Mother’s Day’s Methodist Origin Story

Dear Minooka UMC Found Family,

Did you know the origin story for Mother’s Day begins with the writer of a famous hymn and a couple of Methodists?? I sure didn’t!

Living in New England, Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1861. But neither her talents nor her interests stopped there.

Howe was an abolitionist, a women’s rights advocate, and a peace activist. In 1870, horrified by the death and destruction she had witnessed during the Civil War, Howe issued what has come to be known as her ‘Mothers’ Day Proclamation.’ Howe urged the creation of an international body of women who could find ways to avoid war and bloodshed.
(Source: Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum)

Meanwhile, in Virginia (an area that would become West Virginia), Methodist Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis reached similar conclusions.

Jarvis was convinced that mothers had to work for peace because they could see the ravages of war in their husbands and in their sons, in a way that was so focused and so clear that their voices would be powerful.

So she started clubs to talk with mothers about hydration for fevered babies, about sanitation, and about the importance of nutrition for children.
(Source: United Methodist Communications)

Ann Jarvis lived in an area containing both Union and Confederate troops and supporters. Boldly, she insisted that

The women’s groups she organized help both Confederate and Union troops who were sick or wounded. In 1868, despite threats of violence, she organized a ‘Mother’s Friendship Day’ to bring families from both sides of the war together to try to restore a sense of community.
(Source: Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum)

Later, Ann’s daughter, Anna Jarvis, also a Methodist, was a non-stop champion for creating Mother’s Day as a national holiday. Her dream came to life in 1914 when President Wilson issued a proclamation of the first national Mother’s Day.

But Anna Jarvis’ story did not end there. Capitalism quickly turned Mother’s Day into a huge windfall for sellers of flowers and greeting cards. Anna Jarvis rebelled against that crass commercialization.

In 1922, Jarvis endorsed an open boycott against the florists who raised the price of white carnations every May. The following year, she crashed a retail confectioner convention to protest the industry’s economic gouging of the day. In 1925, she interrupted a national convention of the American War Mothers because a majority of the money raised by the organization’s white carnation sales went into the pockets of professional organizers rather than going to aid World War I veterans.
(Source: Smithsonian Magazine)

So there we have it: Mother’s Day is meant to be so much more than nostalgic sentimentality. The very idea for the day was born out of the need for non-violent solutions to our problems and an intense desire for peace with justice.

I’m convinced we could make similar statements about Sabbath at the culmination of the first creation story in Genesis. That creation story in general—and the Sabbath that concludes it in particular—are not about nostalgia or cheap sentimentality. Rather, they are radical calls for peace with justice. Peace with justice for you, for me, for us—but especially for the most vulnerable among us.

This Sunday, May 10, we honor mothers and all the women in our lives who have been as mothers for us. One of the ways we honor them is by reading about Sabbath (both in Genesis and in Deuteronomy) through the lens of justice and liberation. That’s what we’ll explore this Sunday in my sermon Back to the Beginning! Rest & Resist.

Participate in our worship experiences Sundays at 9:30 a.m. in person at 1210 S. Ridge Road in Minooka. Or via livestream on our Minooka UMC Facebook page or on our Minooka UMC YouTube Channel.

Whether in person or online, all are invited to our welcoming and affirming congregation.

Plotting Goodness, 

Pastor Dave