“Cumulative Action”
May 9, 2021 Mother’s Day
Luke 13.18-21 and a reading from the Gospel of Mary
1.
Our readings today appreciate and celebrate the cumulative effect of small, ordinary things done by women that, over time, have the power to change everything and turn us toward what’s good, beautiful, and just.
It’s an appropriate theme for Mother’s Day.
On Mother’s Day, lots of people appreciate and celebrate what mothers do, and people show their appreciation in a lot of different ways. Not everyone does, of course; while everyone had a mother, not everyone has a mother they can appreciate and celebrate. But those who do, generally want to say thank you—for there are a lot of mothers who, despite their foibles and flaws, give lovingly and sacrificially for their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. And because of their love and guidance in our lives many of us can genuinely say “thank you,” even if not everything about our mothers or mother figures was appreciated.
Today, our church chooses to recognize the immense work of traditional motherhood, but we also want to appreciate and celebrate the ways so many women who may not be traditional mothers nevertheless give birth to so much that’s good in the world—mothering figures who’s love and sacrifice contribute to the larger wellbeing of our society, the transformation of our lives, and lead us toward the dream God has for what we call the kin-dom of God.
At DCC we talk about the kin-dom (k-i-n-dom) rather than kingdom. It’s a familial metaphor rather than a political one. We call it the kin-dom of God because Jesus denounced kings and tyrants; he undermined patriarchy and challenged misogyny. Jesus had a vision for an egalitarian community and not a hierarchical polity. Jesus said that God’s Beloved Community is more like a functional family than dysfunctional monarchy. Jesus preached a kin-dom of God that is a gathering of siblings who tend each other and ensure everyone has what they need rather than a collection of serfs and sovereigns who compete with each other for limited resources. In the kin-dom of God, God is imagined as a kind father rather than the capricious king; Jesus preached a God who is more a compassionate mother than even the most considerate monarch.
Today we take time to consciously appreciate and celebrate what women have done, are doing, and will do to birth and nurture a humanity capable of living into the vision of Jesus.
2.
These contributions, while vital to the remaking our humanity, have often been ignored and suppressed throughout history. Our second reading today from the Gospel of Mary is a sign of that.
The Gospel of Mary is a second century Christian document. It’s part of what’s called the Nag Hammadi collection of dozens and dozens of early Christian documents, dismissed by the mainline church as heretical. They came to light in December of 1945 when an Egyptian peasant named Mohammad Ali made one of the great archeological discoveries of the last century.
Deep under the desert sands, Ali, completely by accident, unearthed a large and ancient storage jar filled with papyrus manuscripts dating back to the second century. The collection included thirteen codices with over fifty ancient texts, most of them previously unknown to scholars. The Nag Hammadi library of early Christian documents gives us a glimpse of a diversity of experience and knowledge among the early Christians that the orthodox tradition tried to bury in order to unify the church and establish centralized power around its male leadership. The documents witness to a fascinating alternative perspective on Jesus and his earliest followers, including Mary, known as Magdala, the companion of Jesus. The Gospel of Mary, which we read from today, was buried by the mainline orthodox church because of its witness to Jesus’ ground-breaking confidence in and teaching of women, not just men. It provides a vision of a more egalitarian community, where parity and collaboration were the norm, rather than the rule of a single gender—the supremacy of men. It’s a vision we’re working toward today in our modern world, but the vision’s not new. It was there from the beginning of our tradition, but it was quickly buried.
In today’s reading, Mary, the companion of Jesus, steps before the confused and troubled male followers of Jesus in order to comfort them by teaching them what Jesus had taught her.
But Andrew, the text tells us, doesn’t believe a word Mary says, “I do not believe that the Savior said these things, for indeed these teachings [of hers] are strange ideas.”
And Peter joins in, denouncing her: “Are you kidding, are we supposed to believe Jesus choose her over us?”
But another man, Levi, speaks a word of support: “Peter, you have always been a wrathful man. Now I see you contending against Mary as if you were her adversary. If Jesus made her worthy, who are you then to reject her? The Savior’s confidence in her is completely reliable. That’s why he loved her more than us.”
In Jesus and in Mary we have a sign of the future, the parity of the genders, the wholeness of humanity.
But you can see, can’t you, that it’s little wonder the Gospel of Mary was denounced and buried by priests and popes and pastors—men who refused to yield their power, who presumed their power was a divine right—men, like Andrew and Peter, who refused to welcome the contributions of those too long marginalized by those who held social power in society?
