Mothers

Proverbs 1:8  “Listen my son to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”

Proverbs 10:1 “A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother.”

1 Thessalonians 2:  6-8 “We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else.
As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”

John 19:25-27

Mothers

In an old Peanuts strip, Peppermint Patty and Violet are reflecting on being a grandmother. After Patty declares that she would like to be a grandmother, Violet agrees and says it would be nice because all they have to do is “sit and rock” (not quite the case, is it?) The girls then decide that the trouble with being a grandmother is that first you have to be a wife and then a mother…and Violet sighs, “I know it…it’s all those preliminaries that get me!”

Mother's Day was declared an annual National Holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. He directed the Congress to designate the second Sunday of May as a special day for public expression of love and reverence for the mothers of America. Since that time there has been a "Mother's Day," and, I must say that even in 1914, it was long overdue.

The idea of Mother’s Day as we now know it is attributed to Anna Jarvis who suggested an annual day for mothers should be kept. Anna Jarvis loved her mother so much that she arranged a special Sunday worship service to honor her mother on May 10, 1908, the third anniversary of her mother's death, at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. She presented all who attended a white carnation. Her Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, is called "the Mother's Day Church." Her home is now a national landmark.

Her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, had organized “Mothers’ Work Day Clubs” in the 1850s. These clubs provided medicines and nursing for the poor, inspected milk and established shelters for children with tuberculosis.  When the Civil War broke out, Anna’s mother called together her clubs from both sides of the Mason Dixon line, imploring members to pledge that friendship and good will would not be a casualty of the war. Her women from both sides worked together to nurse soldiers and save many lives. Following the war, Mrs. Jarvis organized "Mothers' Friendship Days" to bring families together that had been torn apart by the war.

Anna Jarvis, the daughter, was born in 1850, and was an impressionable teenager when her mother was at the peak of her courageous work. Mother’s Day was her way of honoring the powerful influence her mother had on her life, and her way of carrying on the work her mother and Julia Ward Howe had begun.

So the primary concerns of the original Mothers’ Day were civil liberties, international peace, overcoming poverty and ministering to the poor and sick and injured. From the beginning this was a day not simply to remember our own mothers, but to express the deepest form of human love, extending outward to family, friend, acquaintance, stranger, foreigner, enemy.  In the truest sense, Mothers’ Day personifies Jesus’ command to love friend and enemy alike.

On Mother’s Day it is easy to become overly sentimental. We get an idealized picture of “mothers”, but of course that ideal picture isn’t always the way it is in the real world. It isn’t an Ozzie and Harriet, “Leave It To Beaver”, “Family Ties” world out there.

There are far too many children who have lost loving mothers due to war, or famine, or lack of health care. There are far too many children who do not have loving mothers.  There are far too many mothers who love their children dearly but who are single parents and struggling to put food on the table, and feeling the pain of guilt for not being able to provide better for their children or spend more time with them.

There are times when it is easy for some children to appreciate our mothers - their virtues, their hard work, their care, and their love are vivid--- and their children know they are living examples of God's love.

But for others it can be more difficult to appreciate and honor their mothers, more difficult to love them - like in times when it seems their mothers have chosen their own course - their own way in life - and left their children behind. At such times it is hard to celebrate a day like today - hard because anger and pain and hurt get in our way; hard because we do not understand how it is that someone who is supposed to love us has left us behind.

This Mother’s Day take a moment to think of all the mothers in the world who are in need. There are millions of women in the world living on less than a dollar a day. There are women in this country who are wondering how they are going to feed or diaper their children from day to day. There are children who need medical attention that their parents may not be able to afford. Anyone who has ever had to worry about such things can deeply sympathize. For those of us who have escaped such worries, we can only imagine the level of instinctive stress that uncertainty can provoke.

What we should carry away with us on this Mothers Day morning is not a sentimental image of motherhood, but a remembrance of what the first Mothers Days in this country were really all about: honoring women who have given Christ’s love through themselves to others.

To love others - to love our parents, or our brothers and sisters, or our neighbors for that matter - can be very hard at times. As all of you know who are familiar with the crucifixion story, it cost Jesus his life; But he gave that love - he gave his life - willingly because it was what love demanded.

What we should be reminded of today is God's parenting love, which is no false TV image, but the real thing- the parenting we need for our survival, and crave because deep inside we sense its importance.  God's arms are the ones that embrace all of us, holding us all in those loving arms, mopping all our tears and setting us on our feet again. We hear of a terrible, tragic situation of heartache redeemed by God’s parenting love  in today’s Gospel reading..

We don't have to pretend with God that there aren't any troubles, or that we're managing very nicely, thank you. God knows what family life is about - and single life. He knows the heartaches and the conflicts. He knows that loving makes us vulnerable.

That's why God is so well able to comfort us within our real situations, and enable us to cope with the ordinary troubles of life without being overwhelmed by them; he provides the resources we need available and his arms are always outstretched in welcome. God’s love is the perfect mother, and grandmother—it is always there if we ask for it. Amen