Threads of Feeling

        On a dreary winter’s day in 1767, a sad and desperate mother by the name of Sarah Bender painfully made her way to an impressive building in the London suburb of Bloomsbury.  She was holding her baby boy Charles.  Sarah had come to the agonizing conclusion that Charles would be better off in the Foundling Hospital than at home with her. 

        She understood what would happen.  She would hand over her baby anonymously. Neither her name nor the baby’s name would be recorded.  In a single moment, his past would be erased, his history would be wiped out, a new name, and a new identity would begin.

        But one fact could not be erased; one reality could never be altered.  Sarah Bender would always be the baby’s mother.  He would always be her child.  You cannot erase DNA—you cannot substitute who you were created to be.  And there would be a connection—one small link, one mark of identification that would be preserved.

        A few weeks ago Joyce and I had the privilege of visiting Williamsburg to plan for our 17^th Annual Bible Study Field Trip this May.  While Joyce was attending a workshop, I was enjoying the museums of Williamsburg.  I love museums.  I could spend days at the different Smithsonian Museums in Washington.  The Williamsburg museum is exceptional.  They have an amazing collection of early American paintings, furniture, and artifacts.  But as I browsed through the museum that morning, I was not prepared for a traveling exhibit that was on display.  With the exception of the Holocaust museums in Jerusalem and Washington, no museum exhibit has affected me emotionally as much as this exhibit titled “Threads of Feeling.” 

        As soon as Joyce got out of the workshop I said, “There is something that you must see.”

        The Foundling Hospital of London existed from 1741 to 1760 and received over 16,000 babies.  While one might think most of these babies were illegitimate or given up for reasons of convenience, that was simply not true.  The great majority of these babies came from mothers who loved their child, but due to poverty, unemployment, disease, death, or other reasons simply could not provide for them.  To give up their child was agonizing for most of these mothers, but it was also a sacrificial act of love.  Because the mothers recognized that in many cases the only chance their baby had for a better life, the only chance their baby had for survival, was to give them up and leave them at the Foundling Hospital. 

        But the decision was not irrevocable. 

        While the nameless mothers gave away their babies, who would be given a new name, the mothers, and only the mothers, always had the option of returning to reclaim their child.  And since the process was anonymous, there had to be a way, a system, a plan for identification.  And so the hospital requested that when the mothers left the babies, that they pin some kind of identifying token to the child, some type of matching material evidence that in the event their circumstances improved they could be reunited.

        Many of the mothers ignored the request.  They left their babies and walked away, never to return.  But over 5,000 mothers, mothers who loved their babies, who were in anguish as they walked away from the hospital, left a material token of identification in the hope that one day they could see their child again and claim him or her as her own. 

        The majority of these identifying tokens were pieces of fabric, all different types of fabric; calico, flannel, gingham and satin, many in the form of ribbons.  The hospital promised that “great care would be taken for the preservation” of the tokens and the hospital was true to its word, for these tokens now comprise the “Threads of Feeling” exhibit that are on display at the Museum in Williamsburg.

        As Joyce and I walked through the exhibit, and those of you going to Williamsburg will also see this, I was filled with emotion.  For every token, every fabric represented a desperate mother who loved her child and lived with the hope that one day they would be reunited.

        Although they were forbidden to give a name, many found ways of smuggling that information past the admitting clerk.  Some wrote the name in a hidden place on the fabric, others stitched initials, some so shaky they are impossible to decipher.  Others stuck to the rules, but came up with elaborate patterns to ensure that no one could ever mistake their child with another.  One cut her child’s shirt in half; another deposited one sleeve with the baby and kept the other.  Other mothers employed a language of color and symbol to express their complicated feelings.  There are buds, flowers, acorns, birds and butterflies.  Buds and acorns and flowers hinted at a beautiful life still to come, birds and butterflies implied that they were giving up their child to set them free from its present grim circumstances.  And then there were the hearts—hearts in every form, every fabric, every shape—hearts of love, hearts of longing, hearts of hope. 

        The few mothers who did return to reclaim their children, brought the other half of the fabric with them so that it could be matched with the fabric that the hospital had on file.  And if the pieces matched, then there was no doubt as to the identity of this child, and mother and child were reunited. 

