Answering the Call—Lucretia Mott
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
September 15, 2024
Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture for this week is from Isaiah 58:11 out of the New Revised Standard Version.
The Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your needs in parched places
and make your bones strong,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.
Last week, we kicked off this new sermon series, Speak Truth to Power: The Legacy of Quakers by looking at where the term Speak Truth to Power originated and its meaning to Friends. As I stated last week, I believe it is vital to revisit the lives of influential Friends who spoke truth to power and learn what they can teach us, and how they are calling upon us to continue their legacy, today.
I will never forget my first Philadelphia Trip with our Youth Affirmation Class a few years ago. The reason we take the youth is because of the saturation of Quaker influence and history in Philadelphia and its impact on the founding of our country. At one time there were five Quaker meeting within the city blocks of historic Philadelphia. One of my highlights was visiting one of those five, Arch Street Meeting, which stands as an enduring symbol of the people who created Pennsylvania as a "Holy Experiment,” which I still remember learning about in my history books as a child here in Indiana.
Arch Street was built to house the men's and women's Yearly Meetings, which were the business sessions of the Religious Society of Friends for Philadelphia, and remains, still today, as one of the oldest active houses of worship in the City.
Besides the history and the simplistic beauty of the building, while we were there our tour guide invited some of the women from our group to sit on the very bench where Lucretia Mott worshipped and learned to speak her truth to power at Arch Street Meeting. I snapped a photo of that moment, and it appears on the cover of our bulletin, today.
Yet to really understand the depths of all that took place on that bench, I must give you a little bit of Lucretia Mott’s story. Most of the stories I am going to use in this series will come from the website, Quaker Stories: Now and Then, Here and There.
Lucretia Mott spent her first eleven years on Nantucket Island. From her time there, she took away her Quaker roots – obedience to the Inner Light expressed in action, and the Nantucket Way – life led with steadfastness, resilience, love of family, and a sense of humor. She and her mother developed a relationship that was deep and supportive. From Anna Coffin she learned to read early, to care for her younger siblings and others, to run a household, and to be responsible for the needs of herself and her family. With her mother’s help, she struggled to curb her tart tongue and control her temper.
From her father, Thomas Coffin, Lucretia gained a sense of just how big the world was. She spent time with him down on the wharf, encountering black, white, Portuguese, Native American, and Cape Verdean sailors and sea captains. She asked endless questions to satisfy her curiosity. When he returned from long voyages to trade for goods in South America or even China or to hunt for whales, she listened to his stories of faraway places and people. When he returned from a three-year trip that included capture of his ship, trials to try to recover it, and then the long trek over the mountains to Brazil to get a ship home, Lucretia gained a legacy of courage.
Spending time in Quaker meeting for worship two times a week was difficult for an energetic Lucretia but taught her to search for what God wanted her to do and the need for obedience to answers she received. When Elizabeth Coggleshall, a Public Friend, spoke in meeting for worship one Sunday about living simply, Lucretia was so moved she knew she had to act to show this obedience. Despite her love for the blue bows that adorned her shoes, she hurried home, found scissors, cut off the bows, and convinced her younger sister Eliza to do the same.
Throughout her life, Lucretia expressed her obedience to the call to correct injustices and take care of the poor, oppressed, and marginalized through her spoken ministry in her Quaker community but also in her actions in that community and in the wider world. And, more often than not, she sought to involve her family and friends in whatever action she chose. In this, she was supported by her husband James and her large extended family. They traveled with her to meetings, helped welcome the many visitors who came for support, advice, or participation in her action, joined with her to set up committees, and cared for her when the pace or turmoil was too great. When Lucretia decided to boycott all goods produced by slave labor, she gave up her favorite ice cream and her children their sugar and molasses candy.
Lucretia Mott spoke against slavery in Quaker meetings, so often some of her fellow worshipers admonished her to be quiet. She led women, black and white, to join her in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Association. This group, not only gathered to call for an end of slavery. They also raised money to help poor families, encouraged the opening of schools for black children, and looked for ways to find jobs to empower self-support. And, she opened the hospitality of her home to black and white alike. When told she would not be seated as a delegate to a World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, she went anyway, speaking out against the exclusion of the women delegates. She traveled throughout England and Ireland raising her concerns, answering her critics, and showing respect for diverse views.
It was during this time she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and became her friend and mentor. Eight years later in 1848, the two joined by three other Quaker women initiated the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in upstate New York, where a Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence was developed and approved. In it was a call of full citizenship for women including the right to vote and a statement of the ways in which women were kept from reaching their potential. This was an issue that was to consume her for the next 30+ years.
