Mothers of the Church
First Congregational Church of Evanston
May 13, 2007
Sixth Sunday of Easter/Mother’s Day
Acts 16:1-9
Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Minister
Lydia, a Biblical Mother of the Church
Today is the sixth Sunday of Easter, but is known as Mother’s Day in our community. On this Mother’s day I will lift up some heroes of faith – women I call ‘Mothers of the church.’
The first one is right here in the lectionary reading for this Sunday, Lydia in the story from Acts. Who is Lydia? A dealer in purple cloth, it says. Purple cloth was only worn by the wealthy. So, whether she was wealthy or not, we know she rubbed elbows with the powerful people.
She was a business-woman, probably not so common in her day. She was the head of her household – also not very common for her day. Ad what does that tell us about her? She was sure enough of herself to both hear the Apostle’s words about Jesus, and then to immediately decide that this Jesus was for her. Had she heard of these Christians before? Or was this all new to her? We have no way of knowing. Did she know Paul was coming to the riverside that morning?
Paul Looking for Place of Prayer
It is not clear who Paul and his companions were looking for when they went outside the city gates looking for a place of prayer. If it were to be a Jewish prayer group, a minion would have required 10 males. I wonder if Paul and his companions were disappointed not to find a minion.
They didn’t find a group of men, but a group of women. Lydia was one of them. She is described as a ‘worshiper of God,’ which is not a common term. But certainly it means she was a Gentile woman who had some relationship to the Jewish God.
Lydia did not apologize for who she was. She was not afraid to put herself forward. Not afraid of consequences for offering to host this unusual group of men. So at the outset Lydia offered her hospitality to the Apostles. That hospitality got extended to the new and growing church in Philippi. When Lydia was baptized she was not the first Gentile convert. But she very well may have been the first Christian convert in Europe. She may have been the first female head of a church. I think she was the mother of the church in Philippi – the mother of a budding church which would flower – the Christian Church in Europe. We know her primarily because of her hospitality to Jesus’ apostles and to the church.
Theology of Hospitality
Recently Christians have rediscovered hospitality as way to understand the Christian faith – hospitality is a way of understanding our whole Christian experience. And when we consider the gifts of God from the point of God’s hospitality, we will see that our human response is a reciprocal hospitality: A care for strangers and those in need. We know that strangers who come to worship are looking for a smile and a welcome to worship. Perhaps they come with a heavy load which you will help lift – that’s Christian hospitality. Or maybe it’s a neighbor who never came to worship – or a stranger on the way who needs our hospitality.
Over the centuries Christian hospitality has been demonstrated in a number of ways. Our word ‘hospital’ comes from the same root as hospitality. A hospital is a hospitality place for the ill. Churches started hospitals and continue to operate them. A hospice is a hospitality place for the dying. A homeless shelter and a food pantry provide hospitality for the needy. A Sunday School provides hospitality to the children. A coffee hour provides hospitality to worshipers. People who work for peace understand the earth as a place of hospitality for all people.
Women’s Special Role in Hospitality
Hospitality is incumbent on all Christians, but women have often been the heroes of hospitality. So on this Mother’s Day, I share stories of some mothers of the church – heroes of Christian hospitality.
Olive McLean. First I will take you back more than 40 years. I will take you north into the Panhandle of Idaho, through the mountains and the forest. We cross U.S. Highway #2, the last east-west highway in these lower 48 United States, and keep going North. When we come to the last fork in the road, we take the one less traveled – not the one to the right to cross into Canada at Eastport, but the one that is straight north to Porthill. This is a tiny village. No post office. No store. No school. No church. Only a tavern called ‘Hawks,’ a tiny Masonic lodge, and a few poor houses. Not much else.
We drive up to the fence that marks the Canadian border, and turn right. There is the cottage of Olive and Basil McLean – elderly folks. They raise vegetables, fruit and beautiful flowers. They milk one cow. They eke out a living. And make their home a place of comfort for many a person who passes through – especially young student ministers.
You never know what to expect, but when you enter Olive’s home, it is an experience! Great aromas waft from the kitchen. What a treat. Talk about hospitality – Olive was a hostess! Living so far out in the country, you might think Olive would be rustic. But Olive’s table was set with fine China and silver. Her family was British, Canadians living on the north side of Niagra Falls. She had a British sense of style.
There were always home grown vegetables and fruit. Once I started to eat a plate of dark meat. Olive said, “Do you know what you are eating?” I didn’t. “This is bear meat!” she replied. It was wonderful! In my whole life, only at her home, was I ever served eggs from a China egg cup!
Olive was the community’s bearer of culture. She played the old pump organ at the church 10 miles up the road. Her legs were swollen and it was hard for her, but she pumped anyway. She had a piano in her home and kids came for piano lessons. She charged 50 cents, but never turned anyone away. With the piano lessons they, also, got instructions in manners.
