Episode Transcript
Hello friends and welcome to this week's episode of Brits and the Gospel. My name is Reverend Katie Griffiths and it is so good to be with you. On the second Sunday after Pentecost, I'm excited to start something new and do some a little different. I am definitely a revolutionary preacher and we will be using the Leccionary Psalm as we get throughout these next few weeks. But during this ordinary time I thought that I would do a sermon series on something a little bit different. I wanted to highlight the women of the Methodist movement and my friend Alexa Walhorn who is a beautiful pastor that I want to school with at Canlar. Put together this series as a project for our womanist feminist worship class, one of my favorite classes that I ever took. And just to highlight some of the women that are part of the beginning and all through modern times the Methodist movement. And her wisdom and her situation and in her project thought that most people that she knew and would be preaching to knew who Susanna Wesley was. So even in her notes she stated that she left Susanna out so we could look at other women, different women that we might not know about besides the mother of John and Charles Wesley. But I have added her back in because a lot of people don't know about Susanna Wesley in my congregation and in my setting. And so I thought I would do that. So this is not Alexis beautiful work. We will get to that starting next week. This is my contribution to the series. And it is Susanna Wesley and I look forward to bringing you this message today. So let us come together now on a time of worship. The Lord be with you and also with you. Today's Psalm is the 43rd Psalm. It is a Psalm that is reflective on the time that we have in prayer and in praise. And I thought it fit very well ironically with the without knowing it with the text that we will be talking about for Susanna Wesley and finding refuge in time apart and a way to praise God. So here now the 43rd Psalm. Vindicate me a God and defend my calls against an ungodly people from those who are deceitful and unjust deliver me. For you are the God and who might take refuge. Why have you cast me off? Why must I walk about mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy? Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God to God my exceeding joy and I will praise you with the harp. Oh God, my God. Why are you cast down? Oh, my soul and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. For I shall again praise him. My help and my God. The word of God for us the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let us come together now and recite those words that are the tenets of our faith. The things that Susanna Wesley believed in. The things that John and Charles Wesley spoke and sung about in their messages and in the beginning of the Methodist movement. Friends, what do we believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty. Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ is only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Born of the Virgin Mary. Suffered under Pontius Pilate. Was crucified dead and married. The third day he rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and siteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. Let us pray. Dear Lord guide us, move us, inspire us to meet with you, to speak with you as a friend, to love you and revere you as you come down in a cloud to join us. Help us find our refuge in you. Hear us now as we pray those words that your Son, our Lord, taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Today's scripture lesson is from the Old Testament. It is from the book of Exodus, the 30th third chapter, verses 7 through 11. Here now the word of the Lord. Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp. He called it the tent of meeting and everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand each of them at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent and the Lord would speak to Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud, standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down all of them at the entrance of their tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp, but his young assistant, Joshua, the son of none, would not leave the tent. The word of God, for us the people of God, thanks be to God. Susanna Wesley was more of a Methodist than sometimes even her son's John and Charles. She was more than any other Wesley, the most influential Methodist at the beginning of the movement. So today I bring you Susanna Wesley, Mother of John and Charles or Chuck, and seven other girls that survived birth, Mother of Methodism, Faithful Believer, and Head of Her Household. Would you pray with me? To the Lord as we come together today, help us to see plainly, the message that you have for us, help the words and the inspiration of Susanna Wesley, ring true for us all, help us to take her, her influence and her example and use it in our own lives. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in my sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen. Most of the time social media is an abomination. It can warp your sentence of reality, suck your soul, draw and feed your ego. But sometimes it can give you little gems and nuggets of joy. Like the video of the Mother of multiples who took to hiding in her pantry for a snack when her kids were getting a little overwhelming. She would video herself whispering in the pantry with the bag of chips and see how long it took for her kids to find her. Sure enough, all of a sudden there would be little fingers under the pantry door. Hi, Mama. You would hear this little voice, say, and then she would put her phone on the floor and there would be this little blonde mop of curls and one eyeball looking at her as the toddler that had found her rats her out for hiding. Mothering can be exhausting. Susanna Wesley birthed 19 children and tragically lost 10 of them. That's a lot of kids. Non-children running around the house that you're not only mothering, but also homeschooling is a lot. She was well read and had a wide knowledge base. She passed that along not just to the two boys, but to her girls as well. The time when women were mainly taught to sew and cook Susanna taught her girls the same lessons she taught the boys. She also spent two hours a day in biblical study and prayer. Yep, you heard that right. On top of everything else she did, including the family finances, she spent two hours a day