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Loren Hague,
Intern
His hands and His feet Tonight we celebrate 4 women who made an exceptional impact on our nation: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Stanton dedicated her life to gaining a voice for women, long denied by both Church and state. She led the charge to gain the vote for the disenfranchised and organized the first Women’s Rights Convention from July 19-20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. She worked with other famous advocates for women’s suffrage, such as her longtime colleague Susan B. Anthony, as well as notable abolitionists including Frederick Douglass. Drawing on her faith, she worked to rid the nation of deep-rooted prejudice and helped instigate a movement toward equality.
Amelia Bloomer, a contemporary of Stanton, worked throughout her life for the causes of temperance and women’s rights, particularly equality in education, fair marriage and property laws and dress reforms (it was she who led the movement away from unnecessarily binding and heavy clothing for women and toward more practical fashions…from her we get the term “bloomers”). She used her paper, The Lily, as a tool for spreading the word of women’s rights activism all over the country.
Isabella, as she was called early on in life, was born a slave, owned by a wealthy Dutchman in New York. She escaped when she was around 28 years old and spent her days as a traveling evangelist, working to help the poor and the homeless. At the age of 46 she gave herself the name Sojourner Truth, stating that she was a wanderer on earth, and that God was her only master and his name was Truth. She had an impressive 6 foot stature and charismatic presence that made her an effective preacher, and she spoke to many different congregations about abolitionism and women’s rights.
Sustained by her faith and encouraged by the story of the Exodus, Harriet Tubman escaped slavery as a young woman. Rather than going on about her own life as a free woman, she traveled back to Maryland 19 times to lead other slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad…all told she helped over 300 people escape and became known as the Moses of her people. During the Civil War she worked for the Union Army as a cook, nurse and spy and later joined Stanton in the fight for women’s rights.
Individually, these women lived lives of courage, conviction and passion, each in their own right. Collectively, they emancipated untold numbers of people from the bondage of physical and emotional oppression. They were liberators and prophets, women who worked tirelessly to help proclaim the hope of the Resurrection to all they encountered. Theirs was a mission for justice and peace in a time when neither reigned.
It is easy to feel removed from such experiences, to say that injustices are merely a part of history. But, even today, in places not nearly as far away as we would like, selfish acts are carried out against God’s children without a second thought for their well being. Our world is full of sadness, anger and terror. Our own communities are ravaged by poverty, hunger, prejudice, abuse and neglect. The women we celebrate tonight fought against such injustice and oppression and we are called to continue that fight. As individuals living our own quiet lives that call can seem daunting. How can we affect change in such a world? “Ask and you shall receive…seek and you shall find…knock and the door shall be opened”. We have an advocate. The grace of God was given to us through Jesus Christ, and by His example we see how to do our work in such a world. Love. Reach out. Be His hands and His feet in whatever small ways we know how. We are called to bring about the joy of God’s kingdom in our own time…to follow in the footsteps of ordinary women who through their acts of love became liberators and prophets.
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