“Loving Women as Practicing Resurrection”
The Reverend Tom Steffen
9 May 2010 – Mother’s Day

Readings: Acts 16:9-15

John 14:23-29

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 16), we are reminded that St. Paul reaches out to a woman and establishes a deep connection. We know little about her, other than she was “known to be a God fearer,” which is code for a gentile who seems to know things about God without being born a Jew or instructed in Torah. She is referred to as Lydia, which may or may not be her actual name, since she was from Lydia. But two things we do know: she was a business woman, maybe of considerable means, AND she had a tender and trusting and generous heart. Eugene Peterson’s translation of Verses 14 and 15 puts it this way: At the prayer meeting, “She listened with intensity to what was being said, and the Master gave her a trusting heart – and she believed. After she was baptized, along with everyone in her household, she said in a surge of hospitality: ‘If you’re confident that I’m in this with you and truly believe in the Master, come home with me and be my guests.’ We hesitated, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer” (Verses 14 and 15). Lydia, the woman from Lydia. Believing, magnanimous, hospitable, Paul’s earliest and, perhaps, his most loyal benefactor, an interesting woman to consider on Mother’s Day.

Since we know so little about her, Lydia, for me, is a Victoria Barkley kind of woman, you know, that late 18^th century widowed matriarch of the TV series “Big Valley,” played by Barbara Stanwyck. She was the undisputed master of the ranch, but also had a generous and hospitable spirit known throughout Central Valley just outside of Stockton. Victoria, you may remember, was a bit controversial; she was ahead of her time, being that she was such a strong woman in what was a man’s world of running ranches. But she won our hearts and our respect, perhaps like Lydia did with St. Paul and the early church.

Thinking about Lydia and Victoria Barkley this week, I was led to reflect on a portion of one of Wendell Berry’s writings in his book The Country of Marriage (1973). Berry isn’t a rancher, but what some call a “gentleman farmer.” He’s also a poet and theologian. Here are the lines that echoed in my head as I prepared for Mother’s Day. Somewhere in the middle of this piece, Berry writes: “So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?” And then, after several more lines, he ends it with “Practice resurrection.”

Given that we are still in the season of Easter, there is an obvious connection between giving birth and practicing resurrection. I think it was Mark Twain that suggested that “the birth of a child is God’s vote that the world should go on.” But on this day, it is this other line that jumps out at us: “Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?” I take it the answer to the first question is – if it does, than it may be worth doing. And if it disturbs a woman who is very pregnant, it probably isn’t worth doing, or at least it may be questionable. It is good to listen to those among us who put their lives on hold in order to bring life into the world. All things being equal, it’s better to please and love them. Their instincts are pretty good, and because of them, the world goes on.

In 2004, I stumbled over a lovely book entitled I Love Being a Mom: Treasured Stories, Memories, and Milestones (Doubleday), edited by Therese J. Borchard. Kass Dotterweich, a freelance writer and mother of six children, under the title “The Molding of a Mother,” writes: “The molding of our own unique and individual motherhood begins to take shape the minute we start thinking and dreaming about becoming a mother. For many of us, that moment is nothing more than a vague slice of memory dating back so many decades that we can only smile at the shadows where it first began. Then, at some point, we get serious about our motherhood; we conceive, find our way through pregnancy, and deliver our child to a waiting world – and the molding of a mother is seriously underway. With time, we realize that we will be in this molding process for the rest of our lives….” And then, after describing two heartbreaks of her son, Thomas, she continues: “We do not choose the means by which we are molded – and, regardless of how much we may try to ignore it, delay it, or deny it, the molding will have its way.” (pages 85 and 86)

On this Mother’s Day, let us celebrate all we know of motherhood, and we may know more than we think. Even those of us who have only observed motherhood by loving a mother or two, we know that they discover places in their hearts to love us, places they didn’t even know existed before we were born. And we know that mothers are themselves shaped and molded into the unique and individual agents of love that they are. And somehow they teach us the rest of us that the act of loving shapes and molds every lover. And so, there always will be tears and laughter, joy and pain, success and failure, fractures and healings, separation and reconciliation. This is the way of our molding! God bless our mothers this day and forever. Amen.

This sermon is dedicated to my mothers - Wanda Steffen and to Jodi Hovee. They are strong, wise, and faithful women, who continue to give me life.

I am grateful to Reva Allington, friend and member of St. Peter’s UMC, who edits my sermons.