        The Threads of Hope is a poignant and powerful display of the love of a mother for her child, and a sad and tragic reminder of the circumstances of life that often force the separation of a mother from her child.  But more than anything else, the Threads of Feeling contain symbols of hope, that one day, my circumstances will be better, one day my child will blossom and live, one day life will be full of joy and gladness and we will be together again.

        When God created the heavens and the earth, he took a tremendous risk.  Rather than create a programmed and carefully scripted world that would operate like seamless computer program, rather than create the perfect world that would be perfect only because there was no other option, God took the greatest risk of all infinity, and he created humanity “in his own image.” 

        This Scripture that Connie read for us this morning is described by theologian Helmut Thielicke as the “Great Risk of Creation.”   For to be created in the Image of God, means that in many ways we are like God, most especially in our ability to think and reason and make decisions on our own. 

        We have creative potential even as God has.  We have the potential to grow and develop, to live and love, to offer redemption and reconciliation, to enrich community and bless the lives of others through our gifts and service.  We also have the potential to withdraw, to retreat, to build selfish walls around our existence, to oppress, to mistreat, and to inflict harm on others. 

        When our loving God carried us, like a mother carrying her infant in her arms, and when he left us at the door of creation, not knowing what the outcome would be, it was an agonizing and heart-wrenching decision.  But just as these mothers knew that this was on the only chance their child had at a better and fulfilling life, God knew this was the only chance humanity had to truly discover love and joy, and know life only as it was created to be. 

        After God left us at the door of creation, things started to decline.   We became more interested in what we wanted than what God wanted for us.  We selfishly ignored the boundaries that God had established, foolishly believing that that we could create our own paradise that we could find joy and happiness in ways that God never intended.

        And so we strayed away from God.  We forgot who we were created to be and most tragically, we no longer remembered our names, that we are children of God.  We established a new life and a new identity apart from God, and when it came crashing down we blamed others, subjected and oppressed those who were weaker to try to establish our own kingdoms that are self-serving.

        But imbedded deep within us, is a token of identification that was left by our loving God—a mark, a complex and hidden pattern of identity---the image of God.

        No matter what we have done, no matter how far away we have strayed, no matter how self-serving and hurtful our lives have been, we all contain the image of God.  We belong to God, we are his, and we never discover joy and love and fulfillment in life, until we are reunited with him. 

        In the first chapter of Romans Paul speaks of God’s invisible nature, the pattern of his eternal power and deity that is clearly perceived in creation—God’s threads of feeling.  It is only when we discover this token of identification imbedded deep within us that we can discover who we are and who we were created to be.  “True Freedom,” said Saint Augustine, “Is not found in moving away from that image but only in living it out.”

        Almost a decade after Sarah Bender left her baby boy in the arms of a nurse at the Foundling Hospital and walked away, there was a loud knock on the door.   The clerk opened the door to find a mother standing there holding an extraordinary piece of elaborate patchwork, made up of bits of printed fabric.  There was a heart embroidered with red thread.  They took the patchwork and matched to the other identical half that had been carefully filed ten years before.  Then they went and found a boy, a handsome young boy who was named Benjamin, but while he never knew it, his birth name was Charles and they walked with him to the front door where his mother, Sarah opened her arms and welcomed her son back home. 

        Generations and generations after God left us at the front door of creation, there was a loud clasp of thunder and the earth shook as a man took his last dying breath in a terrifying crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem.  And three days later the earth shook again, and the stone at the door of the tomb rolled away as what had been the darkest and most desperate of situations was transformed into light and life.  And emerging from the tomb, the risen Lord stood holding an elaborate and elegant patchwork of love, the threads of feeling proclaimed by the prophets, preserved by the scribes, and hoped for by all humanity.  It was the perfect match to the DNA within all of us known as the Image of God---for we belong to God, we may have strayed away, we may have tarnished that image, we may have rebelled against our creative nature, but now we know, there is no doubt, of who we are, and who we belong to, and what we are created to be—We are children of God, we are created in His Image to love, and serve, all of his family.