February 22, 2015--Truth & Titus: What About Your Friends

By: Rev. Emily Joye Reynolds

Koinonia, FCCBC

2.22.15

John 19:25b-28

Many of you were here on last Wednesday night when we did the "Imposition of Ashes" as is customary for the beginning of Lent. AshWednesday is a time of observing our mortality, the fact that we are finite beings, that we come from dust and to dust we shall return. It's an important day in the liturgical calendar year, because whereas Christmas and Easter connect us to stories about God and God's great, miraculous self, Ash Wednesday connects us to the very human dimensions of this here thing called life. One of the things that I most appreciate about Ash Wednesday is the reminder that I am going to die. I am going to die. I am. I don't know when, but it'll happen at some point. That reminder helps me get clear about what is important, what I want my lasting legacy to be, and how to get busy living at those intersections. But it also reminds me of something else, which to be honest, has greater urgency for me: the fact that every single person I love on this planet is going to die too.

<I want you to sit in your pew right now and think about the people you love most. Take just a few minutes, I'm going to give you some quiet. And think about the fact that your time with them is limited, that it will come to an end, in some cases, probably sooner than you think.>

Now there's a lot of youngish type people in Koinonia, and so I reckon that many of you, many of us, haven't had as many encounters with our mortality and the mortality of those we love as some of the elders in here. And so in some ways we are at a disadvantage. Because one thing I've noticed is the more people you lose, the more honest you get about the frailty of life. Now sometimes that can lead to a kind of paranoia and hyper-vigilance where you flail around fearing the death of everyone all the time. But more often than not, compounded losses result in holding life even more sacred because one understands time isn't guaranteed. And that, my dears, that holding life most sacred, and acting on that sacred in relationships because you know you don't have forever, is a gift.

One of Sojourner Truth's best friends was a woman by the name of Frances Titus. She was native to Battle Creek. She lived at a home on 113 Maple Street. She is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Like Sojourner, she was an ardent Abolitionist and Suffragist. Mrs. Titus was a fiercely loyal and diligent friend to Truth. As we close our study on Sojourner Truth's life today, as part of our celebration and honor of Black History Month, I want to focus on the relationship she and Titus had throughout but especially toward the end of Sojourner's life.

The two first met in 1856 during a Progressive Friends Meeting and while it's speculated that it was BFF at first sight, they wouldn't come to work closely together for another ten to fifteen years. During their mid-lives they came together on Abolitionism though those efforts looked very different pre and post Civil War. Sojourner Truth circulated all over the country giving lectures about the necessity of ending slavery as a former enslaved woman. Titus often supported her travels and even gave her help with a loan for her home during that time so Sojourner's family (kids and grand kids) had a good place to stay while Truth was lecturing across state lines. Later after the war Truth and Titus went to work in trying to help freedmen resettle and find work. Truth made every effort to seek out places for home-steading and employment all over the country, but mostly in Kansas, and the "West". In tight correspondence with Truth, Titus worked locally to make Battle Creek a place where freedman could resettle. She also eventually set up a school, in the old city hall building, where freed persons could learn basic writing, reading and arithmetic. She taught on Friday nights and on the Sabbath.

During the 1870s Titus worked mostly on Women's Suffrage emerging in Michigan. Francis was called to serve several national organizations hoping to get women the right to vote. She rubbed elbows and set stages for Susan B. Anthony and Kady Stanton. In 1874 an amendment to the Michigan constitution was drafted for women to vote thanks to the organizing of Titus and her many allies. It was sorely defeated state-wide but the margin of defeat was lower here in BC than other places. At that time, Truth was in Kansas trying to implement strategy for the great Exodus when she believed Black people would leave the South in droves in hopes of greater economic opportunity. That migration happened later, after Truth had grown ill due to age, and despite all of  her spirit-filled labor, she was not able to see the fruits. Truth and Titus reunited, both with their hearts in their hands, in Battle Creek after this sense of political and social defeat, to find each other anew. They were huge sources of comfort to one another in the midst of what felt like massive grief at the state of cruelty and injustice around the nation and here in Michigan.

Sojourner fell ill at some point later that year and became confined. Frances Titus took that time to edit and re-write certain parts of Truth's autobiography. During that time writing and story-telling became a huge part of their bond. Eventually Titus would bind and print those books and use them to support Sojourner financially. When Sojourner got well again and hit the road to speak around the country, Frances went with her as business manager and personal secretary. Eventually they would reengage the work of getting food, shelter and jobs to refugees resettling out of the South. Titus used her privilege to influence the affluent in Battle Creek to send resources to where Truth organized in the West. But right as their efforts started making real impact, Truth got sick again and returned home. From there out Frances took care of her bodily and correspondence needs. After Sojourner Truth died in November of 1883 Titus, as a dear, life-long friend will always do, amped up her loyalty to Truth by raising money for a beautiful, specialized hand-crafted marble tombstone. She then commissioned a special painting of Sojourner to be mounted at Albion College. And republished a posthumous edition of Sojourner's autobiography which included a memorial chapter and her favorite song entitled "We are Going Home."

Yall, let me tell you something profound. Sojourner Truth's funeral was right here in this Church. We worship on Holy Ground. The Rev. Reed Stuart--who I consider a spiritual ancestor--officiated Sojourner's funeral and would officiate Frances' funeral in 1894. They are known in Battle Creek history as giants of abolitionism and women's suffrage. But today I want us to think of them, and call upon their names, as spiritual giants.

What we are able to do for each other at the end of life has everything to do with the foundations we lay with each other throughout life. Sojourner and Frances were activist colleagues, Quaker companions, financial partners, literary pals, citizens of the same city, women who loved each other, across racial lines, loved each other body and soul, over decades, in the midst of an era when women were supposed to be wives and mothers and nothing else. Even when they didn't live in the same state or serve the same exact cause, they remained in contact. They returned to each other throughout their lives. They lived and died with and for each other. Their relationship was transgressive, non-normative, beautiful and holy. Glory be to God.

In the final chapters of John we see a similar relationship between Jesus and "the disciple who Jesus loved." In the 26th - 28th verses of Chapter 19 of the Gospel of John it tells us that in order for everything to be finished, Jesus needed to know that his most beloved disciple and his mother would take care of each other after he was gone. Upon seeing the beloved disciple and his mother standing side by side, watching him die, he says "Woman, here is your son" and "Here is your Mother" to the beloved disciple, basically informing them that they would have to love him now, after his death, by loving each other. Jesus entrusted that continued work and bond of love, a posthumous love, a resurrective love, a spiritual love to those two because they'd earned it during his lifetime. They were called upon for his ministry after he was gone because they saw to his ministry while he was alive.

It begs the question of all of us: are we living into the love of friends and family with such profound, abiding loyalty? I bet Frances didn't question whether Sojourner loved her after Sojourner was gone. I know Mary and the Beloved Disciple didn't question Jesus' love for them. How could they? The active, fidelity between them during life layed the question to rest.

So much of the time when I do funerals for families and loved ones there is too much left unanswered, too much left unsaid, too much left undone. Don't let that be your story, my flock. Don't let that be your truth. Let the relationships of Jesus, the Beloved Disciple and Mary, let the relationship of Sojourner Truth and Frances Titus remind us all that we are from dust and to dust we shall return, but in the meantime, the work of love--long-standing loyalty, affection, service, support, body and soul love--is calling.

Amen.