Mother Church
May 9th, 2010
St. David’s United Church
Rev. Dan Chambers
May 9, 2010
Mothers’ Day
John 13:31-35
Mother Church
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.
Jesus to his disciples
(John 13:34-35)
I don’t know what you were doing last Tuesday night but I was at the Westminster Presbytery meeting. Now, don’t be jealous. I was there as part of my responsibility as President of BC Conference, and though I don’t relish an abundance of evening meetings, I was grateful to be with this earnest gathering of 17 United Church congregations from Burnaby, Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows, Port Moody, Maple Ridge and New Westminster. Like many Presbyteries, a significant part of their conversation was about whether they needed 17 United Churches or whether it would be better to have fewer congregations but free up resources. We began the evening by looking at this scripture reading from John and we were invited to consider and share a time when you received love from someone in your congregation.
It was a wonderful way to begin the conversation because every person there had been touched by love in one way or another, by one person or another in the church. I’d bet my hat that every person in that room – Canadian, American, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, seminary students, ministers, lay leaders, and adults from age 40 – 80 had very probably been blessed by love over and over again in ways seen and unseen and that’s what brought them out on a Tuesday night to go to a church meeting. Sure, there was really good food there and likely a few friends, but the greatest motivator working in us all was how our lives have been raised up by someone who made a difference to us in a community marked by love.
There were six of us in the group I was part of, sitting around a folding table in the church gymnasium talking about a time when we knew we were loved by someone in the church. We heard about the tender support one person received when she was 21 and her boyfriend was killed in a car crash; we heard of youth leaders who helped clear a path through the tangle of adolescence; we heard of a person dying who expressed love and grace even in the last days of her life; we heard of intimate friendships and another told of loving support he received from congregation members when he was recovering from heart surgery. The stories were tender and true, and people spoke with gentle or enthusiastic gratitude. In our conversation, this group of relative strangers was brought into a place of awe, because that’s where love stories will take you.
Today I give you a new commandment, love each other as I have loved you.
This is the kind of love that makes a difference. Often the person who offers the love through an act of kindness or a tender word or a friendship doesn’t know what a difference it makes. They don’t even consider it. And yet those six of us around the table that night could remember times from years ago that shaped who we have become and even how we choose to spend a Tuesday evening. Often, the person receiving the blessing of love doesn’t know the significance of that gift at the time. As a child or teenager, I wasn’t aware how important a loving, accepting community was. But the people who expressed a genuine interest in me made an enormous difference. Even decades later, I remember small things, like when I was a hesitant teenager, how Lucy would greet me for youth group with a big smile and welcoming hug; or how Doris Shear teased me with an affirming smile after our youth group performed a musical; or how Mr. Moore spoke words of forgiveness after I got into serious trouble. I could go on and on, but at the time I would never have said, “I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life.” It was by all accounts just a passing moment in an ordinary stream of days. Of course the thought never entered my head that these were the kinds of interactions that have allowed the better part of me to come into being.
But it’s what church is about. It’s our raison d’être. To be love in the world. If we’re not that, why bother?
One mother, before her children were baptized here, wrote this e-mail which I share with her permission:
My children will have their own paths to walk. I can worry myself to pieces imagining all the pain and difficulties they may encounter along life’s way, just as i can feel my heart soar when i dream of all that they may accomplish and of all the world’s beauty that is theirs to discover. God’s blessings will help them plant their footsteps through it all. The love and support of a family united to help them on their journey is one of the greatest of these blessings we receive from God, i believe. As a faith community, we may differ on some fundamental beliefs, but there is no doubt that love inspires us all and for that I hope to always remember to be grateful.
A church is called to be love in the world; a mother is handed the same assignment: be love. And though we know every good mother at times deals with feelings of utter failure and suspects that the Parent Patrol will come knocking on her door demanding to see her Parenting License and she’ll have to confess that she doesn’t have one, she never graduated from the course and is just winging it on love and a prayer, every good mother wants to love well. And as with any of us, sometimes love comes more easily than at other times.
I remember one stay-at-home mother with young children said, “I love being a mum, but I just don’t like the job description!”
Sometimes love looks or sounds different than we might first expect. The reality of raising children means that sometimes love sounds like a bunch of rules; sometimes care sounds like nagging; sometimes cherishing the life of a child sounds like this…
A Mom’s Life
Take your plate into the kitchen, please.
Take it downstairs whey you go.
Don’t leave it there, take it upstairs.
Is that yours?
Don’t hit your brother.
I’m talking to you.
Just a minute, pease, can’t you see I’m talking?
I said, don’t interrupt.
Did you brush your teeth?
What are you doing out of bed?
Go back to bed.
