(RNS) — The tradition of “Seven Last Words” services hosted by Black churches will mark a new milestone on Good Friday (April 3) when all seven of the active African American women bishops of the United Methodist Church are expected to preach at a Maryland church.

“This is the first time there’s ever been that many” African American women bishops in the UMC, said the Rev. Jason O. Jordan-Griffin, pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church in the Baltimore suburb of Hanover, where the service will take place. “And this is the first time they’ve all come together to preach for an event of this magnitude.”

The retelling of the biblical account of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross, used to feature solely men in pulpits across the country. That changed gradually.

Back in 2011, Jordan-Griffin started inviting women to preach the seven sayings of Jesus — starting with “Father, forgive them … ” — at the first church he pastored, in Pumphrey, Maryland. Having been appointed to his third church last year, he decided he wanted to mark this year’s 15^th anniversary in a special way. He invited Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, who leads the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Episcopal Area, to preach for the occasion and asked permission to invite the other six Black women bishops as well.

Easterling is slated to preach on the last of the seven sayings: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

She said in a video statement that she is honored to join the other “active ebony female bishops” of her denomination to mark the key day during Holy Week observed by many Christians.

“This was born of a holy vision to expand the sacred space for women in ministry, to boldly declare that the pulpit is not and must never be again, a patriarchal stronghold,” she said. “Just as Christ’s work on the cross was countercultural, this service is a counternarrative, a living witness, a celebration of faithful, fierce and fearless women of God who continue to break barriers, preach with prophetic power and lead with divine authority.”

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For Jordan-Griffin, this moment has personal resonance. Born on Good Friday, and the son of a “strong mother,” he was raised in a single-parent home and watched how women were “relegated” to other positions, such as choir director, without having the opportunity to preach. As an undergraduate in 2006, he attended a “Seven Last Words” service at a predominantly Black congregation of the United Church of Christ, featuring all Black women preachers. Having previously seen so many male-dominated services on Good Friday, he vowed he would do the same once he became a minister.

He has kept his promise to God, continuing the tradition — which he calls “The Seven Last Words featuring Seven Sisters of the Spirit”  — at all three churches where he has been pastor. 

Ninety-one women, mostly Black and from a range of denominational backgrounds, have preached at the Good Friday services at his churches.

But this year’s service has moved the tradition, both locally and nationally, to a new level.

“To see our ebony bishops, who have the highest level of leadership in our denomination, standing together in this moment, it speaks to how far we have come not only as Black women, but also as a denomination, and really, how far God has taken us as Black women,” said the Rev. Twanda King, who chairs the Black Clergywomen of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

King, who is pastor of Union UMC in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and has twice preached at previous Good Friday services at churches pastored by Jordan-Griffin, canceled her church’s own Good Friday service so its members could instead attend the one in Hanover. Some members of Black Clergy Women of the United Methodist Church, a national organization, who can’t attend in person plan to watch online.

“It’s not just a historic moment,” she said. “This is a sacred moment.”

King added that “we’re seeing more and more churches” invite seven women to preach on Jesus’ seven statements from the cross.

The Rev. Melanie Jones Quarles, director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary, said it is fitting to center women on Good Friday given that women play key roles in the stories of Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection.

“The Seven Last Words is a storied and sacred preaching tradition in the Black Church, bringing Jesus’ final sayings from the crucifixion into living relevance for each generation,” she told Religion News Service in a statement. “In direct response to the historic absence of women from Good Friday pulpits, congregations across the country have organized services that intentionally center and amplify women’s preaching voices.”

Often, Seven Last Words services last for three hours — sometimes longer — with each of the speakers focusing on one of Jesus’ sayings and Scripture reading and music interspersed between the preached words.

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, a retired leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, recalled starting a series of Seven Last Words when she was a pastor in Baltimore in the mid-1990s.

“At that time, women being included in what we would call a major platform, a major pulpit for Seven Last Words, was few and far in between,” said McKenzie, who now is the president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

She said at the time church members doubted many people would show up to hear women preach.

“This was at 12 noon, and guess what? The people showed up,” she said of the occasion, where the seating was full. “People stood around the walls for three hours to hear the seven women preach.”

That event moved to larger and larger locations in subsequent years.

McKenzie, who was elected the first woman bishop of the AME Church in 2000, said it was important for Black women to be highlighted in that way. “The only time you had more than one woman preaching was for Women’s Day, or a women’s revival or a women’s conference, where the whole platform would include women, but for a high holy liturgical day? No.”

Now, McKenzie said, a new preaching pinnacle is being reached at a time when other prominent Black Methodist denominations have active Black women bishops but not as many as the UMC, which is overall predominantly white.

“The United Methodist, which is a larger context, would have more women bishops, period,” she said. “But I think it’s an extraordinary tick of the clock to have seven Black female bishops. That part is unheard of.”

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