May 23, 1999
at the First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts
by the Rev. Ken Sawyer

This is a very special day for us in the First Parishes of Wayland and Lexington, a day in which together we will ordain Rebecca Cohen to the Unitarian Universalist ministry.

Which means, of course, that this is a very special day for her as well. From this hour forth, the Reverend Ms. Cohen will take her place among those who have served congregations like ours for centuries – since 1640 in Wayland, and even here, in a young upstart of a church like Lexington, since 1691.

Imagine that whole army of the ordained gathered here, resurrected as needs be. Imagine them, five or ten thousand in number, flowing out of this space to fill the village green and the surrounding streets, acres of clergy milling about in the costumes of their respective days, Cotton Mather rubbing elbows and swapping opinions with Theodore Parker and Robert Fulghum.

About this august assembly, one fact would be quite notable: this is overwhelmingly a bunch of men. For example, those of us who have served as ministers of the First Parish in Wayland make up a contingent of thirty, of whom the female caucus is … that person there [Kimi Riegel].

Needless to say, this fact would not be remarkable to anyone here, except those young people who grew up in this church, who might assume that typically, a minister is a woman. But the rest of us know that typically, a minister is a man, not just if you resurrect the clergy from centuries past, but even today, in nearly all denominations.

But not in ours. What is remarkable for us is not that most of our ministers have been men, but that if we ask the departed members of our strange gathering to depart anew, leaving only those in active service in our movement today, including Rebecca in the balance, there are just about exactly as many women as men – which led to the suggestion that special attention be paid that fact by the New York Times and me.

In celebrating that important landmark, let us note that the victory is not that we UUs have managed to make such a very good start at ridding our ministry of some inferior life form called men. At least I like to think that's not what anyone is celebrating. Not to be defensive, but I have studied the lives and careers of my twenty-eight predecessors in Wayland, and though they were men to a man, some of them seem to have done a pretty fair job at more or less the same calling to which we welcome Rebecca today.

They seem to have tried as best they could on Sunday mornings to lead their congregations in worship, and in their sermons to sort out the religious quandaries of their times, although early on at greater length and in the afternoon, too. They were there for church members in their celebrations, in their times of crisis, and in the small social moments in between. They visited the sick, they comforted the bereft, they counseled the confounded. They were friend and guide to the young. They worked to ameliorate social ills. Just as Rebecca will do.

For a long time, in addition they served automatically as superintendents of the schools. And in my town, when King Philips War threatened the residents, they went to stay in the minister's home, it being the largest and most secure. Those things, Rebecca, I, and our colleagues are pretty much spared by now, for which I for one am just as glad, although in return we have more committee meetings.

But in large part, those guys of old did a job like ours, and often pretty well. The problem is not that they got to choose ministry as a career, at which many were adept. The problem is that until quite recently, the female half of the population was either denied -- or later, strongly deterred from -- the possibility of an ordained ministry. And no doubt many of them would have been every bit as good as the men at it or better.

It's not that women didn't have active roles in the church, and significant sources of power. Indeed, one caricature of the nineteenth century New England liberal church is a sort of women's club, with men – to keep their wives happy – being coaxed into going to services, or if they were real good sports, into serving as officers, for it went on being expected that men should seem to be in charge.

But a look at the records of many a nineteenth-century congregation will show that women had the most to say about many a church decision, women who met the most often, women who came up with enough money to make the financial ends met, and women who sometimes even kept a liberal presence alive when the congregation itself was moribund.

The historian Ann Douglas says nineteenth-century liberal ministers "felt increasingly dominated by their women members." ⁽¹⁾ And why not? Douglas quotes a Universalist who said in 1833 that "Christian churches are composed of a great disproportion of females" ⁽²⁾ and an 1859 assessment of Unitarianism that "The church was almost without male members." ⁽³⁾

The church was a female bailiwick. And many of those church women had what these days people are calling ministries, bringing soup and solace to shut-ins, providing financial and other aid to the needy, raising money and raising Cain for good causes within the larger society.