Lucretia Mott was a pacifist and believed strongly in non-resistance. Many times, she and others in anti-slavery and women’s rights work debated non-resistance especially during the Civil War. When family and friends chose to fight, she was saddened but continued to love and support. President Lincoln opened the ranks of the military to blacks and built a training camp, ironically called Camp William Penn, across from Lucretia’s home outside of Philadelphia. She visited the young recruits who were fighting for a freedom they had never had, spoke to them about her hope that a time would come when wars were not needed, and brought fruits and vegetables from her gardens to enhance their bland food. She enlisted a young friend who had encountered the beauty of black spirituals during her teaching in freedmen’s schools to come and sing for and with the soldiers. When they departed, she sent them off with prayers for their safety.
While her energy declined in her last years, she knew she had been faithful in her duty to be obedient to her Inner Light and to live and speak her truth. She even grew to accept her anger and use it to lead her to action. She had lost many of those she loved, but she was still surrounded by family and friends. At the graveside service, there was a silence. “Who will speak?” Another answered, “No one. The preacher is dead.”
Obviously, I cannot go into detail about all of Lucretia’s life in one sermon, but I hope these highlights have whet your appetite to learn more. I encourage you to utilize our library and check out a book about her.
For today’s purposes, I think there are several takeaways for us.
The first is Lucretia’s insatiable curiosity. I know the Sunday before I returned from my sabbatical, Eric Baker gave a wonderful message about our need for curiosity. I find in many circles today curiosity is a more acceptable way to talk about raising questions or admitting doubts, but it is essential to our journey of faith.
A couple of years ago for Christmas, Sue and I bought Beth Henricks some desk items to spruce up her office. One sits on the front of her desk and exclaims, “Ask More Questions.” I always sense Beth is channeling the spirit of Lucretia Mott because, if you know her, she always loves to ask a bunch of questions. Often, it makes me realize, even feel guilty, that I don’t ask enough questions.
Folks, there is nothing wrong with being curious. It helps us get to what is really going on. It helps us see the real needs, and helps us know how to respond.
We should be more like Lucretia in this way in our world, today. Her determination to be curious led her to ask some very important questions. From the who’s it will affect, to the why’s of inequalities, to the how’s of injustices, to the when’s of speaking truth to power.
As well, her questions led her to seek ways to respond. On many occasions while sitting on that Meeting bench in Arch Street Meeting, Lucretia heard the Spirit’s call to action and she rose from that bench and changed her world.
I often wonder, who is sitting amidst our pews here at First Friends that is hearing the Spirit’s call and is obediently ready to respond?
Or for whom will young people come here in 200 years to sit and take a photo where that person heard the Spirit’s call, responded, and changed their world?
Every week during the Children’s Message, I think there are some curious Lucretia Motts in that bunch. But I also see the same for the adults. Each week we all are one step closer to having the courage to speak our truth to power in our own unique ways.
It is amazing to think that 176 years ago a young feminist Lucretia Mott rose from her Arch Street bench and headed to Seneca Falls for the first Women’s Rights Convention. And for 30 of the next 72 years, her patient, demanding work saw the 19th amendment be ratified and women receive the right to vote in our country. And her legacy continues on, without Lucretia Mott and the other women at Seneca Falls, we would not, this year, have the possibility of a woman of color holding the highest office in this land. Talk about a continued legacy that opened doors and shatters ceilings for decades and generations. Not saying there is not more work to do, but her call is still being heralded.
And let’s bring her back to a realistic and human level once more. We must not forget that this trail blazer lost her temper on occasion, raised her voice, she let her passions get the best of her, and that probably made her not as lady-like as the society would dictate in her day. It is clear that the men of the day used this against her. As well, at times she would ramble on and on, until even her fellow Quakers would ask her to be silent. But amid her flaws, her uncontrolled passions, she persisted, she fought, she spoke up, and she did it through genuine love and with authentic support of a diversity of people who called her Friend. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to this Quaker saint.
And when we continue this legacy, we too may hear her words speaking to us today…
Those who go forth ministering to the wants and necessities of their fellow beings experience a rich return, their souls being as a watered garden, and a spring that faileth not.
If you didn’t notice, she was quoting our scripture for this morning.
Lucretia went forth ministering and she is calling us to follow her. May we all hear the Spirit’s call and Speak our Truth to Power like Lucretia Mott, this day!
As we head into a time of waiting worship, I ask you to ponder the following queries:
1. How may my curiosity lead to more action? What questions do I need to be asking?
2. Have I heard a call from the Spirit that I have not responded to? What should I do about it? And if not, how might I open myself up to hearing that call?