Rev. Marjorie Weiss, pastor at St. Michael Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wellington, will be retiring in November after 35 years in the ministry.
“Saying goodbye this time is different, because when I’ve left parishes in the past, it has been to go on to another parish. Now, I’m ending full-time ministry,” Weiss said. “It’s kind of a walk through my life, preparing for this change.”
Packing up her papers, giving her books and resources to others, and clearing out her office is taking her on a new path along her journey.
Being able to be “a normal person” is something that Weiss is looking forward to.
“When someone is a pastor, there is something called the ‘fishbowl syndrome.’ People observe my life and make comments on me, my husband, my children, my language, the jokes I tell, etc.,” she explained. “I’m constantly being watched, observed and often judged. Sometimes the judgment is quite harsh. I look forward to blending in and being a normal person.”
Women have been ordained since 1970 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). “I was ordained in 1980,” Weiss said. “There were about 200 women ordained, total, around the country, when I got ordained. It was very new.”
When Weiss began thinking about becoming a pastor, she had never seen a woman pastor before.
“I was in college when I began to think about that. My home pastor suggested it to me,” she said. “I thought it was an odd idea, but it kind of planted the seed.”
Combined with her interest in theology, it seemed that the seminary was something to try.
“I remember when women were first being ordained, when I was a teenager first sitting in a Sunday school class with adults and teens,” Weiss recalled.
For early women in the seminary, there were many obstacles to overcome. As a teenager, during that Sunday school class, a man said that he would not be able to have a female pastor because if she was pregnant, he would think about the process in which she became pregnant. He was adamantly opposed to the idea of a female pastor.
During her first few years of seminary, in Philadelphia, and her internship in New York, Weiss discovered that she could do the job and enjoy it. She was ordained when she was 26 years old, following the route of going to seminary after college.
“I’ve never done anything in my adult life but this,” Weiss said. “I’ve been ordained 35 years, and I’m still an oddity for folks.”
When the congregation participated in a Halloween event a few years ago, she said, someone thought she was in costume while wearing her collar.
“They thought I was in costume as a Roman Catholic priest as a woman, or something like that,” she said. “I still have people tell me I’m the first woman pastor they’ve ever heard speak. Or I’ll do a funeral, and they’ll tell me I’m the first woman pastor they’ve ever seen.”
Now, she said, there are more than 2,000 women across the country in the ELCA as pastors. Those graduating from seminary are equally male and female, though it will take a while before females reach parity among all pastors. In total, there are approximately 6,000 active male pastors, with several thousand more counting retired ones.
“That’s still a big difference from 200,” she said, adding that not all Lutheran denominations ordain women, in the United States and around the world.
Weiss’s determination was to be a woman pastor, without focusing on women’s liberation and altering the gendering of the language.
She has enjoyed the ability to creatively teach while utilizing music, along with the ability to be able to pick up the kids from school. The job does include weekend work and many nights out, which tends to cut into family life, she explained, though it is good for the congregation.
“Women, in general, are more collaborative in style, in whatever they do. I think, as a female pastor, I have had more of an orientation toward consensus, rather than a hierarchy,” she said. “That’s not saying it’s bad when men might do that, but it has certainly worked better for me in my ministry, for people to get a sense that I’m going to try to let them do it the way that they want to and guide, rather than tell.”
Throughout the years, she has been challenged, where people have approached her about their beliefs that women should not be ordained. Someone told her in college that Satan would use her if she followed her career path.
“Now, if there weren’t women pastors, there wouldn’t be enough to go around,” Weiss said. “I’ve said to people, if God is really opposed to this, then why is it going so well?”
Being a female pastor has mattered more when looking for a job, than when actually doing the job, Weiss said.
“I’ve never really had a lot of problems being female, except when seeking a new call,” she said, referring to the process of finding a new pastoral post.
Once she was on the hunt for more than two years. Potential churches only would learn her name if they were interested, and once they did, their interest waned.
Weiss spent 12 years in Pennsylvania before joining the parish at St. Michael in Wellington, where she has been for more than 11 years.
Gathering for worship and being with people, she said, and storytelling preaching have been some of her favorite things here, along with the community gathering and using music to worship.
As Weiss is packing her things up, she’s torn. “It’s a mix of feelings,” she said, as she gives away resources, finds things she forgot about and realizes that she will never be doing certain things again.
St. Michael will host a retirement party for Weiss at the church on Saturday, Nov. 7 from 7 to 10 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend.
The church is located at 1925 Birkdale Drive. For more info., visit www.stmichaelelc.com.
To keep in touch with Weiss, e-mail her at weisderr@gmail.com.
ABOVE: Rev. Marjorie Weiss will soon retire as pastor at St. Michael Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wellington.
