Honor Mothers by Honoring Their Children and All Life - sermon for May 10, 2015

From some more about why I don't like to celebrate Mother's Day in church/worship, please see this blog post.

“Love One Another. Honor Mothers By Honoring Their Children and All Life.”

Sermon for May 10, 2015

© 2015 Rev. David J. Huber

Mother’s Day/Festival of the Christian Home, Easter 6 Year B

Scripture: John 15:9-17

Jesus says, “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” That’s a little passive-aggressive but we’ll let that slide, because he goes on to say “I do not call you servants any longer, but friends.” I now call you friends! Notice that? “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

To go out and bear the fruit that is born of love. That’s the fruit that we are to bear. Fruit that grows because of love.

This is part of what Jesus is saying to the disciples at the last supper. In the other three Gospels, Jesus says very little at the last supper. But in John’s Gospel, he goes on for 5 chapters.

We’re about halfway through Jesus’ dinner speech at the last Supper here. So far, the disciples and Jesus have gathered for the Passover meal. Jesus washed their feet. As he washed their feet, he tells them that this is what they are to do for one another. This is what servanthood looks like, what following me looks like. He told them one of them would betray him, and told Peter that Peter would deny him, and that they would all run away. He told them about the heavenly mansion with many rooms. He’s given the talk about “Don’t be afraid, do not fear, I am going to go away but I am preparing a place for you and I will not leave you alone to be orphaned.” He’s talked about being the True Vine and the disciples are his branches. In all of this he keeps telling them to love one another. He keeps talking about the importance of love.

It all comes down to love. That’s what Jesus showed in his life. As he is at this last meal with his friends, he is getting ready to be crucified, he spends his last night with his disciples reminding them of what he had taught them about how to live. Taught them by showing them, which is that we are to live a life of love. And that a life of love is what God wants from us most. Not just sacrifices or our words of praise, but to live a life of love.

“Love one another as I have loved you.” It’s the only command that Jesus gives: love one another.

That is a good segue into mentioning that today is Mother’s Day, according to the secular calendar. It is, however, a day I don’t like to celebrate in church. I am cautious to celebrate it in church because for one, it’s not a Christian holy day. There is also a part of that resents Hallmark telling me, telling the Church, what is supposed to happen during worship on this day. But I also don’t like celebrating Mother’s Day in church (private life is great; I had a wonderful mother who was worth celebrating, and many aunts and other women in my life worth celebrating), but not in the church because leaves out a lot of women. Women who by choice or biology or circumstance are not mothers. It leaves out all those who are not mothers. It leaves out those who desperately wish to be a mother but cannot. It leaves out those who choose not to be mothers. For some women, it is a point of pain to keep hearing, being reminded, that it is Mother’s Day. THey hear a message, especially if it’s in the church, that if you are a woman you’re supposed to be a mother; that you are worthy of honor only if you are a mother. But all women are worthy of honor, especially in the Church. We honor all people.

There is also the truth that not all mothers are good mothers. Not all are worthy of honoring the way they mother. Plus not all women who are mothers find in motherhood anything to celebrate. Women who didn’t want to be a mother, who resent their motherhood, but who did it because of circumstances or whatever their reason was.

That’s why I don’t like to celebrate Mother’s Day in the church. At least not in the way that Hallmark and the restaurant and gift industry want us to celebrate it. That’s why here we celebrate family of whatever configuration it is, and why we celebrate all women here at Plymouth. Because all women are worth celebrating. Not because of something you have done, but because you are made in God’s image. Because also within in the space of the church, we’re all mothers and fathers to one another in some way, even if not biological. We teach each other, nourish one another. We are all sons and daughters of one another, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers, and friends here.

