An Appeal to Womanhood

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

May 14, 2017 – Mother’s Day, Easter 5, Yr. A

I don’t like Donald Trump, I don’t like Kellyanne Conway, and I don’t like Mother’s Day.
For so many reasons, I don’t like Mother’s Day. And every year, Richard puts me on the rota to preach on Mother’s Day. Last night, I was looking over my previous Mother’s Day sermons, and I have to say they were pretty good. I suggested that all of us, male and female, have the capacity to mother in a sermon I called The Motherhood of all Believers. I’ve talked about The Mommy Hierarchy, the pervasive tendency by both individuals and systems to value biological parents above adoptive or foster parents – this is especially problematic for lesbian couples. I’ve woven in Dame Julian of Norwich who wrote such things as – Just as God is truly our Father, so also is God truly our Mother. And I always wrapped it up with Jesus. But, I’ve never been completely honest … I don’t like Mother’s Day, and I know I’m the only one.

My mom wanted desperately to have children, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t until after my dad died in 2012 that I learned it was he who was sterile, not my mom. An engineer specializing in underwater acoustics, my dad was on the Enewetak Atoll in the 1950’s – a chain of coral reefs and beautiful lagoons between Hawaii and Australia, the site our government chose to test nuclear weapons -- when he was exposed to untold amounts of radiation. I learned this by reading a letter I found in his safe box from the United States government offering medical help and compensation to veterans and civilians who participated in atomic research. I also found a commemorative Zippo lighter with an enamel seal of the US Defense Nuclear Agency on one side and an engraved map of the Marshall Islands on the other. Radiation from these experiments ravaged the ocean, the islands, the islanders, and my dad’s body; the government issued cigarette lighters.

In the Cold War era, nuclear testing was top-secret, therefore servicemen and women couldn’t get outside medical help because they were forbidden to tell doctors of their radiation exposure. I honestly don’t think my dad knew he was sterile. Researchers had just begun to study the effects of radiation exposure, and unlike today, sperm analysis wasn’t routinely done. For her entire life my mom bore the burden, and the guilt, of not being able to bear children.

Mother’s Day reminded me I was adopted. I wasn’t longing after my birth mother. Rather, I sensed my mom’s despair, and there was no card I could make, or gift I could buy that would alleviate the loss that had occupied the center of her being since the day she learned she would never have kids. Even with the usual presents and kind gestures, every year Mother’s Day was fraught. And every year the florists and candy makers, phone companies and cosmetic counters figured out new ways to exploit the idea of honoring mothers.

This morning, in one quick paragraph, we heard about the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr and, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the first deacon of the early church. A martyr is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate a belief that is required by an external party.  Stephen was skilled at speaking his truth, and even more skilled at irritating the authorities. Relentlessly he proclaimed that Jesus was the messiah; so relentlessly he was stoned to death.

I’ve had an eye-opening experience on the social media site OK Cupid. It’s essentially a dating site where you answer hundreds of questions on lifestyle, politics, ethics, and so on. For example: It’s Friday night, would you rather stay home and play scrabble, chill at a dive bar, or have dinner at a fancy restaurant? And, Would you consider having sex in a church? The mysterious OK Cupid algorithm crunches the answers then calculates compatibility. I scored a 99% match with an attractive woman. After a few fun emails, I mentioned something about church. She replied, You’re a Christian! Sorry, that’s a deal breaker!  Then she attempted to reassure me with Pascal's Wager that posits most rational people will bet that God exists because they stand to receive infinite gains – heaven, and avoid infinite loss – hell. However, she explained, his probability theory didn’t apply to her. (I have to admit I was impressed when she cited Blaise Pascal –
the genius mathematician/physicist turned theologian/philosopher.)

After two more highly compatible women cited my Christianity as the “deal breaker”, I developed Jac’s Wager:

Educated, progressive lesbians who believe they are open-minded will not want to appear
narrow-minded especially when interacting with someone they find attractive.

So right off the bat, in the first email, I say something like, “I’m okay having coffee with an atheist, are you okay having coffee with a Christian?” I am happy to report that I have a coffee date on May 24th.

I realize now that I must give credit where credit is due – I was a Christian when I met Beth in 2004, nevertheless, she was willing to go out with me.

Jesus said,

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Well, the disciples do in fact have every reason to be troubled. And for the record, so do we. Jesus is saying good bye, without telling them where he is going. Thomas is not satisfied, he needs more information, perhaps a map or GPS, to show him the way. Jesus doesn’t have anything that practical to offer, he responds, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. In my opinion, this attempt to give his disciples more information was a failure. This passage is routinely misinterpreted, or perhaps intentionally used, to argue that Christianity is the only one true path to God. What we should be focusing on instead, is what Jesus tells his disciples next -- if you don’t believe in me because of my words, believe in me because of my works.  That I can get behind. The truth is, it doesn’t matter what we believe, what matters are the things we do.

• It matters that you feed the hungry, it doesn’t matter that you’re Jewish;
• I care that you fight against our country’s heinous immigration and deportation laws, I don’t care that you’re an atheist;
• I respect you for standing in silent vigil in front of the police station to protest the abuse and killing of black and brown people by the SFPD whether or not you sit next to me in church.

In this vein, I could continue on and on.

Today we are witnessing an insecure, uninformed, mentally precarious president with the power to destroy humanity, and the natural world.  Of course I’m speaking of Trump, but this is also true of North Korea’s young president who doesn’t seem to know the difference between a bottle rocket and a warhead missile. Which brings us back to the nuclear weapons my dad helped refine in the Marshall Islands, the weapons that left the islands uninhabitable, and caused his sterility.

We have every reason for our hearts to be troubled. And this my friends, this propensity for war, this insecure posturing with military might, the unnecessary bloodshed, and the death of our children, these are the reasons we have Mother’s Day. Stephen, the first martyr and deacon of the church, set a bold example of standing firm in his belief that Jesus was the messiah – he spoke (his) truth to power. However, instead of relentlessly proclaiming our beliefs, I want to inspire you to boldly live out the values of your beliefs, following the example of Julia Ward Howe. You could say that Howe is the mother of Mother’s Day. In 1870, with power and grace, she gave life to her Christian values when she wrote, and please bear with me as I read her

APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. 

Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before. 

Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts whether your baptism be that of water or of 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 been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, 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 vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough 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 council. 

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Cæsar, 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.
(Amen.)

JULIA WARD HOWE

Boston, September, 1870.

Appeal to womanhood throughout the world, ... Julia Ward Howe. Boston, September, 1870. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.07400300/?st=text