But they still had men for ministers, in every case, or nearly so. Emerson could decide to be a Unitarian minister, then he could decide he'd rather not be. But for Margaret Fuller, his intellectual cohort, there was no such choice available. Imagine if there had been, imagine if she'd gone into the ministry, imagine if she'd liked it and stayed – and I admit, you have to stretch your imagination a bit – but imagine the religious power she might have brought but couldn't.

Let me offer another case in point. The most distinguished resident of our little town was the nineteenth-century author, editor, and activist, Lydia Maria Child. Now before the Waylanders here think of bolting for an early visit to the reception hall or home, let me assure them that I will not recount at any length her numerous accomplishments, which they have heard a time or two before.

Suffice it to say she was a very popular novelist in her early twenties, back in the 1820s, at which time she founded the country's first magazine for children; in 1834 she authored one of the earliest and strongest attacks on slavery in a very controversial book; she was a lifelong activist, first in the cause of abolition and then in the cause of the fair treatment of former slaves; during the Civil War, she organized the women of Wayland to sew bandages for wounded Union soldiers; she wrote a history of the treatment of women, a multi-volume introduction to world religions, and many other books; she was aid and comfort to her neighbors in times of their distress; having earlier investigated Swedenborgianism and other forms of spiritualism, upon settling in Wayland she attended the services of the Unitarian minister, himself an ardent abolitionist, and after the war she was a firm supporter of the post-sectarian coalition, the Free Religious Association.

Think of it: this brilliant woman, with a passion for justice, a talent for words, an eagerness for organizing, a devotion to learning, a deep interest in matters religious, and an open-minded questing for a life of the spirit -- among the positions for which she could not hope to compete, having been born in 1802 and having been born a woman, was that of minister. No, that was what her brother was -- Convers Francis, the distinguished pastor of the First Parish in Watertown, just down the road.

And maybe she would not have wanted the job. But she could have had the freedom to decide, and did not. By the time she died in 1880, women were starting to make inroads into our ministry, Universalist and Unitarian alike, long before most other denominations. And here we are, with equality at hand. Praise be.

To our visitors I say, it is not surprising that it is in Unitarian Universalism that such equity of numbers has been achieved. We have long been at the forefront of the effort to foster freedom and eliminate discrimination. We are called to the effort by our heritage, our heroes, and our highest values.

But to the Unitarian Universalists here, just between you and me, it should probably be admitted that the picture has been more clouded in our history, and more in need of future commitment. For while it is true that there were dozens of women coming into the liberal ministry a hundred years ago, they were usually called to only the least sought-after placements. And in the midst of a strange movement that affected Protestantism in general in the first decades of this century, one that sought a less feminine Christianity and a more manly image of Jesus (this was back when we elected Teddy Roosevelt president), the admission of women to the ministry all but stopped.

The path to where we are today has not been smooth or steady. Think of it: when I entered the ministry, and I'm not all that old -- am I? -- but when I entered the ministry in 1970, if you wrote to the UUA to ask about a embarking on a similar career, if you happened to be a woman, you were urged to consider work as a Sunday school director. Which is wonderful, important work, maybe more important than a minister's. But whether you chose or now choose one or the other should have had nothing to do with your sex. The issue is freedom.

So while I like as much as anyone to cite the Unitarians and Universalists who were among the earliest women to be ministers in this country, I know we cannot be complacent. There are biases in our society against women being recognized as religious leaders; it is ours to argue otherwise.

There are biases in our society against all sorts of folks being recognized as religious leaders, because of their physical differences, because of their sexual orientation or identity, because of their ethnic background, because of their unorthodox theology. It is ours to argue otherwise.

It falls to us to say to the country and the world, just what we, the First Parishes of Lexington and Wayland, are saying today, that we recognize one among us, Rebecca Cohen, by virtue of her character and training, to be a religious leader, to be a minister. If there is anyone who would object (and there are), "But she is a woman," we answer that we could not be more proud this epic day that half our ministers – yes, half our ministers, and with the percentage rising – are women, too.

Nor could we be more proud that the newest in the age-old assembly of clerical folk, male and growingly female, too, joining Helen, me, and Kimi, Cotton, Theodore, and all the rest, is not just the statistical perfecting point, but someone we hold in high regard, in personal admiration, and in deep affection, Rebecca Cohen. Again I say, praise be.