by Rev. Shannon E. Sullivan
With her calm. pastoral presence, the Rev. Debie Thomas ministered to those gathered at this year’s Young Clergy Women International (YCWI) conference. Though she has spent much of her life in ministry, her ordination is recent. We got to hear her story as she invited us to share our own and to search together for what God is revealing in this moment.
Rev. Thomas’s ministry is shaped by the table.Growing up as a pastor’s kid within an immigrant community, she watched her family welcome people to their table as a way of building up that community. She was raised on church coffee hours in addition to the eucharist. Yet on the first day of our conference, she spoke of being a guest at God’s table, praying “God of the abundant table, please host me!” And indeed, God did.
Before this conference, I knew Rev. Thomas as a Biblical scholar and theologian, not as a pastor. I first started reading her work when she was still a layperson writing for Journey with Jesus, a webzine. I heard preachers rave about her in the YCWI Revised Common Lectionary subgroup. When her book, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ, a collection of some of her lectionary work, was published, I read it immediately and continue to keep it close for Bible studies, sermons, my own devotional work, anything. It is a must-have. She is brilliant.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth in our preaching subgroup was quite intense when she revealed she wouldn’t be writing weekly after Easter in 2022. During the conference, Rev. Thomas made a comment about over-quoting Jan Richardson, and someone responded, “I overquote you!” Another young clergywoman said that Rev. Thomas’s writing saved her ministry during the COVID-19 shut down. I have joked that Debie Thomas is the patron saint of YCWI preaching.
As much as I considered her writing as necessary to our work as young clergywomen preachers, I didn’t expect her to also be a pastor to us too. Throughout our conference, she called on the God of the Abundant Table both to give us rest, but also to help us open our hearts to see how we can be braver and more outspoken in the face of injustice, something she named as a hunger in her own soul that reverberated in mine. She asked about how we struggled or engaged with privilege, both our own and that of our ministry setting. The questions she had us reflect on are still ones that I continue to reflect on months later.
In her opening plenary, Rev. Thomas said:
As Christians, one of the key things we do at the table is remember: ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ We trust that when we bring our full selves to the feast, when we place our stories, our memories, our hopes and triumphs and griefs alongside that sacred story of Christ’s love and sacrifice, something happens. Our stories partake of that much bigger narrative of God’s slow but redemptive work in the world. Our stories find solace and solidarity in the good company of those who are feasting with us. And somehow all things are made new. I think it is easier to remember together than alone.
Young Clergywomen International has been a place of remembering, placing our stories alongside one another’s and Christ’s. We got to do some of that work of remembrance together under Rev. Thomas’ guidance throughout this conference. She talked about how many of us are among the first, but we are creating an archive of stories to share with those alongside us and who come after us. She gave us space to lament the challenges we face as young clergywomen, and just as people in ministry, in a time that requires so much more creativity in general. She celebrated our organization and the ways it has supported so many of us.
Rev. Thomas also invited us to consider our ministry not only as guests at God’s table, but as co-hosts creating alongside God. She wondered with us about who is missing at the table. She urged us to reflect on our privilege and to work towards de-centering ourselves, which I think was particularly important for us in YCWI because of our majority whiteness, mainline-ness, and USA/Western geography.
A good pastor not only comforts but challenges, and indeed Rev. Thomas gently and powerfully led us towards uncomfortable reflections that could lead us to deeper discipleship.
As we celebrate 20 years of YCWI, Rev. Thomas celebrated with us and invited us to create anew. She said:
Maybe tradition for us as God’s people needs to become a verb. We should always be traditioning, looking for transformative ways in which God wants to decenter and remake what we already know and love so that we can move into newer and fresher forms of communion.
I will be graduating out of Young Clergywomen International in a year, but Rev. Thomas’s presence at this year’s conference helped me to see the traditioning I have done as a young clergywoman and invited me to keep remaking myself and my community as I age out and into newer forms of communion!
Rev. Shannon E. Sullivan (she/her/hers) is a life-long feminist and United Methodist currently serving the community of Frederick, Maryland, as the senior pastor of Trinity UMC. She is a graduate of Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey. She is married to Aaron Harrington, her high school sweetheart, who is a pilot and all around aviation geek. They have two living children who they are raising in a house cluttered by books and airplane parts. Shannon is a proud former Managing Editor of Fidelia, and more of her writing can be found through Fidelia and at shannonesullivan.com.
