And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. Matthew 20: 27-28

Silent Servant

I've made quilts for all of my children except the oldest whose favorite quilt was lovingly made for him by his great-grandmother.  For each of the three girls' quilts I used scraps of fabric left over from the days when I made their dresses, nightgowns, and shorts sets.  Using a simple pattern called Churn Dash, I cut and assembled the pieces into twin size quilts for their bunk and trundle beds. I used the Log Cabin Pattern for the four boys' quilts. For the central 'chimney' squares I used a purchased red cotton fabric sprinkled with tiny white dots. The 'logs' built up around each red square were made from strips cut from old blue jeans that either they, a family member, or friend had contributed to the cause.   Each quilt took quite a long time to make and since I'm not the best seamstress in the world, each had flaws, but still, they were made, they were warm, and best of all, the children were pleased with them.  The quilts pleased me, too, because I'd put to use pieces of fabric and old clothes that would have otherwise been thrown away, and, because I enjoyed thinking of the children sleeping warm beneath all those memories on cold winter nights. 

            Lately, as I've been reading Scripture, I've begun to think about the people behind the events recorded there.  Not the central characters, the ones with whom we're all familiar; King David, Esther, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, or even the lesser, nameless characters mentioned like Naaman's servant girl or Peter's mother-in-law, but the behind-the-scenes characters, those not mentioned at all.  The people whose presence is merely implied by the narrative.  The silent servants.

"Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic.  Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece.  They said therefore among themselves, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be," that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says:  "They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots."  Therefore the soldiers did these things."  John 19:23-24

            As I read that passage this morning, I wondered, 'Who wove that seamless tunic?" Almost certainly it was a woman because the making of clothing was women's work in Jesus' day as it has been in most cultures and time periods.  Could it have been a woman mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament?  The grateful and worshipful Mary Magdalene or the industrious Martha?  Maybe the tunic was a garment commissioned by a wealthy believer to be made especially for Him?  Or perhaps His own mother was the woman who lovingly wove that fine tunic for Him.  Whoever made that garment, and however He came to be wearing it on the day of His crucifixion, one thing is certain; that tunic was woven for that day and that purpose.  Had it not been valuable and seamless the soldiers would have ripped it apart and shared the fabric among themselves as they had done with His outer garment. In our industrial society where fabric is manufactured on high-powered looms by the thousands of yards every day, people think nothing of throwing away clothes that have outlived their usefulness, or even their brief time of being considered fashionable.  But in Jesus' day, fabric was a precious, hard-won commodity.  And that tunic must have been something special, indeed.

            As I cut pieces for my children's quilts and stitched them together, I spent a lot of time thinking about many different things.  Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I cried, sometimes I gave instructions (some gentle, some sharp) to the children who ran in and out while I worked.  Sometimes I stopped to homeschool, to cook supper, to nurse the baby, or to fall into bed at night. All of these events were sewn into each quilt, and a lot of time elapsed during the making of each one.  How long did it take for that unnamed tunic weaver of Jesus' day to complete her task, and what interruptions came her way?  However long it was, and whatever interrupted her, I'm glad she stayed with the task.

            That tunic, that seamless and perfect piece of clothing, testifies to the existence of its anonymous weaver. a woman whose name and life we know nothing about.  But we do know that she was someone who was committed to excellence, and that's quite a lot to know about any person. While the quilts I made for my children are anything but seamless or perfect, they are silent witnesses to the fact that there was a mind that planned them and hands that constructed them.  They speak also, of their maker's love for her children and history, of her desire to carry on Early American folk tradition, and of her appreciation for simpler, more practical, less materialistic times.

             As any mother can tell you, whether she works outside the home or exclusively within its walls, being a mother in modern American society is about the most thankless, unrecognized position a woman can have.  But just because we are invisible and anonymous to our society, that doesn't mean our homemaking or child-rearing tasks are any less significant in God's plan.  Without a weaver there would have been no tunic.  Without a quilt maker there would be no quilt.  Without a mother there would be no child; and more importantly, without a mother (and a father, too, of course) who perseveres, there'd be a lot of wild, undisciplined, "unwoven" children.  So, whenever I'm feeling particularly invisible or anonymous, I'll try to remember that silent servant, the implied tunic maker without whose perseverance and commitment to excellence there could have been one prophecy left unfulfilled.  Who but God knows the eternal significance of our tasks?

Daye Phillppo

July 2008

See Daye's biography on the "Getting to Know Us" link of this website.