Jane M. Wiberg
1926 — 2023
I was sitting in a back pew of the old tabernacle of First Covenant Church in Minneapolis, when Jane walked in from the side door. It was June 2019. This was the home church of my maternal grandparents, Ellen and Stewart Gustafson. I was remembering myself as a young child, sitting up in the balcony that curved across the entire sanctuary during summer vacations at their home. On the day I watched Jane walk in, the Tabernacle was no longer part of the Evangelical Covenant. It had been expelled because the congregation was deemed “out of harmony” with the Covenant position on human sexuality.
Many came to express their solidarity with the congregation on this sad day: to mourn, sing, pray and celebrate with our brothers and sisters. When Jane walked in, we all took notice because this was Jane Wiberg, a well-known person who had stature, who carried the history of our living movement in her beating heart. It did not surprise any of us to see her. And she entered without fanfare, in the same manner I had personally witnessed hundreds of times when she and Glen were at North Park Covenant Church, with purpose and delight.
Her entrance and company brought strength to our gathering, a solidity, a living presence as a bulwark against those forces that meant to separate and estrange us from each other; she added her personal confirmation to why we all gathered that day—to stand in solidarity with this congregation, to remain intact as a fellowship that embraced freedom and inclusivity.
Jane, one in the long lineage of mothers who birthed and nourished our community of faith, was propelled by the same robust energy that disturbed and activated Mor i Vall and others to rescue children from the auction block in Småland. Jane carried this energy when she walked into the tabernacle on that day. We felt it.
Jane was, and always was (as near as I could tell) herself—wherever she was. She was funny, often ribald, sometimes embarrassingly so for Glen, but always the life of the party. In a time when many pastor’s wives were hired (without pay) to support their husband’s ministry from the shadows, Jane was out front. She supported Glen, to be sure. But in those first days of my seeing them together, I could perceive the difference she was bringing to the transition we were all living through. I’m not sure if she would have accepted the term “feminist” as an epithet for herself, but she lived her life as if it were her own to live—not directed by conventional roles imposed by propriety or hierarchy. She was a fresh breeze and, by example, loosened what was often uptight.
On that Sunday morning, in June of 2019, I was proud to share a pew with her. To see her smile when our eyes met. And then to easily and gladly recall the many occasions when she and Glen ate with us at table at my parent’s home; when Susan and I ate at their table and they at ours; when we shared Seder meals over the years, full of wine and singing (Glen pounding on the piano) “We’re Marching to Zion” after we shouted: “Next year in Jerusalem!”; Jane, my steadfast and supportive student; Jane the artist who crafted dried flowers into art: cards and bouquets and arrangements, a business she operated out of their basement. And, so much more.
A rich and full life to be sure. And isn’t this the point of the time we are given, I give away my thanks for her presence through most of my days, and now into living memory. I raise my glass—L’Chaim!