A Mother's Day Sermon by Pastor Fran
6 EASTER C/2007
Franklin Delano Roosevelt once reported that even after he had become president of our country, he still never went outdoors without his mother calling after him, “Franklin! Are you sure you’re dressed warmly enough?”
Another man wrote in to Reader’s Digest with a similar observation. This happened when computers were first becoming popular. “My mother,” he writes, “has always treated me like her baby, no matter what my age. After turning 30, I purchased a computer and learned to use it. Thinking I’d impress her with my skill and maturity, I sent her a well-written letter, complete with computer graphics, borders and an elaborate typeface.
“I phone to ask what she thought of the letter. ‘It’s lovely, dear,’ she replied. ‘I have it hanging on the refrigerator for all the neighbors to see.’”
A little gentle kidding aside, this is our day to remember and to thank mothers for the care and love which, at its best, characterizes what being a parent is all about. And we place this observance in the context of our faith. Mother’s Day is not a religious holiday, but we know that these things go together. Think about it this way. God made us in his image. That image is clouded by sin. But there are moments when human love can give us, in miniature, a glimpse of what divine love is all about.
One of our country’s darker moments occurred back in World War II when about 110,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and held in detention camps. In one camp was born Carole Doi, a third generation American of Japanese descent. Years later Carole married a man who had also spent time in the camps. They had a daughter, and they noticed that at birth the baby’s feet were turned inward, the toes facing each other. Understandably enough, Carole and Jim were determined to do whatever was needed to help their daughter walk normally.
For four years Carole provided the girl with corrective shoes. By age six she was walking normally, but Carole wasn’t satisfied. “I wanted her to do anything which would use her legs,” she says. The girl chose ice skating.
She was a natural. And before long she was begging her mother for more ice time and more lessons. Soon Carole was getting up at 4:00am to take her daughter to the rink. This went on for years, and eventually this young woman became our country’s finest female skater. In 1992 Kristi Yamaguchi won the Olympic gold medal—a tribute, at least in part, to the support and love of her parents Carole and Jim.
It is this kind of love and sacrifice, written immeasurably larger, that we find in Jesus Christ. Jesus once told his followers, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” This is one of the key promises of our faith—that God will be with us. In fact one of Jesus’ names means just that: Immanuel, God with us. That title was given to him at birth, but he lived it out in all the ministry that followed. He was always available to people. They would call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And he would stop. The disciples would try to push the people back—the sick ones, the women, the children—try to keep people from bothering him, but he always stopped.
And at the end of his time on earth, this is recorded in Matthew, he says to his followers, to us, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” How? In the form of the Holy Spirit. That’s what today’s gospel is talking about. He is preparing his disciples not only for his death, but that he will return as the Spirit. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he tells them. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” These words are an elaboration of Jesus’ earlier promise, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”
A good parent also gives us some sense of this love that never abandons or deserts the child. Although granted, part of being a good parent is letting your kids grow up and become adults and parents themselves. God lets us grow up too, hopefully into a deeper and more thankful appreciation of him, God who is with us.
All of this, though, for God and for parents, for mothers, means sacrifice. To place the needs of the child first, to love that child fully and selflessly means to give up a part of ourselves for well-being of the child.
Some years ago there was a terrible tragedy in California. About 6:00 on a Wednesday morning James Lawson of Running Springs in the San Bernardino Mountains left for town. An hour later his 36 year old wife Patsy left for the 5th grade class she taught in Riverside, down the mountain. She had 5 year old Susan and 2 year old Gerald with her. They never made it to town. Eight and a half hours later James and the rescue squad found the wife and daughter dead, trapped in their wrecked car, upside down in a mountain stream. The son was barely alive in the 48 degree water.
As James approached the car, he heard crying. He thought at first it was the moaning of his wife. Instead he found it was their son. For over eight hours, first in life and then locked in death, Patsy had held her son at arms’ length above the water. In death her body remained regid so that her son might live. Terrible as that was, sometimes a mother’s love has to look like that.
Jesus, too, stretched out his arms in death that we might live. Not like this---but like this. Human love, expressed by mother, father, child, spouse, sibling or friend, human love is a reflection, however full or however imperfect, a reflection of divine love. And it is the nature of that divine love in Jesus to be with us always and to accept death that we might live forever.
Today we honor mothers. And that’s as it should be. But even more we honor and glorify the source of maternal love, its source and more perfect expression in the love that God has for us in Christ Jesus, our Lord. AMEN.
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