May 10, 2015 – Mother’s Day: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Today is not only the sixth Sunday of Easter, but as we all know, it is Mother’s Day, so I find it odd to use all the “Father” language we hear in the gospel lesson today. And of course we wish all of you who are celebrating this holiday a very Happy Mother’s Day. It is a day we honor moms and all the ways that they are a part of our lives. For some, this is their very first Mother’s Day – a special moment to be sure. For most, this is a wonderful day – especially moms who get a chance to go off to a spa, or get a nice dinner out. I, for one, fully expect my son, Bogart, to have a present for me when I get home…being that he is a cat, I will likely be presented with a hairball as my gift.
But this is also a difficult day, or one that brings about mixed feelings, for many. Those whose mother’s have died, or those whose mothers are absent – in whatever way that may mean, for these sons and daughters, Mother’s Day (and Father’s day) can be troubling, awkward, or even painful. And so, as I said last year, that is that is why I like to think of today as less about Mothers specifically, and more about women – mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, nieces, aunts, and friends. Women who have been a part of our lives – nurturing, mentoring, loving, caring. That is what we really celebrate today – the journey of women – us, if we are women, and those women who have been a part of our lives. Because family is not defined by blood, but by one thing – loving relationship.
Now, one of the reasons we celebrate our parents on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is because we are grateful for something – something that was given to us – something that in healthy parent-child relationships is unconditional…love. When we think about the ideal of a mother’s love, we often think about the symbiotic relationship of womb and fetus coming into being in the form of a newborn baby, fed with love by her or his mother. We think of the creative process of the world as Mother Earth. There is a real sense of pure joy and peace in that image. Mothers as the ones to feed, to nurture, to warm, and to love. It is for me, one of the reasons that if I had to choose a parental title for God, it would be mother – the one that gives birth to us, feeds us, and cares for us. Yet, this maternal ideal is not only something that can be overwhelming for new mothers, but as I said, it is also a fantasy for many, whose relationships with their mothers, or with their children, is anything but the stereotypical idyllic mother-child bond.
Many folks are likely in the “it’s complicated” place when it comes to parents and children, standing among the Hallmark cards wanting to throw their hands up. Even biblical mothers had their struggles. Don’t believe me, check out these “Top Ten Quotes from Biblical Mothers”:
- Daniel! Get your hand out of that lion. You don’t know where it’s been!
- David! I told you not to play in the house with that sling! Go practice your harp. We pay good money for those lessons!
- Abraham! Stop wandering around the countryside and get home for supper (and get a job already)!
- Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (oh how I wish I had given you easier names)! Leave those clothes outside, you smell like a dirty ol’ furnace!
- Cain! Get off your brother! You’re going to kill him someday!
- Noah! No, you can’t keep them! I told you, don’t bring home any more strays! (why are there always two?)
- Gideon! Have you been hiding in that wine press again? Look at your clothes!
- James and John! No more burping contests at the dinner table, please. People are going to call you the sons of thunder!
- Judas! Have you been in my purse again?
- Jesus! What do you think, you were born in a barn? (of course that mother rode around on a camel with a bumper sticker that read “My son is God.”
And you thought the bible was all patriarchal without a single care for women or mothers…ummm, well, that part is mostly true. Still, our lessons today, the gospel, the reading from Acts, even the Psalm, is so perfectly timed for this Sunday, a day when we celebrate loving relationships.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is still talking…and talking…and talking. In fact, in this bit, what is called the “Farewell Discourses,” Jesus is sort of like the actor that refuses to die on stage. Remember last week, the authors had Jesus talking about his being the grape vine, with us as the branches. And as I said, the grapevines are messy, interwoven, things. It is an image of relationship. An image that, like most relationships, is, well, sometimes complicated. This week the gospel says that Jesus is telling his disciples “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends… You did not choose me but I chose you.”
The most important part of that whole passage, well yes – the “love one another,” but also this: “You did not choose me but I chose you.” We so often think of relationship as being one of mutual choice. But so often it is not. Love is often not something that just happens, it is something we choose to do. And sometimes, that choice is a very difficult one to make. That is what we hear about in Acts.
To really understand what is going on here, we need to know a few things about what has taken place before this passage, so here is the cliff notes version. Previously on the Peter channel, a Centurion, one of the Roman leaders, has an odd vision that tells him to get this guy Peter to his house. Meanwhile, back at the apostle ranch, Peter is having the weirdest dream and is second guessing that dinner he ate earlier. In the dream, he sees a sheet filling the sky and in it are all these really great animals – animals he cannot eat…and God tells him to go ahead and feast on anything he wants. While Peter would sure love to have him some bacon, being the good Jewish boy that he is responds with “No way God…is this some sort of test? Am I on Candid Camera or something?” But God insists that whatever God has created cannot ever be deemed unclean by humans, so fire up the grill and eat up Peter. Now, nobody asked the animals how they felt about it, but I am guessing they wished God would have told Peter all about the virtues of being a vegetarian. Anyway, some folks drop by telling Peter to go to this Centurion’s house, which is a big deal because again, Peter is being told to go somewhere that good Jewish boys (or girls) just don’t go – into the home of a Gentile. I mean his mother would be furious!
