Advent Day 6: Susanna Wesley
If Mama's rockin', don't come knockin'
I’m happy to take up a little space if it glorifies God.
Advent Day 6: Susanna Wesley (1669-1742)
Brothers John and Charles Wesley were two of history’s great spiritual geniuses. Their practical approach to religion took God out of the pews and into the streets (and factories, poorhouses and prisons), inspiring millions to believe the gospel news that they were beloved children of God, no matter who they were, where they came from, or what they’d done in their past. The Great Awakening, as early Methodism is now often called, unleashed a passion for making on Earth as it is in Heaven a reality. This resulted not only in the formation of a new Christian denomination, it led directly to the most sweeping social changes of the 18th and 19th centuries: abolition of slavery, child labor laws, prison reform, as well as the creation of countless hospitals, colleges and orphanages.
But the Wesleys’ free-range spirituality did not go unopposed. In an era when outside-the-box religion could get you jailed or killed, they endured decades of death threats and defamation. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Where, you may ask, did the Wesley boys learn such strength in the face of fire? From their mother, of course.
Susanna was born in 1669 to well-known Puritan parents. Nowadays, we tend to paint Puritans in a broad stroke of buckle shoes, scarlet letters and witch trials. But the truth is, much of what they espoused are niceties we now take for granted: systematic scientific experimentation, weekends off so people could rest and replenish, and education for all, including girls (Fun fact: the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony were the most literate society of the 17th century).
Susanna was raised to be spiritually precocious. Her parents insisted she not blindly accept what they, her preachers or teachers told her, but to verify her facts and faith through her own lived experience and by her own heart. This led her, at age twelve, to join the Church of England her parents had abandoned decades earlier. However, though Susanna became a member of the state-sanctioned religion, she always remained somewhat out on the edge of it.
At nineteen she married Samuel Wesley, a preacher and fellow Puritan-turned-Anglican. Their union was fraught. Both were stubborn, quick to anger and slow to apologize. Money problems plagued them. Twice their home burned to the ground. In addition, church business often took Samuel far from home. Twice he was tossed in debtors prison. And, once, he stormed off for a year after Susanna refused to say amen to a prayer he’d made for King William (Susanna was not a fan).
These long absences meant Susanna got plenty of experience holding down the fort, and the freedom to do it how she wanted. And nothing was more important than her children’s spiritual formation. In a move that would inspire Charles and John’s methodical approach to religion, she met weekly with each of her ten sons and daughters for spiritual direction. During these sessions she quizzed them on their ideas of God, scripture and prayer. She did not dictate their faith, but taught them to think for themselves and search their own hearts to find God, using reason, scripture, tradition and experience (later known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral).
Susanna led by example, following her own daily regimen of prayer, scripture reading and meditation. But with ten kids, finding a quiet space to practice was no small feat. With limited options, she designated a rocking chair by a fireplace as her sacred retreat. Before entering a state of meditative prayer, she would pull her apron over her head to conceal her face, then set herself to rocking. When the children saw their mother rocking they knew she was communing with God, and absolutely under no circumstances should she be interrupted.
Susanna Wesley did not lack for spiritual confidence and capability, and she passed these traits on to her children. This was not always appreciated in her or them. In fact, to trace the roots of John and Charles Wesley’s courageous spirituality, we could do no better than examine the long, cold winter of 1711-12, when Samuel was called away to London on church business, leaving Susanna in charge of their home and an interim preacher, the Rev. Godfrey Inman, in charge of the pulpit.
When Inman proved a dull preacher, Susanna launched an alternative Sunday afternoon service in her home. As it turned out, Susanna had the gift for bringing the gospel which Inman did not. Soon, Inman’s morning service was nearly empty while Susanna’s attracted hundreds and had to move to the barn to accommodate the crowds.
Inman wasted no time complaining to Samuel Wesley in London. Samuel’s letter addressing the complaints to Susanna does not survive. But Susanna’s reply does. From it, it’s clear Samuel had pleaded with her to cease and desist by arguing three key points:
Social convention and church law: as a woman, preaching was both unorthodox and illegal under the rules of the Church of England.
Her gender: women were to be subservient to men in spiritual matters.
The reputation of Samuel and their parish: What would people think of him if his wife was a rogue preacher?
Susanna cleverly agreed with Samuel’s objections before demolishing them.
As to the charge she was unorthodox, Susanna said true enough. But she reminded her husband that so was anyone who led people deeper into love and grace. She might have added, but didn’t, that Jesus himself was highly unorthodox, preaching outdoors, fraternizing with outcasts, touching the untouchables and generally running afoul of his era’s religious gatekeepers…while also having to constantly answer, as she was now, by what authority he preached his gospel.
As far as being a woman, again, she was guilty as charged. But in Samuel’s absence was she not responsible for the spiritual care of their children and community? What would God say if she shirked her duties?
Finally, as for how all this reflected on the reputations of Samuel, Rev. Inman, and the Epworth Rectory, was it her fault if people found her alt-service so appealing? If there was someone who could do it as good as her, she would happily quit. But since there wasn’t, well…who was she to deny the people what they wanted?
Another flurry of letters ensued. Finally, Susanna shut the topic down:
If you think fit to dissolve my meeting, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; rather, send me your command, in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, if she couldn’t spread the gospel, that was on Samuel, and he’s the one who would have to answer to God for it.
