In a lovely poem by William Stafford, we are invited to pay attention to the “threads” in our lives that endure, and in so doing, remind us of what is most deeply important to our faith journey:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread. ~William Stafford
This week in the Episcopal Church we celebrate the “Philadelphia Eleven”—the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church—and we observe the Feast Day of William Wilberforce, reformer and abolitionist.
The ordination service was held on Monday, July 29, 1974, the Feast of Saints Mary and Martha, at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, where Suzanne Hiatt served as deacon, and whose rector was civil rights advocate Paul Washington. Beginning at 11 o’clock in the morning, the service lasted for three hours.] The eleven women serving as deacons presented themselves to Bishops Corrigan, DeWitt, and Welles, who ordained them as priests. Harvard University professor Charles V. Willie, who was also the vice president of the House of Deputies at the time, preached a sermon entitled, “The Priesthood of All Believers,” which began, “The hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth,” followed by Dr. Willie’s declaration that “as blacks refused to participate in their own oppression by going to the back of the bus in 1955 in Montgomery, women are refusing to cooperate in their own oppression by remaining on the periphery of full participation in the Church.” Those gathered numbered almost two thousand supporters and a few protesters. In the middle of the service when Corrigan said, “If there be any of you who knoweth any impediment or notable crime (in these women), let him come forth in the name of God…” several priests in attendance proceeded to read statements against the ordination. Once these statements had been made, the bishops responded that they were acting in obedience to God, noting that “hearing God’s command, we can heed no other. The time for our obedience is now.” And they proceeded with the ordinations.Here is a lovely photo montage of women clergy in our own Diocese:
William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an Anglican, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. According to Holy Women, Holy Men, in 1787, Wilberforce came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of activists against the slave trade, including Granville Sharp Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he became a leading English abolitionist. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 20 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Wilberforce was convinced of the importance of religion, morality and education. He championed causes and campaigns such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice, British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In later years, Wilberforce supported the campaign for the complete abolition of slavery and continued his involvement after 1826, when he resigned from Parliament because of his failing health. That campaign led to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire. Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the Act through Parliament was assured. He was buried in Westminster Abbey close to his friend William Pitt the Younger.
Wilberforce’s life and work have been commemorated in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In Westminster Abbey, a seated statue of Wilberforce by Samuel Joseph was erected in 1840, bearing an epitaph praising his Christian character and his long labour to abolish the slave trade and slavery. Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce in their liturgical calendars, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States, founded in 1856, is named after him. The university was the first owned by African-American people, and is an historically black college. In Ontario, Canada, the Wilberforce Colony was founded by black reformers, and inhabited by freed slaves from the United States. With the backing of his friend William Pitt, who became Prime Minister, Wilberforce became leader of The Society for the Abolition of Slavery. The society campaigned for almost 20 years to bring an end to British involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The abolition campaign made them many enemies, especially among those who had made huge profits from the trade in enlsaved African people. Amazing Grace, a film about Wilberforce and the struggle against the slave trade, was released in 2007 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Parliament’s anti-slave trade legislation.
And so this week we give thanks for the ordination of women, and for the life of William Wilberforce. In two weeks we will observe the life of Jonathon Myrick Daniels, who was killed while working for civil rights in Mississippi.
There’s a thread we follow, dear ones, as our journey in faith unfolds. Nothing can stop time’s unfolding, but we don’t let go of the thread. Among the threads in my own faith journey is our beloved Holy Family. And like those women priests—and a Holy host of lay women who are also among the priesthood of all believers and who have been saints for me—I am so grateful. I give thanks as well for the life of William Wilberforce, whose “amazing grace” has blessed so many. As the poet RS Thomas—a highly educated Welsh priest who spent his life serving small, rural parishes wrote, they are luminaries for us all (More about Thomas and Daniels next week!):
My luminary,
my morning and evening
star. My light at noon
when there is no sun
and the sky lowers. My balance
of joy in a world
that has gone off joy’s
standard. Yours the face
that young I recognized
as though I had known you
of old. Come, my eyes
said, out into the morning
of a world whose dew
waits for your footprint.
Before a green altar
with the thrush for priest
I took those gossamer
vows that neither the Church
could stale nor the Machine
tarnish, that with the years
have grown hard as flint,
lighter than platinum
on our ringless fingers. ~RS Thomas
Blessings to each of you, and thank you for the ways you contribute to the “thread” that is our common life together. You are luminaries for me as well. I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and see you in church!
Bill+