On the UCC facebook page an article was posted a couple days ago about the dangers of celebrating Mother’s Day, in the way it is usually done, to celebrate only women who have given birth and to celebrate in a way that says all mothers are equally worthy of high acclaim. In the comments, I was not surprised to see a lot of agreement. But what DID surprise me were the number of people, mostly women but some men, who posted in the comments that they agreed with the article and then added “and that’s why I don’t go to church on Mother’s Day.” People who intentionally avoid going to church on Mother’s Day because their church does the unhelpful celebrating of motherhood without mentioning the other ways of being. That really surprised me. They don’t go because it is too painful. Because they feel dishonored because they have no child, chose not to have a child, or cannot have a child; or to be put in a position of pain (and this is where the men usually were) by being told that one must honor a mother who was abusive, distant, absent, or otherwise not a healthy or helpful memory of mother. I was really surprised to see that many people who choose not to go to church on Mother’s Day. We need to do better as a Church.

But there is something worth mentioning about this day, and it involves the history of how it came about, and it does have a link to this command from Jesus to love one another.

The first Mothers’ Days were in the mid-1800s, organized as a rally for mothers to cry out for better sanitation because kids (and adults) were dying simply because of bad sanitation. It was a rallying cry to mothers to help with sanitation. Then there was the Franco-Prussian war, then the U.S. went through the Civil War. Mothers’ sons sent off to die and to kill. After the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe, famous abolitionist and writer of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, helped to start the idea of Mothers’ Day. She and other women looked back at the carnage of the war. They were aghast at the casual way that governments destroy the lives of their young men and boys. It was a peace movement. A a celebration of mothers to say that mothers should not have to see their sons be killed, or be sent off to be turned into killers. It was a rallying call to mothers to stand up and work for peace so that their children would not have to go to war to kill or to be killed.

It began as a day to celebrate life. To stand in solidarity for the love of life.

It was not called Mother’s Day, it was called Mother’s Peace Day, dedicated to the eradication of war.

“This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Does not get much plainer than that.

Then, by the time Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday in 1914, it’s purpose had become to be a “public expression of our love and reverence for all mothers.” All the peace stuff was taken out. All gone.

Howe wanted the love and reverence to be shown to mothers not by flowers or phone calls or taking them out to eat, but by ending war so mothers no longer outlive their children. Ending war so that mothers no longer have to suffer from having their sons killed, or from knowing that their sons have been turned into killers and put into danger. Not just American mothers, either, but all mothers. Worldwide.

So I’m not going to complain if you DO celebrate your mom with flowers or a meal together, or however you might do it. Many of us have or had mothers who were worthy of such celebration.

But like so many good ideas, and even Holy Days of religious life, get commandeered by Empire, no matter what government it is, Empire always twists things to its own advantage and rewrites history.

But the Church is charged with proclaiming the Gospel. The Gospel of love. The Good News of God’s love. It is also charged with being honest and staying true to our mission even when it is difficult, uncomfortable, or otherwise upsets us from our places of comfortable pretend. So it is good to remember that this ought to be a day to talk about peace and love for all people.

“This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.” That includes our enemies. Jesus said to love your enemies.

I can imagine Jesus saying to us, if we really feel the need to have a special day to celebrate a particular demographic of people, he would say, “Great! Have a day to celebrate and honor your enemies.”

“This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Even the enemies. That’s a Gospel way of thinking.

So here is the original proclamation from Howe in 1970:

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.”

The whole human family, she says. The best way to honor mothers is in a way that honors all of human life, and all life on earth. End war. End hunger. End homelessness. End apathy to the poor, the widowed, the orphaned. End racism. End sexism. End empire. End greed. End stinginess. End fear. End anything and everything that devalues or trivializes life. That’s how to honor mothers, and fathers, and even those of us who don’t have children but are part of the community of serving to grow children as teachers, pastors, neighbors, police, firefighters, doctors, politicians, volunteers, friends, camp counselors, school counselors, aunts and uncles, and so on.

It all comes down to Jesus’ words, “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.” It is another way of saying that the best way you can honor God is by your actions, by honoring that which God has made.

Jesus says repeatedly “Do not be afraid” and “Peace be with you.” Do not be afraid. Peace be with you. Then he left us with this final, and his only commandment, to love one another as I have loved you.

Howe’s proclamation ends with these words:

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

“To promote the alliance of the different nationalities.” Notice that?

This command I leave you, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Amen.