You can’t watch in the afternoon.
What do you mean, there’s nothing to do?
Go outside.
Read a book.
Turn it down.
Get off the phone.
Tell your friend you’ll call her back. Right now!
Hello. No she’s not home. She’ll call you when she gets home.
Take a jacket. Take a sweater.
Take one anyway.
Someone left his shoes in front of the TV.
Get the toys out of the hall. Get the boys out of the bathtub. Get the toys off of the stairs.
No, ten minutes are not up.
One more minute.
How many time have I told you, don’t do that.
Where did the cookies go?
Eat the old fruit before the new fruit.
I’m not giving you mushrooms. I’ve taken all the mushrooms out. See?
Is your homework done?
Stop yelling. If you want to ask me something, come here.
STOP YELLING. IF YOU WANT TO ASK ME SOMETHING, COME HERE.
I’ll think about it.
Not now.
Ask your father.
We’ll see.
Don’t sit so close to the television, it’s bad for your eyes.
Calm down.
Calm down and start over.
Is the the truth?
Fasten your seat belt.
Did everyone fasten their seat belts?
I’m sorry, that’s the rule. I’m sorry, that’s the rule. I’m sorry, that’s the rule
Delia Ephron
So we celebrate Mother’s Day because underneath all the rules and admonitions is a foundation of love and care. We set this day apart because too often we forget to express gratitude to those closest to us, and on this day, anyway, we say that we know the job description of motherhood is incredibly difficult and often not very satisfying. But for all our challenges and differences, we appreciate our mothers.
Of course, this wasn’t what the first Mother’s Day was about at all. Initially there were no roses or hallmark cards or brunches in bed. The first Mother’s Day was a political protest against war, organized by mothers who had lost their sons in the civil war in the United States. These mothers decried the horrors of war and how it maimed and emotionally wounded their sons. As we still see, even those soldiers that came back alive were often scarred for life. Mothers on both sides of the conflict joined in protest. It’s a powerful message from the voice of love.
Perhaps this is why the Christian Church is sometimes called the Mother Church. Because like a mother, the Church is called to be a place that, out of love, speaks truth to power. Like a mother, the Church is called to speak words of protest when love is violated. Like a mother, the Church is called to be a place where you are welcomed, no matter who you are or what you’ve done. We’re called to be a place where you are accepted and you don’t have to prove yourself. In church, there’s a place made for you at the table.
I remember when I graduated from High School, I was ready to leave home. My parents and I got along well enough, but, you know, I simply needed to be out from under their watchful eye and longed for the freedom and responsibility of living on my own.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when halfway through the fall semester I already began to feel a little homesick. It was great to have freedom, but there was a lot of work to shop and cook and clean while I was working and going to school. It was great to be on my own, but I missed the emotional support that came from my parents. It was before e-mail and I didn’t call often, didn’t write often — but I missed them. By the time November rolled around, I eagerly returned home for Thanksgiving. Though my mother was probably not delighted to see the large bag of laundry I also managed to drag home with me, she smiled and welcomed me with a big hug. Having been away, I appreciated in a new way how clean our house was (that took a lot of work!), and how delicious the homemade cookies were, and how nice it was not to have to prepare every meal. Though I knew this intuitively already, I had fresh insight as to how my mother’s job description, though not very glamorous, was in every way a work of love.
The Mother Church is also a place where we can be at home and find oasis. Someone once said that a church community is a group of people willing to collapse into God, like you might collapse onto a couch after a long day of work, or like you might collapse in tears into the comforting arms of a good friend. Here we’re called to be authentic, let down pretenses, lower our defense systems, and simply be who we are in all of our glorious gifts and irritating limitations.
Perhaps it’s called Mother Church because, like a good mother, this is also a place where, if you’re not living up to your potential, you’ll hear about it because this is a place where truth is spoken in love. So if we as a society are recklessly and needlessly polluting the earth, we’ll hear about it. If we as a society are unjustly taking from those who are financially poor in order to expand our own silk purse, we’ll hear about it. It has been said that God loves us just the way we are, but also loves us enough not to keep us that way because there’s more light and love, a deeper peace and joy yearning to shine through us.
Places like this make a huge difference in the world. Where else do we learn over the years what it means to love each other as Christ has loved us? Where else can we allow ourselves to collapse into God? No wonder the Jews considered the temple to be the axis mundi, the center or navel of the world, rather like an umbilical cord to God. It’s in places like these that we enter the realm of the sacred, and allow the sacred to enter into us.
It’s in places like these that we are raised up so we can stand on mountains and walk on stormy seas and discover that we’re more than we thought we could ever be.
Welcome home to your Mother Church.
Amen.
Song: You Raise Me Up