Nineteen hundred years later, the Gospel of Mary emerged, just as the new force of the feminine spirit was rising in our world—the contributions of women, more fully recognized and celebrated. Makes you wonder if our “Mother who art in heaven” was up to some divine mischief in that discovery made in 1945 in the deserts of Africa.
Makes me wonder where we might be today, what kind of world we might have, had this vision of Christianity prevailed instead of the one dominated by patriarchy, had men not tried to bury the contributions of women. Who might we be today? What kind of world might we have?
But the feminine spirit has never really been buried, has it?
Maybe there were great stretches of time when the contributions of women were marginalized and jeopardized, but that doesn’t mean women were silenced or rendered powerless.
The truth of history is this: you can try to suppress the feminine, but there are always women who know now to give birth to something life-changing, women who know how to nurture something new and revolutionary no matter how strong the repressive forces might be, women whose presence is like leaven rising in the world.
3.
In 2004 Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work in Kenya and around the world. In Kenya, a tree is a sign of peace. Dr Maathai, inspired by her vision for a better world, has inspired countless women in her own country and around the world to plant trees as a humble and patient and non-violent way to work toward peace through justice; together, her movement has been responsible for planting tens of millions of trees not only in Kenya but in many other countries.
Small, ordinary actions that, cumulatively, create an extraordinary effect.
Wangari Maathai was born in a small village in the highlands of Kenya. She grew up Catholic, in sight of Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain on the African continent; sacred to her tribe, the Kikuyu. In her area was a species of fig tree, the Mugumo tree, revered by the Kikuyu as one of God’s special trees. As a girl, she was forbidden from collecting branches of the Mugumo tree to use as firewood. “This is a tree of God,” her mother taught her, “we don’t collect wood from this tree.”
Over the years, she came to understand why this tree was sacred. The Mugumo fig tree played a critical role in the ecology of the land and the health and wellbeing of its people and creatures. When she left for university, developers began to cut down the trees. The soil was destabilized, the new, large farms polluted the water, and women and girls had to walk long distances to find clean water for their families; long walks that became increasingly dangerous. Conflict ensued.
Meanwhile, Dr Maathai became the first female scholar from East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, the first female professor in her home country of Kenya, and the first woman to hold the position of Minister of the Environment in Kenya. In 1977, she started a grass-roots movement called the Green Belt Movement, aimed at defending land and its people against deforestation and its withering effects on people and the environment. Her work inspired women to plant trees in their local settings and to think more ecologically. Since it’s beginning, Dr Maathai’s Green Belt Movement has spread to other African countries and parts of the world. Women have planted over 51 million trees, leveraging the cumulative power of this simple, ordinary work and the way it affects democracy, women’s rights, and fosters international bridge building and solidarity.
But it’s not been easy. Politicians and developers, even the men in their own villages, have tried to stop them. She’s been vilified, marginalized, jailed, and beaten for her tireless work. “But planting a tree,” she says, “is a small but powerful act of ecological civil disobedience,” a simple act that over time transforms the land and its people. Dr Maathai says that so many conflicts have ecological problems at their source. Planting trees and paying more careful attention to the balance of nature actually helps transform people, turning them from violence and injustice. “When women plant trees,” she says, “we plant the seeds of peace and hope.”
The cumulative effect of small, ordinary actions performed by determined women have the power to change everything.
4.
This is what Jesus was teaching long ago in his parable of the yeast.
“To what should I compare the kin-dom of God?” he asked the villagers. “The kin-dom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
Yeast, something understood by Middle-Eastern women, added to flour, leavens the bread. What otherwise would stay flat and small, rises big because of only a little yeast. Yeast is a small thing but makes possible something that grows much larger than itself.
So with the cumulative effect of small, ordinary actions by women who refuse to be silent, who refuse to give up, who refuse to be intimidated, who refuse to do nothing, and who believe the world doesn’t have to be a place where their daughters cannot achieve their dreams and their sons have to go to war.
Today, we’re appreciating and celebrating the long history of women who’ve not only helped us become who we are individually, but whose grit and grace leaven the world and make the kin-dom of God rise and spread among us bringing goodness, beauty, and justice.
Many women today have the power to perform great acts for the common good. We appreciate them and celebrate them. But if history has its say, we don’t have to wait upon women of great power, the Kamala Harris’ and Angela Merkels of the world; for wherever there’s a woman who sees a hungry child, a loved one in need, an injustice that denigrates the humanity of another . . . wherever she is, something new and better can rise—because the cumulative power of even the smallest, most ordinary actions performed by determined women will eventually change everything.
