Sermon “Living Outside the Box” The Rev. Rali Weaver

First Church and Parish in Dedham

March 29, 2009

Once per month I hold a meeting at the parsonage for the Christian Clergy of the UUA. As you might imagine this is a very small group of ministers, mostly aging and generally men. I generally make soup and I serve my colleagues as they sit around my dining room table and then we sit around the living room with cups of tea and a fire and discuss theology.

Just last Friday this happened and as we sat in my living room discussing “The Word of God and The Word of Man” by Karl Barth, I felt I had a glimmer of what the discussions were like in Anne Hutchinson’s parlor.

The main difference perhaps is that in Anne’s discussions they weren’t analyzing the ideas of other theologians but reading scripture and sermons and determining the truth for themselves. Anne felt perfectly confident to express her ideas, ideas that were later deemed by those who felt threatened by her, to be heretical.

In contrast, I, sitting with my more learned colleagues often fall silent and simply listen to their ramblings. Part of the problem is that in our theological discussions I often read the texts through a different lens. As I read Barth or Tillch I generally ask myself, “could this be true” while my colleagues are reading and trying to see what theological premise supports the ideas we are studying. So basically while I come prepared to discuss the substance they wish to discuss the framework.

As I read the book Peter chose for me to preach on this Sunday “American Jezebel” by Eve Laplant, I began to realize that shift of focus was exactly what got Anne Hutchinson into trouble.

As the mother of “twelve living children and one grandchild” at the time of her hearing, I imagine Anne Hutchinson had little interest in complicated theological frameworks and was instead more focused on the direct teaching that would inspire goodness and right living.

For one example she was certain that God could not mean for Puritans to convert Native Americans and if they would not be converted to kill them in the name of Christ. To her this was a simple straightforward truth from the bible. She did not need a preacher to tell her it was not so. The bible calls us to love our neighbor and the then commandments say thou shall not kill so how could the righteous answer be any different?

These were of course different times in many ways. Fortunately as I sit in my living room listening to my beloved colleagues rattle on about which theological boxes to place Christian ideals, I am not concerned about their salvation (no matter how wrong headed I think their thoughts become). And yet in Anne’s day the concern for salvation was palpable to everyone. Who would or who would not be saved was of the utmost concern.

Anne Hutchinson lived an upright life. She was a midwife, and a mother. Because of the high mortality rate of her own brood of 12, and the countless of other women whom she had helped to deliver healthy children, Anne had quite a bit of clout within the community.

And yet she was still a woman.

The Puritan Role for women at the time of the founding of our country was a domestic one. In general Women were locked into the role of domestic caregiver while men were busy in the political and social spheres.

Anne Hutchinson was most happy in her role as woman. She was a mother and a midwife. By all accounts she cared for her family with deep love and affection. She did not rail against the role of women in her day but was instead a religious dissenter who apposed the Puritan principle of conformity to religious-laws.

Despite this Hutchinson was most likely tried and convicted because of her gender. Most historians have suggested that she fell victim to contemporary mores surrounding the role of women in Puritan society. Hutchinson spoke her mind freely within the context of a male hierarchy unaccustomed to outspoken women.

Alternatively, she may also have been persecuted because she spoke up against the established church and state government. The extent to which she was persecuted was perhaps proportional to the threat the established rulers saw in her, considering the many people who were willing to listen to and follow her and the threat that that may have posed. Through her teachings Anne Hutchinson was calling for her friends and neighbors to oppose unrighteous action. As she stated out right in her trial she believed that “laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makres plain the pathway. “

In 1637, Puritan ministers throughout the Massachusetts area had labeled Anne Hutchinson a "Jezebel" because they viewed her as infecting women with perverse and "abominable" ideas. John Winthrop who was named governor that same year stated that he considered Anne to be “a threat to his 'city set on a hill'". Governor Winthrop and the established religious hierarchy considered many of her comments in her discussion groups to be heretical, in particular and specifically, her "unfounded criticism of the clergy from an unauthorized source".

In the year that our Church was founded, 1638, Anne Hutchinson was tried by the General Court of Massachusetts, presided over by that same John Winthrop, on the charge of ridiculing the ministers. The Court was made up of government officials and Puritan clergy and held a hearing at the First Church in Boston.

Anne Hutchinson was forty-six at the time of her trial and pregnant for the fifteenth time. She was forced to stand for several days before a board of all male interrogators as they tried desperately to get her to admit her wrongdoing. They accused her of violating the fifth commandment – to “honor the father and mother” – accusing her of encouraging dissent against the fathers of the commonwealth.

Anne skillfully defended herself mainly using scripture in which she was well versed. When it was clear that there was no escape from the court’s predetermined judgment she asserted that her only judge and jury was Almighty God. This brought jeers from those gathered who claimed she was an instrument of Satan.

Following her arraignment an exhausted Anne suffered a miscarriage as a result of the arduous trial and then relocated with her family to Rhode Island. The fathers of this commonwealth gloated and called the miscarriage divine judgment.

There is more to Anne Hutchinson’s story some of it startling and some of it sad. I am not going to tell you all of it because I hope you will read the book and study her life yourself and make sense of it in your own way. Anne Hutchinson’s life was both heroic and tragic offering a critique of how a belief system might both inspire and constrict.

It is clear from all vantage points that in the end Anne Hutchinson was persecuted much more for her growing influence over men and women than she was any radical idea she might have had. I believe her example to us is less of how to live a righteous life (as she might have wanted us to consider) and much more about how to live a life of faith grounded in action.

What Anne Hutchinson did at every turn in her life was to hold so tight to her ideals that they informed her every action.

As I sat in my own living room last Friday, I realize that I was not doing the same thing. As my collegues rattled on about theories that I thought were purposeless and shallow I confess to you that in my heart I wondered “what good is a theology, even the theology of Karl Barth, if it does not inform our spirit?” Instead of speaking those words aloud and shifting the intellectual conversation, I sat and listened as my elder colleagues rattled on.

I did so in part because I believe this is what these ministers expect of me. Perhaps it is unconscious but it is partly because of my age and partly because of my gender that I believe they expect me to remain silent while they prove their deep knowledge of the subject matter.

As we sat at lunch on Friday I realized all that my male colleagues had to say to me was how much they liked my soup, how nice the dishes were, and how I looked as though I had lost weight. From the moment they entered my house either I or they put me in the role of “woman’ and even in this year 2009 that put me in a place where I had much physical nourishment to offer but little intellectual authority to share.

I confess this to you today because in part it reflects what I admire most about Anne Hutchison. By all accounts Anne Hutchinson was not a feminist, asserting her rights as a woman to have a brain. Instead, living fully within her role as a woman, she emerged as a voice of inspiration to many based solely in her focus, on her intuition and sense of what was right.

Not being a puritan myself I would of course champion a different cause, and yet I know there are times I fall completely into the limited expectations of myself, loose all authority to speak and champion nothing. Thankfully that rarely happens from this pulpit.

The main risk in living our lives outside the boxes of expectations that surround us today has nothing to do with excommunication from the Commonwealth or eternal damnation, but instead lies in our wiliness or unwillingness to stretch our own souls.

The risk involved in living out side of the box of our own limitations is in its simplest form leaving the comfort zone of our own imagined place, and at its greatest menace lies in disconcerting others who cannot see beyond the cultural expectations that surround us all.

If however we can stay grounded in our own convictions, as Anne Hutchinson did the reward is that way will be clear and our conscience pure.