Mother's Day Talk: May 2021

Debate is worth doing! But Lewis had the humility to see the danger.

I gave the following talk this past Mother's Day. I enjoyed getting feedback from my sisters and interviewing my mother for the talk's primary examples.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to discuss faith, a principle/concept that I believe has lost credence in modern society. The competition between political parties, institutions, sects, religions, pundits, chatrooms, Twitter threads, YouTube videos, cliques, and organizations over their ideological significance has resulted in a "win at all costs" attitude. Groups must be utterly and exhaustively (no loose threads) right or utterly and entirely and objectionably wrong. 

Flawed people/flawed systems that do the best they can, "line upon line," and "Lord, I believe--help thou my unbelief" are not favorable positions these days. Consequently, "know" is often conflated with "have faith in." Acts of hope, trial-and-error, and questioning are (temporarily) losing meaning and influence while the language of knowledge (facts, tests, empiricism) is being applied improperly to the most inconsequential and fleeting emotions, opinions, political debates, philosophies, and labels.

Since I believe in the rise and fall of civilizations, I believe the language of faith will return to discussions of belief while science will regain its necessary vocabulary.

The talk is mainly about women of faith in the New Testament, but I present my fears about the fading of faith--or rather my answer to those fears--throughout the talk.

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Good morning!

I am Kate Woodbury, the youngest daughter and the youngest child of Joyce and Hugh Woodbury, who are also members of this congregation.

I am speaking today of women of faith in the New Testament. The choice of scriptures is especially fitting since the New Testament is my mother’s favorite book of scriptures. She impressed on me from my early years that many of the followers of Jesus were women. They found purpose and freedom in his teachings. They had faith in Him. 

I am going to talk about a few of these women. But first, I am going to address faith. Faith is a powerful principle. Although it is not exclusive to religion, it has an important role in religious practice.

Faith, states Hebrews 11:1, “is the substance or assurance of things hoped for but not seen.” We are encouraged in both the Bible and in The Book of Mormon to test faith, to try it out. But faith does not carry the same meaning or objective as proof or knowledge.

According to Joseph Smith and other church leaders, faith is a “cause” or motivator, not a conclusion. A passage in Lectures on Faith states, “Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom and intelligence. [You would not act] unless you did believe that you could obtain them[.]”

Knowing stuff is a static, narrow state. Faith, on the other hand, encompasses largeness of heart, a way of seeing the world. It can be as small as a mustard seed. It can wax and wane yet remain powerful because it never wholly dies. It can handle seeming contradictions because it recognizes “the universe…that was framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3). The language of faith resides in visions and dreams and poetry and parables.

The Parable of the Persistent Widow is a great example of faith in action. The parable tells of an unjust judge. A widow has a case, only she isn’t being heard by the unjust judge. Yet she refuses to give up. In modern-day parlance, she files a complaint and then motion after motion. She keeps going back to court. Finally, the judge throws up his hands and listens to her.

At the end of the parable, Jesus uses the reaction of the unjust judge to point out how much more readily than earthly authorities, Heavenly Father desires to respond to our cries for help.

The Parable of the Persistent Widow occurs in the New Testament. The next examples are women of the New Testament who followed Christ and helped support the early church.

I asked women in my immediate family for suggestions. My mother spoke of Elizabeth, the mother of John, and of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She pointed out that these women were well-read in the scriptures and were not afraid to discuss them. When Mary became pregnant with Jesus, she visited Elizabeth, who currently was pregnant with John the Baptist. When Mary neared, Elizabeth greeted her with joy: “For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed” (Luke 1:44-45). Mary responded with the Song of Mary or the Magnificat in which she quoted Hannah from 1 Samuel: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior” (1 Samuel 2:1). Mary and Elizabeth were aware of the parts they were playing in their nation and in history.

At the end of our conversation, my mother added, “And I’ve always wondered—who cooked the Last Supper?”

My sister Beth highlighted the woman at the well and pointed out that she is “one of the first people to learn from Jesus’s own mouth that He is the Messiah.” Jesus encounters the woman at the well during his return to Galilee, early in his three-year ministry. Although it was unusual for a Samaritan woman to speak to a Jewish man, the woman at the well had a lengthy exchange with Jesus. She asked him questions. She even challenged him—Why are you speaking to me? She called him a prophet and asked that he give her “living water” (John 4:11). She shared her beliefs with him and declared, “[T]he Messiah is coming” (John 4:25). To her, Jesus stated, “I who speak unto thee am he [the Messiah]” (4:26). She rushed to tell others about her experience.

