What Does Love Require? - Guest talk

What Does Love Require?

 June 1, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem 

Rob Lawson, guest speaker

Luke 10: 38-42; John 12: 1-3;  Heaven and Hell, Para. 564

           

On the surface, the New Testament story of Martha and Mary might be summed up as an example in life of the practical vs. the impractical—of Martha busily getting the house in order for her guests and Mary sitting at her Teacher’s feet, apparently oblivious of the chores required. Put yourself in Martha’s shoes (or sandals) for a minute. When Jesus came knocking, He brought 12 disciples with Him. Imagine opening your home to 13 hungry and thirsty men who had been traveling on foot all day. If you didn't make dinner preparations, set the table, offer them an opportunity to wash up, who would? Martha represents the pragmatic, boots-on-the-ground individual. When there’s a crisis, thank God for the Marthas of this world who step up, give directions, and provide solutions. Mary, on the other hand, is the dreamer, the impractical one. Her priority is to focus on one guest—Jesus. She sits still to listen to His teaching, and then before the meal, she washes His feet with expensive oil, using her hair. There is no doubt about Martha’s frustration with her sister’s behavior; she complains directly to Jesus. And when Jesus takes Mary’s side? I can just hear a din of complaints from the sidelines—foul! No way! Get out of here!!

The story of Martha and Mary depicts an ageless, human situation. What do we do when someone pushes our buttons? How do we respond to strangers, neighbors, even friends and family, who annoy us? We can choose to ignore the crying baby at a restaurant. Perhaps shrug off the heedless driver who passes us too fast. Every day we encounter situations we turn away from and do not confront. But some events, some circumstances should not and cannot be ignored. Such was the case in the very building we are sitting in, months after its consecration in 1844.

In April of that year, the Bath congregation was faced with a dilemma: How to respond to a parishioner whose presence had created tension and discomfort within the society for over a year. The lady in question was Mary Waldron. Her full name was Mary Elizabeth Augusta Chandler Prescott Welch Waldron. Crazily, she preferred to use her first initials M.E.A.C. with her current married name. When she joined our congregation, her name is in our minute book as M.E.A.C. Waldron.

Mary was the older daughter of Dr. Benjamin Prescott, one of the then town’s leading doctors. Prescott, a successful practitioner of homeopathic treatment, moved to Bath with his family in 1825 from Dresden, Maine. He had inoculated the townspeople in 1832 during a feared imminent outbreak of cholera. Nineteenth-century histories typically relate the exploits of men. So the fact that Bath historian Parker McCobb Reed describes Mary as a “popular lady” and another chronicler records that she was “a fascinating woman who married younger husbands,” indicates that Ms. Prescott was no shrinking violet.

At 20, Mary married a wealthy young Bostonian, Captain Benjamin Welch. Welch’s family was in the merchant shipping business. The young couple lived in Charlestown, where their only child, Frank Welch, was born in 1835. Shortly afterwards, they relocated to Bath. Capt. Welch died two years later at the age of 29. After her husband’s demise, Mary met Charles Waldron, a Bowdoin College medical student and the son of a Bath doctor. One of the prerequisites of Bowdoin’s two-year course of medical studies was to be apprenticed to an area doctor. In his final year, Charles studied under Dr. Prescott, and fell under the influence of Prescott’s daughter, the widow Welch. Charles and Mary were married in September 1840, while he was still in medical school. A year later, Mary gave birth to her second child, Charliana Waldron. Charles died the following spring at the age of 24. (Frank Waldron Pictured above)

Weeks after Charles’s demise in 1842, the widow Waldron and another Bath doctor, the young Dr. William E. Payne, came to an “Enquiring” meeting held by the Rev. Samuel Dike, the young minister of the Bath Society. The purpose of these meetings was to answer questions and to invite those interested to join the church. To appear in public, as innocent as it may have been, in the company of one of the town’s most eligible bachelors and just weeks after the death of her husband, would have been viewed in those days as indiscreet. Dr. Payne joined the church that April, followed by M.E.A.C. Waldron.  (Dr William Payne, left)

            By spring 1843, a year after joining the church, Payne and Waldron were a cause célèbre. Dr. Payne had broken off his engagement to a Miss Betsy Ann Hatch and had “transferred” his affections for the twice-wedded Mrs. Waldron. The uproar that erupted within the Bath congregation over how to deal with the indiscretions of widow Mrs. Waldron with Dr. Payne and the shame brought on the jilted fiancée Miss Hatch could not have come at a worse moment for the church. The youthful congregation was inexperienced in handling such matters, and the turmoil coincided with the much-anticipated construction of our current church.