Worn down, Samuel finally surrendered to the dissident movement under his own roof. Susanna’s meetings continued, providing inspiration for the Methodist societies her sons would later form.
It’s not hard to understand the attraction Susanna’s faith held for her neighbors in Epworth. At a time when religious life in England was highly dogmatic and compartmentalized, she took a holistic view of the Divine as in and through everything.
Help me, Lord, to remember that religion is not to be confined to the church...nor exercised only in prayer and meditation, but that everywhere I am in your Presence.
This 360-degree spirituality meant that Susanna saw the dividing of a human life into sacred and secular parts—say one thing in church, do another outside—as a false dichotomy. If people were really serious about their lives, she said, the words they spoke in church and how they acted should match what was in their hearts. There should not be a Sunday self and a rest-of-the-week self.
Echoing St. Francis, Susanna believed the good news of Jesus was best when it was lived out loud.
There are two things to do about the gospel: believe it and behave it.
This philosophy predicted the importance her sons would place on the spiritual disciplines as a path toward living a sacred life of love, justice and mercy.
Susanna recognized, however, that cultivating a sacred life was full of stumbling blocks and setbacks. When faced with the gap between who you were and who you wanted to be, she offered this advice:
If you want a quality, act as if you already have it. If you want to be courageous, act as if you were—and as you act and persevere in acting, so you tend to become.
In other words, fake it till you make it.
Even after her children were grown, she continued offering them spiritual direction through copious letters and various other writings, including commentaries on The Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandments.
Like the Dissenter she was at heart, Susanna always cared more for God than the social structures of humans. She was more than willing to buck the system to bring the gospel to people. So, when her sons’ religious revival took off, provoking the ire of the Anglican establishment, not only was she sympathetic, she aligned with them wholeheartedly. After Samuel died, she moved into the Foundry in London, the epicenter of the Methodist movement. There, she helped John and Charles sharpen their thinking around some of their most controversial ideas.
One of these was lay preaching. The Church of England strictly forbade it. To avoid trouble, John Wesley also forbade it in his movement. This turned out to be a case of spiritual whack-a-mole, as the genius of Methodism was how it inspired and empowered everyday people to share the good news of Jesus. Nevertheless, John tried to toe the line.
Things came to a head with the case of one Thomas Maxfield who’d begun speaking at The Foundry. When John tried to stop him, Susanna gave her son a warning:
…take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself.
As always, Susanna put her faith in results, not the way things have always been done. She encouraged her children to do the same. Thereafter, John softened his position on lay preaching which came to be one of the great gifts of Methodism.
Another controversy was female leadership. In its first fifty years, the Wesleyan revival offered opportunities not available to Christian women since the earliest days of the Jesus movement. Not surprisingly, Susanna felt warmly toward the women who led prayers and taught at the Foundry, and she encouraged them with her presence and advice. Unfortunately, after the deaths of John and Charles in the late 1700s, and as the movement institutionalized, women were once again relegated to non-leadership roles. It would take another two hundred years before Susanna’s vision of female leadership in spiritual life would become a reality.
In the very truest sense, Susanna came to be seen as the mother of Methodism, praised for:
her courage, the high tone of her mind, its independence, and its self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings and the practical direction given to (those feelings)…which were visibly repeated in the character and conduct of her sons.
John Wesley credited Susanna as the inspiration for his life’s work.
My mother was the source from which I drew the guiding principles of my life. I learned more about Christianity from her than from all the theologians in England.
Without her, he said, there would have been no Methodism.
Susanna died at the Foundry in 1742. She is buried in London’s Dissenters cemetery alongside other famous religious non-conformists Daniel Defoe, William Blake and John Bunyan.
Reflect
Susanna Wesley believed that everyone should have the freedom to follow their spiritual vocation and passion. Today think of someone—an individual or group—who is prevented from following their spiritual vocation due to institutional rules or customs around who they are (e.g. women, LGBT folks, etc). Say a prayer for the leaders of those institutions that they might evolve to recognize and benefit from the gifts of all their members.
If you want to go full-on Advent—remember a big part of Advent is about facing reality—consider where you might have hang-ups about certain people serving in specific roles or settings. Journal or just think about where these hang-ups come from. If they don’t stand up to scrutiny, what can you do to start letting them go?
Holiday Happenings at Life In The City
Dec 10, 11:15 am: LITC’s original holiday musical, Make Room In Your Heart.
Dec 21, 7 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the darkest night of the year.
Dec 23, 6 pm: Christmas Eve-Eve, an annual LITC tradition
Dec 24, 11:15 am: LITC’s regular Sunday service
Dec 31, 11:15 am: A fun, casual service with cookies and coffee to welcome 2024
Ready For More?
Read the Introduction to the 2023 edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets.
Find more mystics, saints and prophets in our Archive.
Feedback
Did you catch a typo? Do you have suggestions for mystics, saints and prophets we might cover in the future? Leave feedback in comments section below or email Greg Durham at greg@lifeinthecityaustin.org.
I love her open-mindedness and the spiritual direction she offered each of her children. What an inspiration!
I love Susanna and the apron over the head prayer closet! I love that she discipled each of her children. I loved that she preached and encouraged others to do so as well. Thank you for telling me even more of her exemplary life!