Today the people of our country are celebrating Mother’s day. It’s a day to
remember and appreciate the efforts and the inspiration we have received from
our mothers over the years. Churches, including our church, have traditionally
taken this opportunity to publicly praise those in the community who are mothers
for their love and support.
While that is certainly an honorable thing to do, there are caveats, there are
drawbacks to having such a celebration. For every congregation that celebrates
the beauty of what it means to be a mother and raise a family, in most churches
there are one or more couples who are unable to have children, who watch others
celebrate a joy that they are simply unable to celebrate.
We must be mindful of the pain of those women who want to be mothers but can’t.
We must be nuanced in talking about the Bible and motherhood, because some of
the most prominent women in the Bible, people like Sarah and Elizabeth and
Hannah were said to be unable to have children until God chose to open their
wombs.
How many God-fearing women over the centuries have asked themselves, have asked
God, “What did I do? Why won’t you give me the gift of motherhood? There are
millions of neglectful parents in the world who bear more children than they can
care for. And yet I can’t even have one. Why me?”
There is no way of getting around that reality, no matter where you live or what
era you live in. And a church worth its salt needs to be sensitive to those
kinds of dynamics.
Secondly, the manner in which Mothers’ Day has traditionally been celebrated in
the church has served to reinforce arcane, patriarchal ways of assigning gender
roles to men and women, gender roles that we in the American Baptist Churches
have largely rejected.
Or to put it more clearly, when we talk about the virtues of motherhood, we need
to avoid sending the message that God created women simply for the task of
bearing and raising children. We American Baptist have been fighting against
that kind of pigeon-holing of women for years.
When a church celebrates motherhood without celebrating the other aspects of
women’s lives, they risk send a message that bearing children is really at the
root of what it means to be a woman.
So in addition to celebrating motherhood, we need to highlight many of the other
contributions women make to our society, and to the church. Unlike in years
past, these days women serve capably in almost every profession, even those
traditionally limited to men.
Today I want to highlight the unique contributions women make to the church,
even though the church has, for most of its existence, tried to keep women out
of power. In both the Roman Catholic tradition, as well as in the Southern
Baptist tradition, women are not allowed to be pastors at all. They can do a lot
of things, but they can’t serve at the highest levels of authority. And those
two groups are the two largest religious groups in the US.
I want to show that these kinds of prohibitions on the participation of women
were not the policy in the early church, even though there are some passages in
the New Testament which do severely limit the role of women in the church.
In fact, we have evidences about how women took on leadership roles in the early
church, apparently with Paul’s blessing. This story about Lydia is just one of
them.
The story that we read today in Acts highlights the role of women as the apostle
Paul begins his task of bringing the message of Jesus towards the center of the
greatest empire known to people in that part of the world.
Acts tells how Paul eventually brings the message of Jesus to Rome. But this
story is about how he and his co-workers leave an area that honestly matters
little to the Romans and begins spreading the gospel in an actual Roman colony.
Paul, who has been preaching and travelling through what is now southern Turkey,
has a vision of a man from Macedonia calling him to come and help the
Macedonians. This is a place Paul had never yet been to according to Acts.
Macedonia is in the modern day Balkans, in Yugoslavia, just north of Greece.
Paul and his friends travel by boat to an important city named Philippi.
Philippi was a fortified city that was enlarged and designated a Roman colony
about 80-90 years before Paul arrived.
The leaders of the city seemed to have an exalted view of themselves, giving
themselves much more authoritative titles than most folks who led other Roman
colonies. Philippi was a place where many Roman soldiers went to retire after
their service.
In other words, this was a city that mattered to the emperor. If Paul could
start a church in Philippi it would be a major step in bringing the gospel to
the entire Roman Empire.
Paul typically started his work by meeting with the local Jewish population and
describing the life and death of Jesus as the next step in the history of the
people of Israel. But there didn’t seem to be a synagogue in Philippi, which was
a sign that there wasn’t a very large Jewish population.
So they began looking for people gathering informally on the Sabbath. Sure
enough, down by the river they found a group of women gathering to pray. Paul
and his friends began speaking with them about Jesus. By the time they were
done, some of the women were willing to accept this new thing God was doing
through the person of Jesus.
One of those women was Lydia, who the author calls “a worshipper of God”. Her
name suggests that she was not Jewish, but Greek. So how she became a worshipper
of God is kind of a mystery. The author tells us that she was not from Philippi,
but from Thyatira, a city Paul had passed near in Turkey.
Lydia was a business woman. If she was married, her husband is not mentioned.
She appears to be the head of her household, and she did have a household. Her
business was the cottage industry of Thyatira: producing purple dye for cloth.
These days some cities are identified closely with the products they produce.
Detroit is known as the motor city, or at least it used to be. Milwaukee is
identified with beer; Waukesha was traditionally identified with spring water.
Thyatira was identified with purple dye, it’s most significant export. If they
had a football stadium or a ball park they probably would have named it after
some company that produced dye for textiles.
Lydia didn’t live in Thyatira, but she was apparently carrying on the family
business in Philippi. We do know that she had a house in Philippi, and that she
had a household living there, though we don’t know if those included children or
servants or a husband or what.
But whatever her living situation was, she was head of the household. As was the
custom of that time, the head of the household usually determined which religion
everyone in the household would follow. So when she became a believer in Jesus,
she had everyone in the household come to Paul to be baptized.
By today’s standards that practice may seem somewhat authoritarian. We usually
want to have the right to choose our own religion rather than having our parents
choose it for us. But that’s how they did it. And as head of the household she
had that kind of authority.
