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 17th
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.
