Wanna Be

I really needed some good news this week. This week has challenged me to the point of tears on multiple occasions. I needed to hear from heaven, and my normal courses of action were not breaking through walls around my hardened heart…and then I saw a picture of the incredible Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart standing at the pulpit at the National Baptist Joint Board Session. Tik Tok and Youtube report that she is the first woman to ever do so. I knew I needed to hear what she had to say.

Rev. Dr. Stewart is a well-trained speaker in the tradition of a Baptist preacher. She gave us a good old-fashioned church prayer before the sermon, thanking God for last night’s slumber and the waking of the day. She acknowledged the dignitaries in the room, and called many of them by name. She thanked the presiding officers. She recognized her church congregation, and her intercessors prior to taking her text and then she read her text from the Bible. Her sermon was titled “What Then Shall We Do with Jesus?”, taken from Mark 15: 1-15, and Mark 27.

The sermon was a little long for my taste, and I didn’t love her use of repetition. I also hate when preachers tell me to turn to or talk to my neighbors. No thank you. That being said, the lady gave us a good solid sermon. Let me tell you how good it was. My teenage daughter, peeked her head out of a closed bedroom door to find out who was speaking. It is not an uncommon for me to be in our living room watching sermons on Friday nights…but rarely does it elicit responses from anybody else in the house.

The first thing that I noticed is that Dr. Stewart quoted other women preacher/scholars. Most notably, she quoted Dr. Renita Weems, twice. Dr. Stewart not only walked through the door that was opened for her, but she held that door open for the next woman behind her. The second thing that I saw was her ability to speak truth to power. This woman stood up in a room where she was probably barely welcome by some, and told her fellow preachers to stop using their spirituality as a cloak for their sexism, homophobia, and whatever other biases they had. (My daughter and I both gagged at that point!) The third thing that I noticed was how aware Dr. Stewart was of her surroundings. Her sermon, while anchored in ancient and spiritual truth was also full of present day applications and references. When she started speaking in tongues (Did I mention that this was a Baptist gathering?), she was quick to point out her Baptist bona fides, but acknowledged that she was also charismatic in her beliefs. 

Dr. Stewart ended her sermon by saying she wanted to be like Claudia, the wife of Pontius Pilate. She said that she, too, wanted to speak up for and defend Jesus, to stand up for justice, and to fight for those who would not or couldn’t fight for themselves. As I was watching her sermon, I felt like she was already doing those things. 

When I was a kid, being a “wannabe” was an insult. It meant you were trying too hard to be something you were not. I don’t think it applies here. The Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart belonged on that stage. The church would be doing a disservice to itself by silencing voices like hers. After hearing her, I want to be more like Jesus. I want to be more like Claudia, but I also kind of want to be more like Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart.

Go watch for yourself, and let me know what you think.