Sorry I don't open

On my day off walk on Friday I was struck by this sign on a gate. "Sorry I don't open" it said. 

It set me thinking. Why doesn't it open? Is it because it is just awkward and contrary and doesn't want to to do anything that is asked? Is it because if you try and open it it would fall over and any riff raff could get in? Is it because it's just stuck because the gate has been neglected over the years? Is it because there is a pile of rubbish behind it which needs to be dealt with first? Is it because every time someone pushes one way, somebody else pushes back? Is it because it is simply broken and there needs to be a new gate fitted?

Who is the owner of this gate? Who is responsible for keeping the gate in good working order? Who is the gatekeeper? 

I wonder, have people really tried enough to make it possible to open the gate?

When our thinking about issues of justice, often the question of why the gate or door is closed comes up. Who is the gate keeper? Who is responsible for letting people in or not? Who holds the keys or the tools for repair? 

Recently I have been involved in a number of conversations about the opportunities that women do or do not have in church structures. Even in Baptist structures where the field should be flat rather than hierarchical there are opportunities that appear to be limited for women - places where women are still silent or a lone voice. Why is that? Why are those gates only open for some and not all? Why do women more often find the gate that does not open rather than the gate that is wide open? Is it because someone has closed it? Is it because it is stuck? Is it because it is simply broken and a new gate needs to be fitted?

I wonder, have people really tried enough to make it possible to open the gate? 

Why is it so difficult for that gate that will enable women to be all they are made to be open? 

Mary Beard says this in her book 'Women and Power':

“But in every way, the shared metaphors we use of female access to power - 'knocking on the door', 'storming the citadel', 'smashing the glass ceiling', or just giving them a 'leg up' - underline female exteriority. Women in power are seen as breaking down barriers, or alternatively as taking something to which they are not quite entitled.”

If the gate needs a huge amount of force to make it open, possibly because we've always been told its difficult to open (perhaps its 'Sorry I don't open' sign has been hung on it for too long) maybe that is why not much has changed. Perhaps we're so used to the gate being difficult to open that we just accept it as a normal part of life. If moving forward is so difficult there must be something about the culture that is wrong. Perhaps its about that sign we put on the gate.

What can we do about it? We can change the sign. The sign, with a better welcome, with a culture of possibility, could change everything and could lead women to have a seat at the table not because they've navigated a gate that rarely opens, but because the sign reminds them that they belong.