| May 13, 2007
From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit
The Fifth Sunday after Easter on the Church Calendar this year falls on Mother’s Day. It’s spring time in New England and the roses are blooming. Roses are beautiful. But they also have thorns. Like much of life as we know it, they’re ambiguous. Granted, the importance of the second Sunday in May is a no-brainer for mothers. But it’s bittersweet to many a woman.
You know the tradition. A few weeks after Easter where I grew up, we had a trellis of red roses growing in our yard. My Daddy would clip off a couple and my brother and sister would sport them in church on Mother’s Day. It was a sign that our mother was living. And we acknowledge that custom this morning, expressing our gratitude for all the dedicated mothers living among us today by placing a red rose in the vase. We rightly do so, because boy do they earn their pay!
My Mom and Dad didn’t wear red roses on Mother’s Day. They wore white ones, because their mothers didn’t live very long. My Mom’s mother died when she was a child. And it fell to her to raise seven younger brothers and sisters. My Dad was an only child, but his mother died before I was old enough to understand the tradition. Yeah we noticed that our parent’s roses were different from ours. And I fleetingly wondered in those days what it would be like to not have a Mom and Dad. Now I know.
So in honor of all the mothers who are no longer with us, we place a white rose in the vase. As the tradition has it, the white rose on Mother’s Day represents our appreciation for all the mothers who have died or are no longer around. But not just those who’ve died and the sting of that. There are other injuries that ought to be recognized. Over the years I have become acutely aware of the pain that Mother’s Day brings to some women, who are not biological mothers, but who mother others in other ways. I’m thinking about the hurt in the lives of those who want to become parents and cannot. That’s a tough one. Especially on this day and how churches celebrate it, is like rubbing salt into the wounds. The last thing we want is for our worship to be abrasive.
True, the Bible speaks of many women who were barren and thus cursed in the eyes of ancient society. It’s another way the Bible is wrong. There’s a long line mentioned in the scriptures: In Genesis, there’s Sarah, Ch. 11; Rebecca, 25; Rachel, 30; Leah, 29. And then the wife of Manoah in the book of Judges 13; Hannah in I Samuel; Elizabeth in Luke 1. And if that’s not enough Isaiah the prophet singles these singles out for scorn: “O barren one, who bore no child, break forth and cry out loud, you who have not been in travail!” Adding insult to injury.
The biblical tradition focuses upon unproductive women, not sterile men, blaming it on the ladies. But since the ancient mind believed all life comes from God, therefore infertility was seen as a curse, a humiliation. But a fruitful womb -- ah, it was regarded as a reward for living a life of obedience to God. However in each case of the childless women previously mentioned, to them was born a son. Sarah bore Isaac; Rebecca gave birth to twins Jacob and Esau; Rachel delivered Joseph and Benjamin; Leah had Rubin; Manoah’s wife delivered Samson; and Hannah, was given Samuel as an answer to her prayers. And then gave him away to an old priest named Levi! And of course, Elizabeth, in her old age, was the mother of John the Baptist. So they all lived “happily ever after” because God answered their deepest longings for a son, as their barrenness gave way to fruitfulness. And with these gifts of life, their stigma was removed.
But all women are not so fortunate as these biblical mothers. What can we say to those women who have not been blessed with the gift of life through childbirth on Mother’s Day? How can modern-day childless women connect with scripture when it curses them? Shouldn’t the church have a grace-word of affirmation for everybody, every Sunday? Yeah there’s the red rose as a symbol for living mothers, and that’s good. They get lots of warm fuzzies and delectable meals on Mother’s Day. Then not to leave out our mothers who’ve died, we provide a white rose. That’s good. We make sure they’re appropriately memorialized in our worship.
So I’ve tried to build on the tradition I grew up with, that’s always felt a tad short. An attempt to be inclusive on Mother’s Day, to acknowledge the women who never bore a child; to recognize those who lost a child through a miscarriage, stillbirth, accident, injury, illness or abortion. Can’t the church be more creative than just--red and white? Life is a lot more complex than our simplistic either/ors. So on this day of the Church Calendar called “The Feast of St. Mary,” the day we celebrate Jesus’ mother, Mary, the world’s only God-bearer, whose pregnancy created a mixture of feelings in her soul, we add a pink rose.
For all the mothers -- and for those who want to be mothers -- for those who mother others, even though they’ve never become a mother, the pink rose is for them. All foster moms and step-moms, get a pink rose. For birth mothers who place their babies for adoption, including the adoptive mothers who received the gift of life because of this placement. It includes those mothers who eventually feel the empty-nest at home and are tempted to hold on too long. Those trying to tame their kids who are relationally lost; and those whose mothers were emotionally disconnected to you. Even the mothers of our little furry friends, our faithful pets who are loved as much as any human. The pink rose.