But Olive’s crowning achievement, in my opinion, was Sunday School. She used an abandoned gas station. The wooden floor was very uneven and had a deep hole in it – deep enough for a little person to fall in. But the children were well-behaved for their friend Olive – no one fell in.
The children in Porthill learned the love of Jesus Christ. They memorized Bible verses, they sang songs, and learned how to treat one another. The village of Porthill was a rather bleak place, but Olive brought the blessings of Christian hospitality.
I knew her long ago. She is dead now. But the gospel stories she taught and the music she inspired, and her stubborn way of looking at life have surely stayed with those children who now have children and even grandchildren of their own. I thank God for Olive McLean and her hospitality to me and to the children of her community. She was a real mother of the church.
Rebecca Nored. Another mother of the church I want you to meet is Rebecca Nored. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a strong Afro-American, close to 90 years old now. She claims some Spanish ancestry and some Cherokee, if I remember right, She is a woman with a wonderful smile and a twinkle in her eyes. Born in the coal country of Pennsylvania, she left when was a young person and didn’t get back to see the place until she was in her 70's.
She is a member of West Cincinnati Presbyterian Church, but when she joined this inner city church back in the 1940's, it was a joint Episcopal and Presbyterian Church. She joined as an Episcopalian. She always genuflects when she comes to the communion table. She has served as an officer in this Church, sung in the choir, and worked on many committees. But she is stubborn about who she is.
Rebecca Nored, loves children. They are her passion. She was nearly 80 when she retired from being an aide in the public school. She never got paid like the teachers – since she didn’t have the credentials. She saw no way for a poor Black woman like her to go to college when she was young. But she was respected by the teachers, the administration, the children and the parents alike.
She worked all day in the class room, but instead of going home, after school she had a Girl Scout troop. On the weekends she volunteered with the Red Cross and sang in the Cincinnati Community Chorus. Such a busy life, you’d think she would take a break in the summer. But, as soon as school was out, she started to work on the church’s camping program, taking children from the housing projects. She taught them the love of Jesus Christ. She taught them to bake bread, to study the Bible, to sing camp songs, to respect themselves and to respect nature.
These city kids, were terrified of the dark in the country. She taught them not to be afraid. But one night they were camping at the old Red Barn which was their home away from home, when they saw a burning cross on a grassy spot near their camp. They saw some young white men were running away. That night Rebecca Nored taught her children not to be afraid of others. (She must have been shaking in her boots, herself!) But she taught the children that no one could drive them away. She taught them to have faith.
Rebecca was way past retirement age when she finally did. It was hard to stop her. She demonstrated Christ’s hospitality to children, many whose families had nothing at all to do with the church. She showed children love and respect. She taught them tolerance in a world that often was very hard on them. She is a most unforgettable character. A woman who lived and breathed the hospitality of Christ – a mother of the church.
Julia Ware Howe. Now we turn to another mother of faith. She is not someone you or I have met. We might say that Julia Ward Howe is the mother of Mother’s Day. Ms. Howe is the one who wrote the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...” which was set to a traditional American tune and became immensely popular on the Union side of the Civil War. Perhaps we would think of Julie Ward Howe as a hawk. But after the Civil War she showed great concern for the families on both sides of that conflict.
As a part of that burning concern Ms. Howe took a courageous stand and called for a Mother’s day. Now this wasn’t to be anything like Hallmark’s Mother’s Day or Helen Steiner Rice’s Mother’s Day. Ms. Howe’s Mother’s day was a prophetic day of standing up against the powers of evil in war. Listen to her 1880 proclamation:
Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail & commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesars but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace (http://womenshistory.about.com).
Anna Reeves Jarvis and Anna Jarvis. Another woman of Julia’s generation was Anna Reeves Jarvis who dedicated herself to sanitation issues and carrying on Julia’s dream of a Mother’s Day. Her daughter Anna Jarvis finally got Mother’s Day through the Congress and signed by President Wilson in1914. But it as turned into a day of sentimentality about women instead of a day of activism. Anna Jarvis was disappointed by the commercialism which began to grow (http://womenshistory.about.com).
Julia Ward Howe and the two Anna Jarvises were surely mothers of faith and heroes of God’s hospitality. They saw enemies as potential friends. They saw peace and hope in the midst of the terror of war. They saw health in the midst of squallor.
Conclusion
Thanks be to God for all the mothers of faith: Lydia, the first Christian convert and church leader in Europe; Olive, who brought culture, music, manners and faith to the poor children of the Idaho village; Rebecca who taught poor kids to stand tall in the face of racial prejudice and to be all that God gave them to be; Julia the prophetess of the 19th century who stood tall against war, and the two Jarvises, women of faith – all of them. Mothers of the Church.
And you can think of others. Some of them are right here in this church. Praise God for strong women of faith. Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008