I selected Joanna. She was one of Jesus Christ’s disciples. Alongside other women, she supported his ministry. After Jesus’s crucifixion, she and other women accompanied Joseph of Arimathea to the sepulcher. Imagine the bravery that must have taken! She and the other women returned home to prepare spices and ointments for a more complete burial. They then returned to the sepulcher after the Sabbath to finish the funeral preparations. They found the stone in front of the tomb rolled away and the tomb empty. They also encountered “two men…in shining garments” who asked, “Why seek ye the living amongst the dead?” (Luke 24:4-5). Joanna and the other women ran to report what they had experienced.

Lydia

My sister Ann provided the names and details of many women who helped the early church survive and expand. For example, she wrote, “Priscilla…with her husband Aquila lived, worked, and traveled with the Apostle Paul. They are described as providing a presence that strengthened the early Christian churches.” Paul lived with Priscilla and her husband for a time and “was generous in his recognition and acknowledgement of his indebtedness to them.” Another of these early church leaders, Phoebe, bears the title of deaconess or minister. A woman from a Greek city, she performed a sacred commission for Paul and likely delivered his letter to the Romans. And Lydia, a working woman who dyed wool, opened her home to Paul and to fellow Christians. She was a “God-fearer,” one of many Gentiles who congregated around Jewish synagogues out of interest and sympathy with the truths offered by Judaism. She is often considered the “first ‘European’ Christian convert.”

All these women approached, served, and engaged with Jesus and the gospel in different ways. They studied. They considered. They acted. They helped. They testified. They informed. They instructed. They pondered. They asked questions. They welcomed. They shared. They showed love. Their faith was the faith that Joseph Smith describes. It is a power that keeps us aware and invested in each day’s endeavors.

Faith is so powerful, yet its power often gets lost in the modern world. Empiricism, proof, factual knowledge—all these things have their place. They are even necessary in various fields and disciplines.

Faith has distinct value and influence. It is a vital part of belief. It is transcendent. From Alma 32, which talks about faith, readers will encounter concepts such as hope, belief, heart, light, enlarge, enlighten, growth, fruit, feast. When we plant the seed of faith, we begin to see and, therefore, know how its growth affects us, to estimate its impact on us. The challenge is that during the examination of the self (how am I being impacted?), faith becomes temporarily dormant (Alma 32: 34). It needs to be reclaimed, and the search resumed.

Faith, therefore, is a never-ending process, a constant effort of “looking forward…to the fruit [of it]” (Alma 32:40). Can we ever truly totally understand God in this lifetime?

No. And that’s okay! Instead, each one of us can walk a path towards God every day. That path is formed by Christ. We walk it by faith.

The path we walk is one we each have to search for through our individual efforts. I mentioned the Persistent Widow. The Parable of the Lost Coin from the New Testament tells of a woman who searched and searched for one lost coin.

I’ve been there! I recently thought I’d lost my glasses and searched all over my house, retracing my steps until I found them in my pantry, of all places! Like the woman in the parable, I rejoiced (I also rolled my eyes at myself).

My experience reminded me of a story my mother told me when I was a teen. She had also lost something—her purse which had gotten “stacked” with chairs after a church activity. Praying, she told me, cleared her mind. When she returned to the church building—we lived right next door—she walked directly to where her purse was hidden.

Searching for something is such a relatable activity. We understand the anxiety, the need, and the peace that arrives when our need is fulfilled.

Jesus tells the parable of the woman’s search when his listeners question him. During his ministry, he accepted and ate with many people, even those deemed unworthy. Some of his listeners objected to Jesus’s behavior. In response, he told them the story of the lost sheep, lost son, and lost coin.

Just as we search for things we have lost, Jesus searches for the individual—he offers each one redemption.

Like the women of the parables, the historical women of the New Testament who anticipated Christ and supported Christ and witnessed of Christ are excellent examples of searching for and following that individual path through faith. In fact, there are many more such women: Anna, a prophetess; Rhoda; four daughters of Philip; Lois, Eunice, Susanne, Chloe, Claudia, Tabitha or Dorcas, Tryphena, Junia, Damaris, sisters Mary and Martha. 

These women from the New Testament can inspire all of us to take on the experiment of faith, to embrace the gospel or “good news” of Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection and enjoy the effects of that good news in our lives. To a woman he encountered during his travels, Jesus stated, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole” (Matthew 9:22). To a mother, another persistent woman, he declared, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt” (Matthew 15:28). To the woman who anointed his feet, he assured, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:43). 

Faith brought these women comfort and blessings and wholeness and peace. What Jesus offered to these women, he offers to us all.