From the First Baptist Church in America pulpit
The Season of Easter
May 14, 2006
"Making Connections”
John 19:25‑27
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

Just as “I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas” aspires to the status of Christmas carol, on par with “Joy to the World,” so Mother's Day in our society clamors for religious recognition, to become an official day on the church calendar. A wise preacher will go with the sentimental-flow and turn to the old Jewish proverb, “God could not be everywhere, so he made mothers.” Well enough. But a brave preacher will buck the tide, and resist allowing the church calendar to be defined by secular society. Because the Season of Easter isn't dictated by Hallmark capitalism, but by the story of God, and because I’ve always had more guts than sense, I chose bravery over wisdom this morning. Our text is the poignant passage from John's gospel about Jesus’ mother.

Everybody has a mother of some kind or other. But not all mothers are alike. And not all mothers are good. Most of them are. But some deliver their babies and discard them in garbage cans to die. Or if they happen to be rescued then left for somebody else to raise. And not everybody had the same experiences with their mothers. Some are sweet and gentle. Others frazzled and impatient. Motherhood magnifies the polarities between self and selflessness; embracing extreme pride and joy, while battling feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. A good church oughta validate whatever experience you may have had.

But also hold up the ideal of Christian family life, which we partially achieve, but also aspire, including those whose mothers were abusive, neglectful, addicted, or who enabled fathers to be irresponsible. Those who grew up in single‑parent families, who never got the chance to know their mother. Those who have not been able to form adult relationships with their Moms because of control/power issues.

Those who wish they could become parents but can't. Those waiting to adopt. Or fortunate enough to have adoptive parents who loved them. Children of blended families with step‑parents. Those who had an abortion long ago & now feel bad about it. Those who had to "mother" their own aging mothers. Those whose mothers are a man. God uses these tensions of motherhood to shatter our illusions.

But the church has waxed sentimental for years on Mother's Day, rightly honoring the mothers who’ve blessed their kids in ways beyond description. (I live with one like that). The traditional red rose is in the vase, to commend all living mothers, who have sacrificed and scraped to raise their children in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Then too, the white rose is in the vase for those mothers, much cherished but who are no longer living. Even now they’re in our hearts and minds as well as our genes. Our deep appreciation is symbolized by the white rose.

There are other mothers that Hallmark omits, but the church shouldn't. That’s why I placed the pink rose in our vase, for them. Some of the best mothers are not biological mothers. Although they’ve never given physical birth to an infant, still there are many good women who have mothered other children; either through adoption or vocation, as public school teachers, or Sunday School teachers or taking in a kid somebody else has refused to raise. The pink rose is there to remind us that there’s a lot more to being a mother than just having a baby.

Today we’re featuring Jesus' mother and more importantly, her Son, in the gravest crisis of his life ‑- the moment he was being crucified, where he spoke those compelling words: "Woman, behold your son." Always in the 4th Gospel, we see no weak‑kneed Jesus. Nobody takes his life from him; he lays it down of his own accord. John's Jesus is nobody's patsy. And in keeping with that, he makes provision for his mother. In John, Jesus is strong-man, superman, always in charge.

So we need not worry about Jesus. But what about those left behind? What's gonna happen to the world he came to redeem? Will it be like he said earlier, "Tossed to and fro like sheep without a shepherd?" What's gonna happen to his mother, Mary? They had no HMO's in those days. A mother's children were her Medicare and social security. Mary stood at the foot of the cross that black Friday and watched her pension being fastened to it.

This is the 2nd time Mary shows up in John. The 1st was 3 years earlier, when she nagged him about the shortage of wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. As in our text this morning, Jesus didn't call her "mother." Just the impersonal "woman." "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Now it has. It's not wine running low this time, but his own blood, right in front of Mary's eyes. To her good fortune, she was not by herself. Her sister is there, along with Mary Magdalene and Mary, Cleopas' wife.

The beloved disciple is the only guy left, who’s never named in John's gospel. Although he appears several times. Jesus' love for him is the only thing about him that matters because that’s the only way he’s identified ‑‑ the disciple whom Jesus loves. We don't even know what it is about Mr. No Name that makes Jesus love him. Just that he does. Maybe it's his stubborn loyalty, since he's the only male disciple there. The females aren't in as much danger as he is. Because a woman's word meant nothing then, nobody was likely to stop and question them. But the one whom Jesus loved sure is vulnerable.

Where are the others? Probably safe somewhere. Safe and guilty. Hunkering down. My guess is, their absence hurt Jesus worse than the spikes because they were afraid to follow him, no matter what. Of course this is just speculation. All we know for sure is Jesus concerns himself with the ones who’re there ‑- his mother, weeping in grief. And the beloved disciple, whom he appoints as her bodyguard.

To his mother he says, "Woman, look at your son." In his dying act, Jesus acted in character. He remembered a thief who asked for it. Then he connected his mamma to the disciple standing beside her: "Here’s y’ Mamma." He's not talking biological either. But real mother. Pink rose mother.

