Beloved Non-Persons

“Beloved Non-Persons”

Rev. Roberta Howey

Lawrence Park Community Church

March 9th, 2025

My friend Marion will tell you regularly that she was born a non-person. Born before 1928, she was among the last group of women that would be, according to the government of Canada, considered a non-person, as only persons could serve in the Senate, and the federal government at that point had determined that only men are persons. Ergo- Marion, like thousands of other female Canadians, was a non-person. 

While many women could vote by the late-20’s, it was hard fought. There were campaigns everywhere demanding the women know their place. That they return to the home and the domestic sphere, after many joining the workforce during and after the First World War. And that the women who do want to be involved in politics were fighting against nature itself. That they were being crude and crash and too masculine. Give up, ladies! Go back to the kitchen and the school room, leave the real politics to men. Don’t worry your pretty little heads with the big worries of the world.

Thank God they didn’t listen. They may not have been perfect but they were stubborn and resilient, and along with activists across the century fighting for Indigenous, queer, and disabled women among everyone else, that is why women across Canada have the same legal rights and freedoms as men. One would hope the fight can end. That we can rest, all of us. But that would make for a short and boring sermon.

Alongside the women demanding their space in the political sphere, there were also women working in the church who had dreams and callings of their own. Women, in all of the churches that became the United Church, were not allowed to be ordained as ministers. The Methodists allowed them to preach, on occasion, and they were allowed in spaces to run Sunday Schools, plan the church events, fundraise, serve on missionary committees and run the pastoral care programs. But to be titled Reverend, and do the sacraments that title bestows, was strictly for men. The best you could get, as one woman suggested to my dad when I started seminary, was to be a minister’s wife, which was and is a tough role. 

That would simply not do for Rev. Lydia Gruchy (“grew-chee”). She graduated with her degree in theology and was permitted to serve six appointments in Northern Saskatchewan, which by any of my metrics makes her the bravest minister I can think of. But she was not allowed to be ordained. In 1926, one year after the UCC was formed, she asked for the first time to be ordained in the new United Church of Canada, and was declined. Nellie McClung, of the “Famous Five”, noted sadly that it was not the men that said no, but the women who voted against her ordination. Only in 1936, 11 years after the UCC was formed and 10 years of requests, did Ms. Gruchy become ordained as the Rev. Lydia Gruchy. 

Why turn her down? There were a lot of dissenting arguments on record, many of which will not surprise us here- Jesus’ apostles were men. Women aren’t able to command the room, or do the sacraments. Not scripturally sound, etc. I am not interested in those arguments.

Two gave me pause. One, from H.A. Kent to the General Council in 1928 “What the church needs at the present time is not more femininity, but more masculinity. Women’s work in the church is carried on with admirable zeal and faithfulness. What are men doing?”.

The idea, from this line of arguments, is that women have their own spheres. There were the Woman’s Missionary Society, which became the Ladies’ Aid, and the Dominion Council Woman’s Association, which positioned itself as working alongside the clergy for the advancement of the UCC. There were deaconesses, women who may have been clergy today but were offered these positions instead- a lot of the responsibility of ministry without the title and compensation, and would end the moment she got married just like many other jobs. There were whole organizations in the UCC that were governed by women, because they could not be clergy themselves and so created the supports to literally keep the roofs on the buildings. So if a woman can be an ordained minister as well, well how will the men be impacted? Now they will have to compete with women!

The second argument is even more insidious. “Ministry is such hard work. Long hours, thankless tasks, the demands never end and you are exhausted. Is that what we want our women to sign up for? When they are so well suited for the home, where they flourish in their own domain. Why make them suffer so? Won’t Lidya be tired? Miss Gruchy and other women shouldn’t have to wear themselves down, they can just stay where they belong.”

“Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you exhausted?” This is the benevolent argument that snakes its way around the heart. It can pierce deeper than any other barb. Have a sexist individual come up and tell me I am going against God, burning in hell for deceiving you all in listening to me, and that I am an uglier Jezebel, and I honestly won’t be worried. Ready to fight, but not worried about me. I can hear the evil in that comment and see the Devil on their shoulder right away.

But the comments that worm their way come wrapped in velvet. “Isn’t this work exhausting? Maybe it is too much, if you are going to be hurt by it. Maybe you need to stop, and try something easier. Maybe we let others, who are better suited and smarter and stronger than you, do this. They can handle it. You don’t need to do any more.”

They are a lullaby. After all, ministry is hard work. Whether it is here in the congregation, or at the hospital bedside, it can be a lot and it can demand a lot. Just as many other careers are incredibly demanding. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants (especially right now), and stay-at-home parents who have to figure out raising kids while the world is on fire. You could not pay me enough to go back to working in a restaurant. But the option of not doing any of that, to give up and not worry about any of this? It sneaks in, like a thief in the night. It whispers across the tired desert, like Satan reminding Jesus how tired and hungry he must be. Or that he knows he is supposed to rule the world, just let Satan do it for him and he will be done like that. Or that he doesn’t really have to die. All he has to do is follow the Devil and he can live a powerful life, without being killed by the state, and one where he is never hungry again. No worries.

These benevolent arguments work so well and are so insidious because they speak to our desire. Not to never work again. But to not see ourselves or others in pain. Not to abandon our dreams and goals, but to not have to keep fighting our fellow family, friends, neighbours along the way. It is not wrong to want to stop. And for some of us it is the right option, especially if we are being exploited or abused or we know in the marrow of our bones we must leave for our own health. But that is not where these arguments come from. Satan doesn’t care about Jesus’ hunger or his exhaustion. The detractors of early women in the pulpit didn’t really care about their health. Or if they did it was baked in layers of sexism. The message is simple- We don’t think you should do this, because we want you to rely on us to tell you what to do.

This is what makes it such a challenge to resist temptation. Because there is a kernel of truth in what is being said. Ministry is tiring, as is working in the medical field or the legal field, or working retail, or being a stay at home parent or a student or sometimes simply existing on this earthly plane. These are all tiring things and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that it would be easier to simply ignore the ills of the world. It is the speaker who is wrong. It is the conclusion that is drawn that is wrong. It is tiring, so give up and let others think for you? No! It is tiring, so take breaks. Rest when needed. Work together, move together. It is tiring, so rely on the strength of God’s love and the love of Christ to give us the strength to keep going.

Being a non-person, as Marion was when she was born, means to not be given permission to care about the world and do something about it. But you are a person, and so am I. We don’t need anyone’s permission to care about the world, including ourselves. It is a gift and blessing from God to be able to want to make our tiny corner of the world better. It means that Rev. Gruchy didn’t need to become a minister to make the world better. But she was called to by God, and she made the world even better after that. 

This Lenten season we are called to discern who is telling us to give up, and why. Because God never wants us to give up, but instead says “here you can rest, here you can give me your burden, here you can feel my unconditional love and know that you are my beloved. No one, regardless of gender, is a non-person in my eyes.” Rest, discern, pray, and when we are ready, tell the devil to get behind us; we got work to do.

Amen.