studying the word of God. And when she needed a minute for quiet prayer, she would put her apron over her head to black out all of the distractions in her life. Her children knew that when her apron was on her head, she was not to be bothered. This was her time. This was her Sabbath. I wonder if she got the idea from the text we read in Exodus. Susanna didn't have the luxury of being able to go outside of her little camp and leave all of her children alone. Imagine the chaos that she would return to if all none of the kids were left to run them up. But the people of Israel still had the same recognition of the holiness of the time spent in the tent as the Wesley children did when their mother's apron was being used as a tent. The people knew the time and the tent of meeting was special. It was so special that every time Moses went out there, they stood and watched. Our posture can show our respect and our worshipfulness. Whether bowing our heads or standing in solidarity, our bodies can be worshipful in many different ways. For the people of Israel, when Moses went to the tent of meeting and the pillar of smoke came down, they stood and watched out of all and reverence. They noted with their standing that it was a holy moment. It is the same with our own worship. We stand when we sing praises to God and when we read the gospel. Out of reverence and a firm belief, we stand when we say our faithful beliefs to the creeds we recite. We bow our heads in prayer as a sign of surrender to the will of God. And sometimes, like Susanna Wesley, we need to seek out a moment alone to talk directly with God. For Moses in the tent of meeting, it meant that he got to speak directly to God in a form that only he will truly know. I love what scripture says about how they speak. Moses was there speaking with God as one speaks with a friend. What a beautiful example of how God wants to be in a relationship with us. I don't normally speak to God like I speak to my friends. Thank goodness. I usually only speak to God out of reverence and surrender, but I think as we deepen our relationship with us, he wants us to speak like we speak to our friends. Well, some of them anyway. I have several friends that I text almost every day. There's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of catching up on important things, but often, after so many days of not hearing their voices or seeing their faces, we have to make the effort to really see each other and really hear each other. Thank goodness for things like the Marco Polo app on my phone and FaceTime. It's a chance for us to sit with our aprons over our heads and really renew our connection. I think that's what Moses was doing in the tent of meeting. I'm sure he prayed and spoke to God every day, but it was those special moments. Those moments that people stood up for, that were the times when he really built a personal relationship, a friendship. I think that's what Susanna Wesley was doing with her apron over her head. When she needed some time apart to have moments that were only for her and for God, she created her own tent of meeting. I may not have to sit with my apron over my head. I mean, here we're kidding. I don't even own an apron. But for me, that holy moment of time each week is when I take a deep breath, put the robe over my head. There's something personal and sacred about that moment. There's something holy and connecting with the act of covering yourself and praying. What does your time and the tent of meeting look like? Is it those times on a rainy day when you curl up and read a book? Is it a special chair that you sit in when you have your quiet time of prayer in reflection? I wish I could say I was as faithful as Susanna Wesley was in her two hours of study in reflection. Those lessons are the example that John Wesley used to found the Methodist movement. His own schedule is well documented with hours of prayer and study every day. His faithfulness and time apart was rooted in his childhood and watching his mother prioritize her daily prayer time. We hear a lot about self-care these days. Whether it's a mom of multiple sitting in her pantry eating snacks and finding a moment alone or holding days of Sabbath sacred and finding ways for time apart for rest. We all need to find a little time to put our apron over our heads and pray. It is that example of setting time apart that will continue to permeate through the generations. Susanna Wesley's example can still be felt today. Her influence over her children was powerful. She made sure that they were thoughtful and well read both the boys and the girls. She made sure that they saw her faith lived out every single day. She showed them how to pray. It has a life of work and faith and family. We love to give John and Chuck Wesley the credit for founding the Methodist movement. And yes, they did see a need for something new and different from the Anglican Church, but really it was their mother Susanna Wesley whose influence can be seen in every aspect of the Methodist movement. Without her faith and example, John, Charles and their other siblings would not have had the foundation of faith that they did. They would not have had the courage to do the hard things. Like go to another country and spread the good news of the salvation of Christ through this new way of worship in the Methodist movement. Her courage and all she endured can be seen plainly in them. Her steadfastness and commitment to study can be seen in the many journals that John Wesley kept outlining his daily prayer and work. Susanna Wesley may be more familiar to some of you than the other women we will be inspired by over the next few weeks. We have women who called men out for their bad behavior. We have trailblazers and firsts in their roles and movements for change. But none of these women would have been able to do the work of the Methodist Church and now especially the United Methodist Church. If it had not been for the faithful example of Susanna Wesley, the mother of Methodism whose legacy included time with her apron over her head so she could find that friend that she had in Jesus. Let us all follow her example and the example of Moses and find our own tents of meeting so we can speak to God like a friend. Amen. As we go throughout our week, let us search those places out. Let us be reminded of the daily need to put our apron over our head and speak to our friend, the Triangod. Because in life and death and life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.