Since Jesus’ hands are fastened, he could only make gestures with his eyes, indicating which “woman,” to which “son.” But when “It is finished,” the adoption is final. “From that hour,” says John, "the beloved disciple took Jesus' mother into his own home." There’s something fine about that; to care for others in his dying moment. Because of the low estate of women, connecting Mary to the beloved disciple meant a lot. So in the very moment that she’s losing one Son, she gains another. Didn’t he say, “If you try to save your life, you’ll lose it? But if you lose it for my sake, you’ll find it?”

This isn't just any old mother. This is somebody whose closeness to the Spirit is far more intimate than most. She’s seen things others have only heard about. She has felt things inside her body they can’t possibly imagine. Maybe that's why she stayed when they ran away.

But as the "principalities and powers" of this world were there, trying to tear this infant church family apart, here Jesus is putting it back together again. This mother with this son; this past with this future. Although Jesus' opponents succeed in executing him, he leaves behind no orphans.

At the foot of the cross, the mother of the old, becomes the mother of the new. The beloved disciple becomes the new beloved son. Here Jesus is -- making introductions while drawing his final breath. “I want ya’ll to look after each other,” he said. Making relational connections was the last thing he did. God knows, caring for one another is “what makes us a herd.” And it’s a heckuva way to start a church.

This attachment is what led to Mary’s 2^nd career. Her 1^st calling was birthing and raising Jesus to manhood. That’s where she gets her title, “Mary, mother of God.” Her 2^nd career was birthing the church. God saw something in this woman that made her fit to mother the Messiah. Not just because she gave birth. But the way she responded before and after the birth. That’s always what makes God smile! She was there at the cross; at the tomb; in the upper room; on the Mt. of Olives at the ascension -- birthing the Christian faith!

It didn't really come together until his ascension, recorded in the Book of Acts "...as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." Mary was among the "they." Ascension Day was "Mother's Day" for Mary. That's when she knew her 2nd career had been more successful than the 1st. Not just birthing but faithing!

Being Woman, she symbolizes the innate holiness of the earth. No “Davinci Code gnosticism” with Mary. The sacred dwelt in her body, matter, flesh. She’s the one who liberates, who seeks an end to suffering, and injustice. She says a new day is coming; that puts love over law, peace over war, to lift up the lowly, and walk gently across this earth. She births not just the physical Jesus but also the spiritual church, where the last are first, the excluded are included, and high ones will fall off their privileged perches, and the ones brought low will be elevated.

On ascension day, the incarnation of God, which began 33 years before, was brought to a glorious finale! On that day, Mary received the greatest gift any child could give to any mother, namely, a life that makes a difference in this world. That's what Jesus gave to Mary. That’s the day she realized that all her struggles, labor-pains, love and prayers, had not been in vain! Jesus ascended! The life she brought into the world now held the keys to eternal life in his hands! She, who was the least, brought forth the most, the fairest of ten thousand!

Today all across the country people will be mailing cards, jamming phone lines, or taking ‘em out to eat, to make our Mama's feel special, the American way. Spend money. Buy a gift.

But if we really want them to feel special ‑ including those who are dead or those with us still. Give to your mothers what Jesus gave to his ‑ a life that amounts to something! Live your life in a way that says: for all they put into you, going without, the worrying, nurturing and prayers ... give ‘em back a life intent on leaving the world better than you found it. So that the sacrifices they made for you have not been wasted.
Like I say, it’s a heckuva way to start a church!



Prayer: We gather as a family of faith, O God, to pray for power to overcome whatever in us runs counter to his love and courage. May his lowliness curb our status-seeking; his purity condemn our lust; his love for people shame the love we waste on things; his sense of mission challenge our aimlessness.
In this season of the church year, we celebrate all the good that has come in our world thru many mothers. For modern-day moms, who juggle a demanding lifestyle, working full-time, molding a marriage, and raising kids.

As we feast over our traditional mother’s day meal today, let us not forget the mothers in this country, who left their sons and daughters on the battlefield of war. Mothers dodging hurricanes in the midwest, dodging bombs in Iraq, burying their young from famine in Africa. Mothers everywhere struggling to mend broken hearts, giving it their all and then some, to hold their families together–even as their own private words fall apart. That’s what mothers seem to be good at doing. Bless them all!

In our worship today, we stand before a God who births a church family of faith; and peoples it with fathers & mothers & sisters & brothers, allowing us to see tiny glimpses of heaven now & then. May we see more of that around here than the hell sometimes it can be.

We would not conclude this prayer without expressing our feeling for those whose lot in life is harder than our own, and a particular concern for those who live and die as tho Christ never was; who don’t yet know that at the heart of life, love reigns, and heaven cares. So may this church. Thru Christ our Lord. Amen.