Martha Juillerat

MARTHA GRACE JUILLERAT

September 16, 1995

This stole was given to me by my parents and my sister on the day I was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry.

Today, as I set aside my ordination, I am giving away this stole as a symbol of something much more precious that I have chosen to give up for the sake of dignity and justice.

I work and pray for the day when all of us can reclaim these stoles, in this denomination.

For what does God require of us? Only this: To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

(On back: 2-21-87 MGJ)

In late 1992, my partner, Tammy Lindahl, and I were serving five rural churches in Heartland Presbytery, the regional governing body of the Presbyterian Church covering western Missouri and eastern Kansas. Over the course of a few months we began coming out to the church, first to trusted friends, and later to the whole presbytery during a church-wide "dialogue" -- a public action which effectively ended our careers in the ministry. Two and a half years later I was forced to "set aside" my ordination before the presbytery.

The intervening years were extraordinarily difficult for Tammy and I. We volunteered to participate in other dialogues taking place in presbyteries across Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Arkansas. As two of only three people in the central states who were involved in dialogues at this level, we often felt like we had targets painted on our backs; we received death threats and endured a constant barrage of opposition.

Since we had come out publicly and I was to lose my ordination publicly, friends across the country sought a way to support us in an equally public, tangible way. As a part of this effort, eighty gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Presbyterian pastors -- many of whom had been caught in the same net as Tammy and I -- sent us their stoles with letters of support. On Sept. 16, 1995, we pinned the letters to each stole and hung those 80 stoles in the church where I would stand before the presbytery. After making my final statement I took off my own stole, added it to the others, and left the church.

Thus began the Shower of Stoles. And as I would come to realize over the years, I gave up my ministry only to discover the greatest ministry I could ever hope to have.

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006