I have started this article fifty times in my head, and it never ends.  Because what can I say?  What ever could I say, that would melt one heart hardened on this issue?

I want these words to testify to my love of the Lutheran church, the church of my family and my childhood, the church where I was made a daughter of God through baptism, the church in which I confirmed my faith and have spent most of my worshipping years.  I love its liturgies, its focus on word and sacrament, the generous grace of God that sits at its centre.

I want my words to testify to my love of the Lutheran people here in Australia, who have been my family of faith for most of my life.  I love them as my flawed and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.  They have taught me how much showing up matters, how much community can be built through giving just a little of what you have.  They remind me that the human distinctions we build in our politics and lifestyles can vanish when we join in worship and fellowship, and that in those moments God’s kingdom is present on earth.

I want my words to speak to the childhood where my faith was nurtured and developed.  In a pastor’s household, you see the best and worst of the church. No pastor’s kid is fully protected from church politics, meetings that go on too long with the aim of accomplishing nothing, and people who sometimes forget God’s great commission in the interests of building their own legacy. But you also see deep love and more of that generous grace, often from suprising corners – the casseroles dropped around after an illness, the sharing of creative gifts to enrich the life of the church, the quiet prayers offered for healing.  You see, too, the need that sits on the church doorstep.  The next knock on the door might be a parishoner, or somebody who needs the spare cans of food my parents kept in their cupboard, or a domestic violence victim seeking a way to safety, or someone requiring urgent transport to hospital. This is part of being a pastor’s daughter. All of it shaped my understanding of what it is to be Lutheran.

Of course, none of this matters.  No woman can be Lutheran enough, and no love of church will open the gates to ordination in our denomination.

No, these paragraphs only give the reasons why I stay, and why I’ve returned whenever I’ve tried to leave.  I feel like I need to lay them out to explain why I still sit in a church that stifled my calling, that often invalidated or failed to seek or nurture any gifts I had, that didn’t offer me any pathway into service past the age of twenty-one.  A church that I would willingly have committed my whole life to, but that seemingly wanted no commitment from me beyond marriage, babies, morning tea and maybe some stints teaching Sunday school.  These are all fine things, but they are not my calling.

And this is always where I end up, when I try to write about women’s ordination in the Lutheran church. Just sitting in front of my computer screen, crying, because it all feels so pointless, the whole long 20 year battle, the theological statements, the called-by-God women begging and pleading to serve and always being turned away. Those who have set their hearts to stone will not listen to my pleas any more than to those who argue far better than I can.

And I don’t want my words to end in bitterness.  I want them to end on the thing that really matters, the reason why I continue to pray for change.

I was probably ten or eleven, sitting in St John’s on Roderick Street, Ipswich, rehearsing the nativity play. Based on December averages, it was probably about 31 degrees, with humidity nudging 50%.  I don’t remember my role, or my lines, but I remember looking at the manger, at the plastic swaddled baby there. And I remember feeling, for the first time, the full magnitude of what that meant.  God, come to earth, in the full vulnerability of infancy and powerlessness, because He loved me.  He wanted me to be right with Him, and there was nothing I could do to make that happen, but this baby in the manger had done it all.

And now I am living in God’s kingdom on earth, an upside-down kingdom where the least are the greatest, and the wise are fools. In God’s kingdom, there is a deep indifference to human hierarchies.  He calls who he calls, and it matters not if their culture or their wise men think they are suitable.  He calls, and when they answer, He uses them to light up the world, and lead people into the knowledge of His love and grace. Nowhere is that more evident than in the nativity, where a peasant girl is forced to give birth far from home by an oppressive regime. Every person in that scene – parents, shepherds, foreign astrologers – stands outside the local powers of state, church, and culture. Through them, God’s will is done.

I have two daughters, both baptised daughters of God, both being raised in a Lutheran community that so far has done a fine job of loving them and nurturing their faith.  I pray that their faith will continue to grow, and that they will feel, as I felt, the love of God in all of its incredible transformative power. And I pray that if they feel a call to ordination, or to any other role of ministry and service, they will be free to follow it in the church of their childhood.

We will be singing carols in Bendigo this Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Christ.  I hope the whole world hears.