense from being together. We have experienced more freedom and flow of conversation than we do in mixed groups. A bonding and support structure is developing as we acknowledge both our commonality and our uniqueness.

We feel the tension caused by our belief in a religion and church that has been dominated by male perspective and leadership. Our desire is to make visible those invisible times throughout history where women and men displayed partnership in their relationships and to claim them as models. We want to be aware of what feminists are saying and how they are living; and we want to understand as much as we can about ourselves and who God is calling us to be.

Carol Pierce in her article says, "It is one thing to claim that femininity and masculinity are of equal worth and power; it is a much different thing to act as if the claim were true." Our growing bonds among women are enabling us to understand the deep impact of our socialization, recognize behavioral contradictions in ourselves, and take steps toward change. We are learning to identify in ourselves and each other patterns such as fear of confronting those we perceive as more powerful, reluctance to offer our perceptions in some situations, a tendency to avoid conflict by softening our perceptions, a willingness to allow men to carry more responsibility, and application of men's styles of leadership to ourselves.

Over the years we at Sojourners have grown comfortable with shared housekeeping and maintenance roles. With the arrival of more children we are grappling with ways of caring for them that do not assume a primary role for the mother, although we are not opposed to that pattern. This is one area of our life in which our structures have created new patterns, but we find internal resistance to change. I quite easily took to caring for Peter, while Bob had more adjustments to make. Simple things, like who decides what to feed Peter, knows when the diaper needs changing, takes him to the doctor, comforts him when he is hurt, all became issues for us.

Our economic common pot and the fact that all of our parents currently work part- to full-time in ministries of the community facilitate co-parenting. The parents in three of our families equally share child-rearing responsibilities; the fourth family has chosen Dad to be househusband.

Growth is still needed in many areas. Our political vision, which originally grew solely from men, is still too much shaped by a few men. Women and other men must continue to learn how to participate more prominently in that aspect of our ministry. Language, specifically how we think and speak about God, is another area that needs more creative thought and study. The questions involved are not easily answered by substituting "she" for "he," or "Mother" for "Father." The idea of a men's group to sort through the men's own socialization has been raised. And we will always need to be challenged to place our own personal struggles in the context of peoples who experience much more oppression than we do.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Our hope is to live in such a way that our lives bear witness to this statement.

Jackie Sabath was a member of Sojourners Fellowship when this article appeared.