Programs
Support
Volunteering
Immediate Needs
Calendar
Special Events
Newsletter &
Mailing List
History
Staff & Board
Articles & Sermons
Agencies & Links
Home Page
Children and Family
Urban Ministries
1548 Eighth Street
P.O. Box 41125
Des Moines, IA 50311
(515) 282-3242
Email info@cfum.org
In Praise of Prophets, Beloveds and Mother Carrie
Isaiah 42.1-9, Matthew 3.13-17"In Praise of Prophets, Beloveds and Mother Carrie"
Carmen Lampe Zeitler
Offered January 6 and 9, 2005 (Mother Carrie Sunday)
Aldersgate UMC
Des Moines, Iowa
The Iowa State Fair seems an unlikely place for a celebration of baptism, but a few years ago, having agreed to take responsibility for the Protestant service on one Sunday of the fair, a young couple contacted me about baptizing their daughter during the service. It seemed like an odd request, but we set up a time to meet. In talking with them it became clear that the community with which they felt most connected was at the State Fair. Their families had camped at the fair for years, they had their first date at the fair, when one of their fathers died the previous year a memorial bench was purchased in his honor and placed outside Grandpa's Barn on the fairgrounds. On Sunday, Hannah's grandma and parents and older sister, and over 100 strangers were witness to her baptism. At the conclusion of the baptism I held Hannah and walked up and down the aisle of Pioneer Hall, where the service is held, and introduced her to the congregation as a child of God, a gift of God to the universe, a wild dream of God. I was struck by the expressions on the faces of those gathered. The simple presence of that child, all the possibilities that lie within her life, the wide-eyed wondering in her face, held everyone in rapt attention. In that moment, on the faces of that impromptu community, the wishes for the well-being of that child, whom most would never see again, were palpable. Despite the unlikely place, it was indeed a celebration of baptism.
In the celebration of each baptism we are called to remember our own baptism. If we are lucky, in remembering, we might know not only a sense of celebration, but also a sense of trepidation. We can imagine that Jesus' heart was pounding in his throat as he walked down to John in the Jordan on the day he came to be baptized. The sense of trepidation was surely not lost on him. In every gospel account of Jesus' baptism, it is clear that the movement with which he is putting in has already drawn some lines, rocked some worlds, made some powerful enemies. The movement to which John the Baptist is calling the crowds, does not live and move in staid and settled places, but in wild places; it does not invite followers to a safe, comfortable, middle of the road, but to the margins; its friends are not among the powerful, but are the powerless. Various translations call that movement the kingdom of heaven, the empire of heaven, the reign of God. Jesus comes to be baptized by John not because he needs to repent - to change his whole way of thinking and being - he comes because he is the one who will continue the movement, in ways not even John can imagine. And when it is all said and done, the word comes clearly, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my Beloved, in whom my soul delights."
We treat baptisms as a great time of celebration, and so they are; but I wonder if we have missed, by and large, the sense of trepidation that baptisms ought to inspire. Large lives of faith are surely lived in both celebration and trepidation.
The story written by Eunice Broughton of Mother Carrie's life is full of both. Raised in "a pleasant Christian home of substance," Carrie had every advantage, but ill health caused her to drop out of high school. Without completing formal education she went to work, and found passion in work among the poor and disadvantaged in her community. At age 24 she left Iowa for California, working first for others, but eventually she became the owner of her own business. Customers ranged from the wives of laborers to the wife of Andrew Carnegie. All along her health continued to set some limits for Mother Carrie. Through personal struggle, family obligations, even a devastating earthquake, she persevered. When she was 48 she married for the first time (talk about celebration and trepidation!), a minister, John Ovall. The two shared over a decade of remarkable ministry all across the Mojave Desert, certainly, full of celebration and trepidation. After eleven years of marriage her husband died and at 59 she became a licensed local pastor. At 61 she was ordained a deacon; at 63, an elder; at 64 she was appointed as an associate pastor in the First Methodist Church in Las Vegas. And at 69 she was appointed to Big Pine Community Church back in California. The story goes that she was reading the Discipline one day and saw that she was to have retired at 72, so she called the District Superintendent and told him she was already 73. She retired that year. Does anyone here know about the celebration and trepidation of retirement?
At 73, and retired, Mother Carrie chose to move to Henderson Settlement, Kentucky, a poor community devastated by the end of mining in the region. She began her work by serving as a housemother to twenty boys. She nurtured and nursed, kept order (that sounds so simple doesn't it, "kept order" with twenty boys?!), made sure they completed their studies, got them to meals and, presumably, to bed on time. On Sundays she preached, taught Sunday School, and drove all over the hills and hollers of that part of Appalachia offering companionship and a good word.
But she offered even more to the people and to the community. Mother Carrie began a store that would sell the folk art and crafts of the people. Women learned to make dolls and jewelry out of natural materials, they learned to sew sunbonnets and aprons, they learned to weave rugs, place mats, and bags. The items were sold locally, all across Kentucky, and even made their way to several other places, Iowa among them. The income from the projects contributed enormously to the well-being of their families.
At 81 she returned to Iowa, Urbandale, Iowa, to live with her sister. Aldersgate, was a new congregation at the time, and Mother Carrie helped to set the congregation in the direction of strong mission involvement. She herself became involved with mission efforts such as the Hunger Hike. The story goes that at 99 she was pushed in a wheel chair on the Hunger Hike. Today we celebrate her large life of faith, full to the brim of celebration and trepidation. We enable with our gifts, mission to continue in her name and spirit, in the lives of those seeking to be involved in full-time ministry; we trust, with celebration and trepidation as their constant companions.