Dr. Payne attempted to defuse the situation, writing to withdraw his membership, as recorded in our church minutes, “from the society in consequence of the reproach brought upon it by his late conduct.”

           

By July 15, Zina Hyde, one of the founders of the Bath Society, was on the diplomatic offensive. He notes in his journal, “Long talk with Mr. Sewall respecting the care of Mrs. Waldron and Dr. Payne who have now broken off their engagement but not until they have the means of bringing the society into a very disturbed state.” Hyde recognized the dangerous waters the church was navigating. If the society should act as his Old North Congregational Church had acted—excommunicating readers of Swedenborg’s work—the society’s conduct would be no better than the “Old Church” they left. However, there had to be order. The church must stand up to bad or inappropriate behavior.

            Zina especially must have been aware of the scrutiny the Bath Society was under. In 1816, as a young widower and an enthusiastic receiver of the New Church doctrines, he had been the target of gossip. In a penciled note I found last summer while researching this story at the Maine Maritime Musem, he states that after the death of his first wife, a story spread in Bath that he daily set the table for her, lit a candle, and conversed with her ghostly spirit. No doubt the rumors were encouraged by knowledge of Zina’s belief in the immediacy of the spiritual world around us. Confronting his accusers, Zina published a letter to the contrary in the local paper.

Public outcry and gossip surrounding Mrs. Waldron, Miss Hatch, and Dr. Payne threatened to implode the Bath Society. At first, the volatile situation was diffused through Zina’s intercessions and diplomacy. The penitent Dr. Payne corrected his course over the summer, patching things up with his fiancé Betsy Ann. But what were they to do with the irrepressible Mrs. Waldron?

The unrepentant Mrs. Waldron’s continued presence at church and her refusal to admit to any improprieties gnawed at the forbearance of several church members. Even one church member who had come to the defense of the widow and the young Dr. Payne and who believed both had already suffered much, admitted that their conduct, “has been such that the Society cannot regard them as innocent.”

On the evening of April 30, 1844, while Hyde was in Boston for medical treatment, Brother Sewall, another founding member of the Bath Society, presided over a special meeting in the newly constructed church to deal with the troublesome Mrs. Waldron. The stated purpose of the meeting was “to confer upon the difficulties which have agitated (and do now agitate) the Society for this past year.” Sewall’s motion read: “Whereas the members of the Society have regarded the course of conduct pursued by our Sister Mrs. Waldron during the last fourteen months as giving offence to the true and vital principles of Religion which must constitute the church of the Lord, consequently feeling that an internal Separation had already taken place between us. It is hereby requested that Mrs. Waldron withdraw from the Communion table of the Society.”  (William Sewall, above left)

A vote was taken. Now before you hear the outcome, let’s take our own vote. Everyone close your eyes . . . no peeking! Knowing what you know of her conduct, all those in favor of suspending Mary’s right to communion, raise your hands. [Note: Only one individual voted in the affirmative.] OK. Now all those not in favor of suspending Mary’s right to communion, raise your hands. [Note: Everyone but one member of the congregation, voted not to suspend Mrs. Waldron’s right to communion.] Well, that wasn’t even close! Zina Hyde would be proud of this congregation! How much more tolerant we have become.

And what happened 170 years ago? A bomb of dissension was detonated, setting into motion the very event Hyde had skillfully avoided the previous summer in dealing with Dr. Payne. A slim majority of men and women voted to suspend Mrs. Waldron’s right to communion. It was not a unanimous decision. Many members were absent, including more than 12 women. Several present abstained, and Mrs. Farnham, the wife of A. B. Farnham, the builder of the church, voted no. She was joined in the negative vote by two of the Church Committee members, (people in authority we might call in another denomination Deacons).