Dare I even suggest that any mother is not a good mother? We don’t have that problem with Daddy’s. You hear about absentee Dads. Deadbeat Dads. But rarely about lousy Moms. Mothers are almost like angels in our society. Yeah there’s money in it. Restaurants love it. But some people have a hard time at Hallmark, finding a card to fit their mothers. In the worship of God this Mother’s Day, we place the pink rose on the altar, to say “thank you” for the “mothers of the church.” I’m talking about all the women who hold our churches together, without whom there’d be no church; for their faithfulness in caring, nurturing, mentoring, for those who’ve mothered us into the faith. For those of you who serve as our spiritual models, we reserve a place for the pink rose.
Helen Reddy sings “If I have to, I can do anything, I am woman!” So what else can we do, but place our tri-colored flowers in this sanctuary blessing the God who carries, feeds, protects, heals, guides, disciplines, encourages, washes and clothes us as his children? Have you ever noticed in the Bible how God is portrayed like a good mother? God gives birth: “Listen to me, House of Jacob, you who have been carried since birth, whom I have carried since the time you were born. In your old age, I shall do the same...”(Is 46:3-4). God comforts: “Like a son comforted by his mother, I will comfort you” (Is 66:13-14). God washes: “I shall pour clean water over you, and you will be cleansed” (Ex 36:25). God heals: “God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more...(Rev. 21:4). God suffers. The Book of Hosea depicts God as caring for a teenager: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. But the more I called the further he went from me. I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms...” (Hos 11:1-4). God as mother.
The church has to continually find ways, not just to re-image itself, but to re-image God. So that everybody can connect in ways that are more genuine to all of our experiences. I don’t want anybody to feel left out. Even mastectomy patients. I had a lady say to me after I preached on God not as judge, but as a “mother hen,” in Matthew where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. “Following my surgery I had a hard time seeing God as male.” She said. “Only the God as mother hen seeking to “gather her chicks to a breast” – that’s not there ... would know what it’s like to have a wing bitten off by a fox!”
I have often felt that if I were to lose a child, the visits I would value most would be from those who had experienced the same. And I would be needing a God who knew what it’s like to lose a Child. Ours does. Biblical theology also visualizes God as adoptive parent. God is often seen as birth-parent, the One who creates us and offers us “2nd birth” or “new birth.” John 3:16, everybody knows. God as birth-parent. But there are more passages in the Bible that speak of adoption into the family of faith through Jesus Christ as Firstborn. The model Paul uses in Ephesians is God as adoptive-parent, who destines us for adoption as His children with an unimaginable inheritance. It’s a beautiful theological concept; good news for orphans and various and sundry ugly ducklings.
It means God knows the emptiness of childlessness. When somebody is too stubborn to choose to come into the adopted family of faith called “church.” I’m guessing it hurts God when people refuse to be a part of his family. I wonder if you’ve ever thought of that? This is the woundedness of God -- apart from the cross. God lost a Son on the hill of the Skull. But how many more sons and daughters refuse to be a part of his family? Preferring to stay outside like the elder brother?
Only a defenseless God like a fox in the henhouse, can understand what these roses signify. Not just dead or alive; red or white. But all the other losses people experience from living. Gotta have that pink rose! The Psalmist pictures God knitting: “Forming our inward parts, knitting us together in our mother’s womb, and saw our unformed substance.” This is another one of those passages that I have to say: “I don’t know if it happened that way or not, but I believe it’s true.” It pictures God’s love for his creation extends beyond our childhood, before birth even, pre-existing in the womb. The healing of all our hurts--yours, mine, Jesus’-- is found in the womb of God.
God, like a good mother, wise, vulnerable, loving, is the only one sufficient to embrace what each of us brings to worship today. Some will see it in the red rose. Others in the white one. And still others in the pink one -- especially the pink rose. Something for everybody. Isn’t that church at its best? May this trinitarian bouquet that we present in our worship today be held close to the triune heart of God and bring a smile on his face!
Mother’s Day Prayer: May 13, 2007
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, 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. Mothers dodging hurricanes in Kansas, 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. Bless ‘em all!
In our worship today, we stand before a God who births a church family of faith; and peoples it with fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, allowing us to see tiny glimpses of heaven now and then. Instead of the hell we face daily.
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 though Christ never was; who don't yet know that at the heart of life, love reigns, and heaven cares. May this church be thus. Thru Christ our Lord. Amen. |
