She came to the well at high noon to get her day's supply of water.
As she approached, she spotted a man resting there, a foreigner, a Jew. This was strange, for Jews and her own people, Samaritans, rarely traveled in each other's territory. When she came close, the man broke the tense silence, speaking pleasantly and asking her for a drink of water. Now, ordinarily Jews would not touch anything a Samaritan had handled. So she was surprised by his request and said so, and his reply to her then led them into quite a lengthy dialogue.
The more they talked, the more this man seemed to the woman to be - yes - a prophet. For without having to be told anything at all, he knew so very much about her.
What's more, this Jewish prophet was proclaiming himself to be the Messiah for whom not only his own people but also the Samaritans had long hoped, the one who would speak the truth and bestow the Spirit that make for eternal life.
Excited by this, the woman left her water jar at the well and raced to town to testify to what she had seen and heard and to invite others to come and see this Jew who could well be their hoped-for Messiah.
And the Gospel of John tells us that this woman's testimony did indeed lead the way, so that many other Samaritans followed Jesus as well.
As I pondered this gospel story in preparation for today's celebration of Gifts of Women Sunday, I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to share with you today the story of yet another woman - one whose name is known, but has largely been forgotten - the story of another woman whose following of Jesus, like the Samaritan's, has led countless others to well-being. It's the story of Frances Perkins, a woman of modern times who met Jesus and changed history.
Frances had been the student president of the class of 1902 at Mount Holyoke, a four-year liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Back then Mount Holyoke still had the strong, explicit religious commitment of its founder, Mary Lyon, and its graduates - women all - were encouraged to live public lives for God, taking responsibility for the well-being of society. In that spirit, the class of 1902 had chosen as its motto the Bible verse that's quoted on today's bulletin cover, which in their King James Version read (I Corinthians 15:58): "...be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord..."
Professor Anna May Soule had taken Frances and the other students in her American History course to a nearby factory to survey there the working conditions - the abominable, but typical, working conditions. This experience had deeply shaken Frances. After that she had been moved by the account of efforts to redress such conditions given by a guest lecturer at the college, Florence Kelley, director of the National Consumers' League. This group was devoted to the cause of industrial reform and protective labor legislation. These two experiences led Frances to her decision that, upon graduation, she too, like Kelley, would devote her life to the work of improving urban and industrial conditions.
Two years later, she was in the Chicago area, where, to feed and clothe herself, she taught physics and biology at a girls' preparatory school. But her passion lay elsewhere, and on weekends and during school vacations she joined the female community of social reformers that circled around Jane Addams and Hull House. This group was motivated by the moral and religious conviction that urban, industrialized America needed a new ethic, one grounded in the concept of community responsibility rather than in the rugged individualism of the frontier mentality. For if poverty was ever going to be overcome it would take far more than "pulling yourself up by your own boot straps." It would take strong, collective social action. As Frances later explained, "One thing seemed perfectly clear [to me]. Our Lord had directed all those who thought they were following in His path to visit the widows, the orphans, the fatherless, the prisoners and so forth. Definitely the circumstances of the life of the people of my generation was my business, and I ought to do something about it." (Gilbert Martin, Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976] p. 64)
Frances had been reared a Congregationalist. In Chicago, she became an Episcopalian, and she would continue to be a devoted and conscientious follower of Jesus throughout her life.
From Chicago she moved to Philadelphia and then on to New York City, where, as part of completing her masters degree from Columbia University, she surveyed the living and working conditions in Hell's Kitchen. In 1910, she was elected secretary of the New York branch of Florence Kelley's organization, and in that capacity she traveled often to Albany to lobby for progressive state legislation. It was in Albany that Frances first came to the attention of two rising political stars: Al Smith and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In 1913, she married Paul Wilson, an economist with a commitment to politics. Frances then created quite a stir by insisting on keeping her own name and asking people to continue addressing her as "Miss Perkins." Frances remained married to Paul until his death in 1952, but for most of those 39 years he would suffer from mental illness and often be confined to a sanatarium. His inability to earn an income created the necessity for Frances to continue her life in the workplace even after she'd given birth to their daughter Susanna in 1916.
When Al Smith became governor of New York in 1918, he appointed Frances to the State Industrial Commission. No woman had ever before been appointed to a paid position in this state's government, but Frances responded to the call by following the advice of her grandmother, who had always said: "If somebody opens a door for you, unexpectedly, without connivance on your part, walk right in and do the best you can. It's the Lord's will for you." (Martin, p. 145)
In 1926, Smith appointed Frances the chair of that State Industrial Commission. And in 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt had become governor of New York, he appointed her to the post of Industrial Commissioner. It was in that role that Frances first came to national attention, in 1930, when she began publicly to dispute the optimistic employment figures being released in the aftermath of the stock market crash by the Hoover administration in Washington. As the Great Depression descended, Frances would soon become the most prominent state labor official in the nation.
So it came to pass that after F.D.R. won the presidency in the 1932 election, he asked Frances to become America's Secretary of Labor. Well, her family needed to stay in New York City. Her husband was confined to a sanitarium in White Plains, and her daughter was a student in the Brearley School. If she were to work in Washington, she would have to return to New York City each weekend. So she had doubts about accepting the position.
