Women’s Voices
and the
Practice of Preaching

Nancy Lammers Gross

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

© 2017 Nancy Lammers Gross

All rights reserved

Published 2017

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 171 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ISBN 978-0-8028-7322-4

eISBN 978-1-4674-4785-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gross, Nancy Lammers, 1956– author.

Title: Women’s voices and the practice of preaching / Nancy Lammers Gross.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017006749 | ISBN 9780802873224 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Preaching. | Women clergy.

Classification: LCC BV4211.3 .G76 2017 | DDC 251.0082—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006749

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and used by permission.

To Anna and Abby

Contents

Foreword by Lillian Daniel

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1.The Symphony of Miriam

2.Asking Permission

3.Voice Lost

4.Voice Restored

5.Embodied Voice

6.As If It Matters

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Names and Subjects

Index of Scripture References

Foreword*

I had always imagined that the first time I tried on the ministerial preaching role I would be in a tall pulpit, six feet above contradiction, looking down at eager, biblically literate listeners desperate for my next exegetical move. Instead I was in a mental hospital, preaching my first sermon across a conference table to five patients who thought they had signed up for a group session on spirituality with a beloved and experienced chaplain. They were about to be treated instead to a scholarly lecture on Galatians that I mistakenly thought was a sermon. That first effort was interrupted repeatedly by a woman who demanded that we pray to Princess Grace.

“You can pray for Princess Grace and other heads of state,” I explained, “but not to her, because that would be crazy.” I could tell by their expressions that they had not come to the chaplain’s group to hear yet another person call them crazy, so I corrected myself by saying, “Not that I’m calling you guys crazy in a bad way or anything. I mean, yes, you are in the psych unit of course, but who am I to judge?” They glared at me long enough that my voice trailed off into mumbling, which was the sign that I might as well start reading my prepared sermon, complete with theological block quotes and footnotes.

And read it I did. I read it in the voice of the teachers I most admired in Divinity School, which is to say that I had practiced eliminating every trace of personal passion from my delivery. I was convinced that a plain and monotonous style would lift me up in the patients’ intellectual ...