Surely Mother Carrie was a servant like the one mentioned in the marvelous words of the prophet, Isaiah, "one who bears witness to the order of compassionate justice which God established at the heart of creation." Her allegiance to such witness brought forth justice, set some things right in God's eyes. Her enormous life, full of celebration and trepidation, is just what God is looking for in servants.
In the work that we share at Children and Family Urban Ministries we seek to be such servants, to be witnesses to that compassionate justice at the heart of creation; and to, in celebration and trepidation, advocate for the well-being of the children and families who live in the neighborhoods on the near north side of Des Moines.
- Children, like the six we know, ages 1 to 12, who live with their three single working moms in a dwelling made for one small family because no one mom can make enough at her job to afford childcare and housing alone
- Children who eat bowl after bowl of cereal at the Breakfast Club because they didn't get much to eat the night before
- Children who, without a doubt, live this winter without adequate heat, blankets, or warm clothes
- Children and their working parents who do not have health insurance and put off going to the doctor too long, too often, while conditions such as asthma and allergies and depression go undiagnosed and untreated
- Children whose schools do not have the textbooks, equipment, and staff to offer the education they need to be their best selves and to live the lives we need them to live
- Children who worry about things like having enough to pay the rent, to make the car payment, to pay the utility bill let alone having money to go skating on Saturday
- Children who feel the color of their skin has determined limits for them and for their families, and who experience those limits daily
- Children who see their parents working hard but not getting ahead because too many jobs do not pay a family sustaining wage
One Monday morning last fall Mary Louisa, a kindergartner, and her older sister, Graciela, a second-grader, came to the Breakfast Club. They had not been there long when Mary Louisa told Carol, a staff member, that her stomach was upset. Her sister and her cousins did not have much sympathy for Mary Louisa, saying that she had eaten too much at a family gathering on Sunday. Mary Louisa does love to eat, and it shows a bit in her round little body and cherub-like cheeks. Carol gave Mary Louisa a little soda, hoping the carbonation might do its magic and she would feel better. Then she suggested she lay down on a sofa in the book corner of the dining room.
Pretty soon we noticed that Halen had joined Mary Louisa on the sofa with some books. Halen is in the fourth grade and is an enormously creative and sensitive kid, who also has frequent lapses of judgment with regard to his behavior. (We're all a mixed bag, aren't we?) He overheard that Mary Louisa was not feeling well, and with no one even suggesting it, he went over and asked if she would like for him to read to her. She agreed and Halen read for quite a long time, until she felt good enough to get up and play. The next day Mary Louisa sought out Halen again - she can be quite persistent and somewhat demanding. He started reading to her again, but she was feeling better and kept trying to tickle Halen in the ribs, which he put up with patiently for a while, then started tickling back, pretty soon they were rolling all over the sofa in the book corner and I had to step in to encourage the return to reading.
On Friday of that same week Mary Louisa was drawing, when I walked by. "I'm doing this for you, Carmen," she said. "Thank you, Mary Louisa, that is a great picture. When you're finished you come give it to me." By the time she finished I had left the dining room and gone back to the office to do something. Apparently Derek (Jeffrey) noticed her wandering around looking for something. Derek is in the seventh grade and totally off the hook - cool beyond cool - and little kids are not his thing. He even resists any interaction with his younger sisters at our programs. But he saw Mary Louisa looking around he asked what she needed. She said, "Where is Carmen? I have to give her my picture." Derek told her he thought I might be in the office and pointed that direction. Mary Louisa reached up and took Derek's hand and waited for him to take her there. And he did, when they came into the office, he stooped down low and, pointing to meat the far end of the office at the computer, he said as kindly as I have ever heard him say anything, "There she is, Mary Louisa, give her your picture."
In the months since then, Halen and Derek have continued their big brother relationship with Mary Louisa. Recently when I asked Halen, in an effort to help him get some focus, to write down things he enjoyed and things he did not enjoy, "The things I enjoy list" began like this: "drawing, making friends, playing with other people, reading with Mary Louisa." Just this week at supper Mary Louisa got up from her place at a table with her cousins, walked over to Derek at another table, full of middle school students, and put her arms around him in a big hug and said, "I missed you." Derek kindly hugged her back and told her he missed her, too. We celebrate the care that Halen and Derek have chosen to give to Mary Louisa; and Mary Louisa's talent for finding those who will watch out for her well-being. I pray that will continue her whole life long. But we cannot take any chances. Too many children live with too little celebration, and too much trepidation in their lives.
We are called as people of faith, as people who in this day worship in praise of prophets, and Beloveds, and Mother Carrie, to live our lives and our life together in celebration and trepidation. The good news is that if the scripture is to be believed, a life of faith lived in celebration and trepidation is just what God is looking for in servants. As individuals, as a community of faith, even as a nation, we can put in with the reign of God among us. And surely God does not call us to that which God cannot empower us to do.
In this day we remember one who was among us who received the power given to her by God to embrace over and over and over again both the celebration and the trepidation of a life of faith. She took seriously the demands of her baptism upon her life. She was, truly, a child of God, a gift of God to the universe, a wild dream of God, as are we. May we in this day, remember our own baptism. And even if the celebration of our baptism was not in an unlikely place, maybe it will take us to unlikely places, even places of trepidation.