Fast forward and Peter sees that the Holy Spirit is with the Centurion, and like the dream, Peter realizes that human law or understanding of God has no bearing on how God actually works in the world. God can do whatever God wants with whomever God chooses. Period. Peter then explains this to his astounded followers, who just can’t quite understand why Peter is there with “those people” (probably among them is his very disappointed mother). So the newly evolved Peter says “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And likely his proud mom said “you heard my son, that’s my boy!”
In other words…God’s grace doesn’t follow us into the world, we follow it, and God brings us into the movement of the Holy Spirit that is already active, already present, we just have to be open to seeing it and to being a part of it. And that, as Peter and his followers discovered, is a choice we make. We choose whether we will participate in the on going work of God in the world – and God hopes we do choose to join in.
Unfortunately, we often don’t.
We draw lines of exclusion, and fervently stick by them, even fighting and killing over them. We essentially make the choice not to be a part of God’s work, not to be in relationship, not to love as Christ loved us. And sometimes, we have the audacity to say that God tells us (or the bible tells us) to make that awful choice.
As the psalmist proclaimed, we have to sing a new song, a new song of God’s love with others. I say with, and not to, as God is already at work singing that song…we need to just help others to hear it. We need to help them because, through our own human tendency to exclude and marginalize, we have done a pretty good job of helping people to feel like orphans in the world, to beat their ears with the words of hate so that they are unable to hear the song of God’s love anymore.
We need to be mothers and fathers to all, not from some misguided and patronizing place of arrogance, as though we are saying “look at all the good things I am doing God – I am soooo getting a good spot in heaven, right?” This was the horrific mistake of so many generations of missionaries – coming from well intended places, they went out into remote regions of the world acting as if they were the ones bringing God to them. Nothing could be further from the truth. God was already with them, and we barged in, tried to force them into our version of how to do this believing in God thing “right.” And oh how wrong we were. We were like the stereotypical mother-in-law who criticizes everything her daughter-in-law does or doesn’t do, as if our way was the only way to be in relationship with God. Thankfully, that is a stereotype of the mother-in-law – true for some, but not for most; and, also thankfully, most people of faith have learned the lesson of our arrogant, even if well intended, past.
And yet the world is still filled with the violence born of hate, born of exclusion, born of our choices. We need to get going with this singing a new song – the world is in need of it now more than ever. Thankfully, Jesus gives us the music to do it.
In the passage from John, Jesus “goes on to talk about how he loved us: by laying down his life for us. That’s how we are to love one another.”[1] That’s the sheet music for the song we are to sing.
Okay, this may sound extreme, but think about it. “Whenever we do for others we lay down something of ourselves. When we visit the sick, we lay down something of ourselves. When we refuse to bully […], and stand up to those who do, we lay down something of ourselves. When we befriend those whom others shun, we lay down something of ourselves. When we share of our own short supply of food with those who are hungry, we lay down something of ourselves. We lay down our lives.”[2] We put aside our fear. We put our lives on the line. We love. And loving requires us to risk something of ourselves.
This is not always easy either. “Love is not always a warm fuzzy feeling. Love is a decision we make every day when we get out of bed. The decision needs to be renewed every day because feelings come and go.”[3] I am sure there are many mothers who will tell you that there were times when love for their child was as much choice as it was instinct (I am sure my mom would tell you that). We are called to be in relationship with each other as Christ was with his followers. It is relationship born of choice, and it is a decision to die for that relationship, that saves us.
We have to die to our selfishness, and live into God’s unconditional love.
We have to die to our hatred, and live into God’s inclusive love.
We have to die to our fear, and live into God’s peaceable kin-dom of love.
Jesus made a choice – a choice to love us – and that choice changed the world.
We must also make a choice – a choice that in every way will also change the world.
It is a choice that won’t always be easy.
It is a choice that will often be to fake it till we make it.
It is a choice to die for that love, so that we and our sisters and brothers all over the world may live.
It is a choice to love, and it is a choice that only we can make.
It is an invitation from God to love as we are loved.
What will be our RSVP?
Amen.
[Sermons as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday]
[1] Bob Eldan, from “Preaching Tips.”
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 10, 2015
The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
1st Reading – Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
2nd Reading – 1 John 5:1-6
Gospel – John 15:9-17