As a result of the church’s action, the Prescott family sent letters of resignation. This was a large group of Mrs. Waldron’s mother, Mrs. Waldron’s sister and brother-in-law, and others sympathetic to the Prescotts. John B. Swanton Jr., one of the church “pillars,” questioned the authority of the Society to suspend Mrs. Waldron’s or anyone’s right to the sacraments and refused to continue serving as Secretary and as Treasurer. The Rev. Dike was pressed into service as Secretary Pro-tem.

From his sick bed in Boston, Hyde met one-on-one with Swanton and corresponded with Sewall and Swanton trying to find a way to neutralize Sewall’s headstrong action. The three men went back and forth with suggestions. Swanton was championing Dr. Payne and Mrs. Waldron. Sewall was representing the Allens’ and possibly his own and his wife’s hostility toward Mrs. Waldron. Hyde was brokering for compromise. As he pointed out to Sewall, “Your motion I could have agreed to, had it been somewhat modified and made to imply only temporary suspension, whereas now it seems to amount to excommunication.” (Rev. Samuel Dike, right)

Swanton and Hyde encouraged Sewall and others to make amends by speaking with the injured parties. Swanton (his beautiful Greek Revival house still stands and is next to the church) proposed a resolution to quench the gossip: “Resolved: That we regard it the duty of all in the society together with our Brother [Dr. Payne] and Sister [Mrs. Waldron] to seek by a life of charity and mutual good will to blot out all memory of our past difficulties. That it is our duty to avoid all allusion to the subject ourselves and to close our ears against any allusions to the subject by others. And all such in the Society or out of the Society as are disposed to allude to the subject to the prejudice of the parties cannot be regarded otherwise than as enemies of the church.”  (Miriam Dike, left, wife of Samuel)

Hyde’s indefatigable spirit would not give up on reaching a compromise. His resiliency and determination to preserve the struggling congregation, his “Jerusalem” on earth, prevailed. In May 1845 at an afternoon meeting at his home, the congregation voted to modify Sewall’s resolution from the previous spring. Citing “the injunctions of our Lord as given in the 22nd chapter of Matt and adopted as our rule of conduct,” the congregation charitably offered the widow Waldron its love and affection. “Resolved, that said vote be and hereby is not regarded as designing excommunication or unlimited but limited suspension and only until such time as the person shall manifest a desire to return to the confidence and affection of the society by expressing such a desire to the Pastor.” In effect, Mrs. Waldron’s right to take Communion was left to her “freedom and sense of propriety.”  All that was needed was her initiating a discussion with the Rev. Dike.

           

And so our young society weathered the stormy seas of human relations. Brother Payne corrected his errant ways, married Ms. Hatch, and eventually became one of the pillars of the church. The Payne children would be baptized in the church, and in 1847, Dr. Payne became a loyal and steadfast church officer. His rapid handwriting, as secretary, records in our church minutes nearly thirty years of events. In 1846, Widow Waldron found another young husband, James Lemont Brown, and left Bath. They were married in Trinity Church, NYC (left) , and then relocated in Boston where Brown ran a wholesale jewelry business until his untimely death.

            This brings us back to the story of Martha and Mary. How do we choose to work with difficult people in our lives? Do we take the initial response of the majority and confront the situation with strong language and actions to punish the offender? Or do we take that famous passage from Matthew to heart, as Zina Hyde did, to love our Lord above all others and to love our neighbor as ourselves?

           

At a deeper level, we all have within us the practicality side of Martha and the impracticality tendency of Mary. Finding the right balance between these two inclinations is an everyday reality. Think of accommodating Zina’s more loving approach when reigning in that impractical but endearing urge to take the untrodden path. Down deep inside we know we’ll get there faster the tried-and-true way, but the allure of the unknown cannot always be denied. For me, the answer to the opening question: What Does Love Require? is clear. It is charity to our neighbor. And we can begin close at home by being kinder, gentler with ourselves.

Heaven and Hell (Dole), Para. 564

There are two ways of being in power. One comes from love for our neighbor and the other from love for ourselves. In essence, these two kinds of power are exact opposites. People who are empowered by love for their neighbor intend the good of everyone and love nothing more than being useful—that is, serving others (serving others means willing well and helping others, whether that is one's church, country, community, or fellow citizen). This is their love and the delight of their hearts. As such people are raised to high positions they are delighted; but the delight is not because of the honor but because of the constructive things they can now do more abundantly and at a higher level. This is what empowerment is like in the heavens.