But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds
have been done in God. John 3:21 In the name of the father and of
the son and of the holy spirit.
March is National Women's History Month in the United States,
a time for us to celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize
the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of
fields. 1 So let s start by looking close to home. I m grateful for the Episcopal Church Women of
the Diocese of New Jersey and for their intrepid President, Canon Donna Freidel,
Esq. Donna s leadership and commitment to the Diocese of New Jersey, and especially to the women
of the diocese through the mission and ministry of E.C.W. have blessed us all. I am grateful.
When she was nominated to be an Honorary Canon of Trinity Cathedral, her brief biography stated
that she has strived to promote and recognize the contributions of women to the work of the church.
And she has, both as an advocate for women and justice in the diocese, and also by
supporting the discipleship of women through regular retreats and meaningful programing.
Like other parts of the church in the past few decades, E.C.W. has experienced
something of a struggle to remain vibrant, especially among younger women.
This concerns me. Women continue to face enormous challenges and issues
in our society and around the world. The COVID19 pandemic has underscored this.
Jennifer Klein and Julissa Reynoso, Co-Chairs of the Gender Policy Council, which was just
created by an Executive Order of President Biden as a part of this year s observance
of National Women s History Month alluded to this in recent statement, when they recognized,
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic downturn have shown us in the grimmest ways
how crises can exacerbate inequality. Women and girls and particularly women and girls of color
are bearing the brunt of this pandemic in visible and invisible ways.
They continued, Women make up an outsized share of our frontline workers,
face historic levels of unemployment, and are disproportionately shouldering the increased
caregiving responsibilities created by the pandemic.
2 These inequities are not new; they are only magnified by the current crisis. And it
needs to be observed that violence against women continues to plague this country and the world.3
I can t imagine a more important time for a vibrant E.C.W. than now.
As an advocacy group, E.C.W. helps us all to see and respond to the gender challenges still
before us with courage and determination; courage and determination like that of Fannie Lou Hamer,
an incredible woman who died on this date, March 14, 1977. She is certainly a woman who has made
an enormous contribution to this country and is someone we should remember and celebrate.
Among other things, Fannie Lou Hamer is famous for her exasperated declaration,
I m sick and tired of being sick and tired. You can hardly blame her.
Born to sharecroppers in Montgomery County, Mississippi in 1917,
Fannie Lou was the youngest of 20 children and grew up on a plantation. During that time, she
learned to read. She also learned to pick cotton and began doing this when she 6. When she was 27,
she married Perry Hamer, a tractor driver on a nearby plantation. She continued to
work as a sharecropper and a timekeeper on the Sunflower Plantation for 18 years.4
According to The Washington Post, In 1961, Hamer was sterilized without her consent
when she went to a Sunflower County hospital for a minor surgery to remove a tumor.
She was given a hysterectomy, which was known as the Mississippi appendectomy 5 This is
just one of several reasons people in the Black community continue to distrust the medical system.
In 1962, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee came to Sunflower County
to register Black voters. Inspired by them, Fannie Lou Hamer tried to register to vote,
or as she put it, to register to become first class citizens. 6 She was forced to take a
literacy test by local election officials a requirement imposed only on Black citizens.
This involved intentionally obscure questions. She failed, as was expected and planned.
Her effort to register to vote was reported to her landlord employer, who fired her and forced
her to leave her home. In 1963, as she engaged in civil actions to obtain the right to vote,
she was arrested in Winona Mississippi.
Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten so severely by local police that she suffered kidney damage
and was rendered partially blind. She also walked with a limp the rest of her life.
But she persisted in her advocacy for Black voter rights, even becoming a field secretary for the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. She finally succeeded in registering to vote,
casting her first vote in 1964 for herself because she had decided to run for Congress.
That same year, she helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party,
an alternative to the state s white-controlled Democratic Party. She travelled with other members
of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the 1964 Democratic Convention
in Atlantic City to challenge the credentials of the all-white Mississippi delegation.
In a televised credentials hearing, Hamer offered an impassioned account of the
violence she and other civil rights activists had suffered while attempting to register to vote.
The national news networks had scheduled her testimony to air live from the Convention, but
President Lyndon Johnson felt so threatened by her that he scheduled an impromptu live address
from The White House knowing the networks would cut away from Hamer and go to him.
His was pyrrhic victory. The networks broadcast her full testimony, not only on the nightly news,
which in those days was watched religiously by most Americans, but also rebroadcast it during
the week. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke after Hamer trying to urge the committee to recognize
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates. They didn t, but as a compromise,
they granted two-at large seats to the group. She was not one of the two seated.
According to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute of Education and Research at Stanford University
from which I drew some of these biographical details, Hamer continued her career in political
organizing and civil rights work as a delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention,
where she berated authorities for failing to provide justice for King s assassination.
In 1969, [she] helped found the Freedom Farms Corporation, a nonprofit farming cooperative
organized to alleviate hunger among poor blacks and whites in Mississippi.
She remained active in civic affairs in Mississippi throughout her life and continued
to speak and give interviews about the civil rights movement until her death in 1977. 7
In a detail that we as Church should find significant the King Institute notes that
Hamer, like King, was motivated by faith,
stating that, She had committed countless verses of the Bible to memory. 8
I wonder if among those verses she had memorized was John 3:16, For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life (John 3:16). The great German Reformer, Martin Luther
referred to this as the Gospel in miniature. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in his may not perish but have everlasting life.
God so loved the world. Love, it s all about love. Love, it s what God does. It s a verb.
It s an action. God so loved the world. But Love, it s also what God is.
God is love, Scripture says (1 John 4:8, 16). That is the nature and essence of God,
the Being of God. God is Love.
God is love. God loves. What God is. What God does.
And Jesus, the very image and likeness of God (Colossians 1:15), Jesus, the one in
whom all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell (Colossian 2:9), is God s love
incarnate (John 1:14), God s love made flesh. Jesus is the one who God sent into the world
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
Commenting on today s Gospel reading from John, Roman Catholic scholars Francis Martin
and William Wright observe, Coming to Christ in faith requires that people turn away from sin
and embrace a way of life marked by love, in imitation of Jesus. They continue,
If we are animated and empowered by God s own action, the divine light ultimately reveals
the true character of our lives: so that our works may be clearly seen as done in God. 9
Fannie Lou Hamer s life was animated and empowered by God. It revealed her true character, gave full
expression to, embodied, that verse in John 3, But those who do what is true come to the light,
so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God (John 3:21).
How about us? How do our lives here, now, today give expression to, embody this verse
those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen
that their deeds have been done in God? How do our lives give expression to this verse
when legislators are introducing more than 250 bills in 43 different states
to suppress voting rights?10 How do we respond to this? What do we do? Do we do anything?
Our baptismal promises demand that we persevere in resisting evil, that we
strive for justice and peace among all people. 11 How do our lives give expression to this when the
rights for which Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others risked so much,
even their very lives, are threatened by a new era of Jim Crow-like existence? How do our lives give
expression to this when not merely the equality, but the safety and welfare of women, of LGBTQ
persons and so many others are threatened on a day-to-day basis by increased levels of violence?
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him .For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light,
so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light,
so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.
Do what is true and good today and every day. Do what is true and good, as Fannie Lou Hamer
and so many others of the faithful before us have done. Come to the light, the light of life,
the light of Christ, so that it may be clearly seen that your deeds have been done in God
God who is love God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son
so that all who believe in him may not die, but have eternal life. God who loves you.