She also housed Paul and his friends while they attempted to set up a church in
Philippi. After they were gone she apparently hosted the church in her home. The
church there went on to become one of Paul’s most supportive congregations. He
thanks them profusely in his letter to them for all the support they gave him
after he left.
Lydia’s contribution to Paul’s ministry in that area cannot be overestimated. He
would have been unable to start a church if she had not acted in faith and shown
leadership in the foundation of a church.
Today I want to make the case that women have always contributed in vital ways
to the church, even if the church hasn’t always acknowledged or appreciated the
efforts of women. Actually I want to highlight some of the bold efforts of women
in our own congregation.
I’m hoping to show women that they can and do make a huge difference in the life
of our church. I’m also hoping to show men that we really don’t want to get in
the way of what women have done and are doing here at First Baptist.
Our history started with a bold move of faith on the part of two women who
risked hypothermia to be the first people baptized into our church. On January
23rd 1839, the first church meeting took place under the leadership of a
missionary named Richard Griffing. It was at the home of a man named Nathaniel
Walton, who, like Lydia, hosted the church in his house until a building was
built.
To make a long story short, they met to organize and appoint people to the
church boards (sound familiar?). Before the meeting was adjourned, two women
stepped forward and asked to be baptized. Of course, at that time the place to
baptize people was in the river, which is frozen over in January.
One of the women, Laura Waldo Walton, insisted that the baptisms be carried out
that day, regardless of the conditions. Everyone agreed. They bundled up and
walked out to the Fox. Rev. Griffings used his boots to kick a hole in the ice,
and then invited the women to enter the freezing current.
Everyone was amazed as the two women entered the water after him and allowed him
to immerse them in the icy flowing river. The folks on shore covered them with
blankets as soon as they came out.
You can imagine how quickly everyone rushed back for fellowship hour that day.
Yes, it was the bold faith of women that began the ministry of the church we now
belong to. And their boldness has continued throughout the years.
Some of you can recall the ministry of Dorothy Bahr, the wife of our former
pastor Dwight Bahr. People still talk about her leadership in our music program.
They still talk about how she came in early before each service and sat in each
pew so that when the congregation sat in them there would be no cracking or
creaking.
She was Dr. Bahr’s partner in ministry in every way, and she was one of the
reasons why he was so successful in this congregation for so many years. Her
passion for our faith inspired many other women to support the ministry of this
church in unprecedented ways.
In 1949 our church hired its first Director of Religious Education, a woman by
the name of Lois Cooney. She set a standard of excellence that remained in our
church for the next twenty years.
Another woman who contributed in outstanding ways was Mrs. S.B. Mills, whose
name still remains on our scholarship fund. In 1934 she overheard some Carroll
College students talking about how hard it was for them to make their way
financially. Some things never change.
One student, an unnamed young man from Fond du Lac tells of stealing apples and
skipping class to work odd jobs because his father was unemployed during the
depression. Mrs. Mills began furnishing meals to some of the students because
she was a widow and didn’t have a lot of means to help them.
The irony was that this occurred at a time when Baptists and Catholics didn’t
mix with one another. This distinction didn’t matter to Mrs. Mills, even though
this young man she helped was Catholic. He speaks of how she changed the
direction of his life, and her generosity still enables college students of this
congregation to attend school to this day.
I could give countless stories like this one, but I want to finish with a story
about two women during a time of transition for our church. As many of you
recall, former pastor Jim Dick’s wife Ruth was diagnosed with cancer in 1977.
The congregation was devastated for Ruth and supportive of her and Jim. She
eventually died in June of 1981, shortly before a new Associate pastor named
Susan Panek had begun to minister with Jim. Jim needed some time to grieve his
wife’s loss, and Susan stepped in to provide tremendous leadership at a time
when there was a great need for healing in our congregation.
Susan preached and taught and worked with the youth. The congregation was
impressed with her skills. Jim was never quite the same, but Susan was able to
make up for what he had lost as he began his life after Ruth.
When Jim finally resigned in 1984, Susan remained on as the interim pastor of
the church. During her time as interim the church thrived. The church van was
replaced, the sanctuary was redecorated, and Susan led theological fish fries,
as well as talk back sessions that people had enjoyed under pastor Jim.
The Hispanic ministry continued to grow, despite frustrations with the
Immigration Service over its choice to deport some of our members to Mexico
while leaving their children here.
Susan also showed ability beyond her years as the church mourned the murder of
its moderator, Roland Lampe. Can you imagine what that period of the church’s
life would have been like without Susan’s leadership? It would have been like
Paul trying to establish a church in Philippi without the assistance of Lydia.
The message to the women of this congregation is clear. Your congregation needs
you. God wants to use your talents to help this church through a difficult time.
Your efforts are appreciated. Not only will we celebrate if and when you are
blessed with children, but we will also celebrate your efforts to support those
in need.
We affirm your participation in society at the highest levels. We affirm your
participation in the life of the church at the highest levels. Susan Panek and
Karen Gygax and now Tina are proof that this church will support women even when
they feel called to a ministry of leadership in a congregation.
Our children’s ministry has lots of young girls in it. My payer is that some day
these young women will grow up and make equally great contributions to this
church or some other church. I hope we have some young Lydia sitting in
children’s church today, asking herself, “What could God do through me? What has
God empowered me to do?”
This congregation is a great environment for seeking the answers to those
questions. This is a church where, like Lydia, women have prevailed upon us.
Affirming their contributions is a basic matter of justice in the church. And as
we step into the future, I pray that God will continue to prevail upon us
through the bold tireless efforts of this congregation’s women.