She turned for advice to Episcopal Bishop Charles K. Gilbert. After reflecting for two days Bishop Gilbert wrote back to her as follows (Martin, p. 238): "You will agree, I am sure, that our present crisis is more grave than any that war has ever presented. God has fitted you by natural gifts and by experience for a service such as few others are competent to render and, as I see it, that service can mean great things for multitudes of distressed and bewildered people whom [God] wants helped. If we are to find a just and righteous way out of the problems which now seem to threaten our social security, the contribution you are equipped to make will be urgently needed... I really believe that it is God's own call. If it is, you can't refuse... And if the assignment is [from God, then God] will help you to see it through; and [God] will take care of the domestic problems that may be presented." Gilbert's advice was gladly received.
Still, before Frances finally accepted the cabinet position, she met with Roosevelt and told him this (Martin, pp. 239-240): "I don't want to say 'yes' to you unless you know what I'd like to do and are willing to have me go ahead and try." She then enumerated her quite ambitious legislative agenda, a list that included: federal aid to states for direct unemployment relief, public works, work hour limitations, minimum wage laws, safety regulations, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, old age insurance, and revitalized public employment insurance - all these designed to revive the economy, to prevent further depressions, to improve the public welfare, and to stabilize social order. She ended with this question: "Are you sure you want these things done? Because you don't want me for Secretary of Labor if you don't." To which Roosevelt responded, "Yes. I'll back you." (Martin, p. 241)
So Frances became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. And back her F.D.R. did, such that all the things on her list did indeed get done, culminating in the two pieces of legislation we know as: first, the Social Security Act of 1935, which provided among other things both the unemployment insurance plan and the old age insurance plan that we know today; and, second, the Fair Labor Relations Act of 1938, which established a minimum hourly wage, dropped the work week step by step to just 40 hours, and also prohibited children under 16 from working in factories and those under 18 from working in hazardous jobs. Yes, all of these tremendous social boons came about because of the imagination and hard work of Frances Perkins - who truly was the "mother" of our national social security.
And as her principal biographer has written: "...what Perkins chose to do was determined by her religion. Many Democrats supported the Social Security Act because it attracted votes; others, for humanitarian reasons; Perkins [did it] 'for Jesus' sake,' because it brought the City of God closer to the cities of toil and industry. She seldom used such terms because she knew that they made many people nervous. But her religion was the source of her strength." (Martin, p. vii)
To cope with the constant stress of her work Frances paid a monthly visit to a small community of Episcopal nuns in Catonsville, Maryland, south of Baltimore. She would go there for a day, staying overnight and attending the full schedule of prayers - seven services a day. In between those services, she would walk, study in the library, cut dead blossoms, or pray even more. A rule of silence prevailed in that convent, except for just two hours a day, and during those hours, she liked to discuss with Reverend Mother Laura the religious concepts lying behind her social legislation.
Frances also put some of her religious thoughts in writing. She once recounted that "As a young settlement worker in Chicago she had listened on a snowy day to friends arguing about the reasons for finding a poor man a good pair of shoes. One had said, 'Because his feet are cold'; the other, 'For Jesus' sake.' At the time she had thought the difference in reasons unimportant; the result was the same. Now she [had begun] to think the difference was crucial. The better reason for attempting social or industrial reform was 'for Jesus' sake,' because a merely humanitarian urge, however strong, would not last.... Among her friends and colleagues she could see that many of the humanitarians had grown discouraged and quit the struggle." (Martin, p. 281)
But Frances had never grown discouraged or quit, and when she finally did resign from her cabinet post upon the death of Roosevelt in 1945, after 12 years of service, she replied in this way to a congratulatory note from Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. She wrote: "I came [to Washington] to work for God, F.D.R. and the millions of forgotten, plain, common working [people of America.]" (As quoted in Martin, p. 375.)
Yes, and Frances did indeed leave a great and enduring legacy of working for God, for Roosevelt, and for working class Americans. You see, "Every man and woman who works at a living wage, under safe conditions, for reasonable hours, or who is protected by unemployment insurance or social security" - every one of us is in debt to her. (Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor, 1962-1969)
In 1948, Frances delivered at St. Thomas Episcopal Church right here in New York City a series of three lectures that she entitled, "The Christian in the World." In them, she affirmed: first, that God is at the center of the universe; and second, that because of God's love, humankind has infinite worth; and third, that because of the infinite worth of each person every Christian has the duty to see to it "that the state does care about what happens to the individual and [that the state] doesn't [just] say - 'Oh, well,it can't be helped.'" If America is to be the kind of society that the God who's been made known in Jesus wants us to be, then a pattern of social cooperation and of social justice needs to be established throughout all of our legal, and economic, and social relationships. (Martin, pp. 281-283)
That was Frances Perkins's vision of a Christian's duty and vocation, and that was why she chose to work in the way she did, trying to align herself and all her actions with God's values and with Jesus's own devotion to the work of establishing well-being for the poor and the oppressed.
I'm offering Frances's story as this morning's sermon, because I believe that her story and her testimony can help to lead us and other Americans into the same way of following Jesus that she enacted throughout her life's vocation - into the task of building the City of God, the Commonwealth of Christ, right here on earth.
So let us remember Frances Perkins and the Samaritan woman - both of them servants of God, both of them emissaries for Christ, both of them women who can lead us into the way of following Jesus.
Let us pray:
O God, we lift our hearts to You in praise and gratitude: for all the women who have used wisely and well the gifts You have given; for all the women throughout history who have helped to change for the better both church and society; for all our mothers and grandmothers, sisters and daughters, whose lives have so fully shaped our own; and for all the women whose way of living has been for us and others a Bible to read. In the name of Christ, we pray this. Amen.