Faith of our Mothers

        Today we celebrate Mother’s Day or the Christian Home – a day when we hold up the best in parenting and family and religious life.  We celebrate unconditional love – a love that sees into our souls and cherishes us – for who we are deep down.   We celebrate parents who hold us when we’re scared at night, or who feed us healthy meals even if we’ve been pouty and throwing tantrums, or who set limits on our foolishness.  We honor parents who give of themselves, spending more than is wise on medicine or lessons, doing without sleep or food to care for you when you’re sick, standing up for you when a bully is threatening.   Parents love deeply – and give all of themselves. 

          A problem is that not all Mothers and fathers are not like this – nor are families.  Some families are hurtful, judgmental, and mean.  Some families don’t welcome, but reject; don’t heal but wound; don’t laugh, but sneer.   Some parents turn their backs on their children, or try to make them into images of themselves or into paper cut-outs of some idea or projection.   Some parents distort our inner lives by fostering harsh reactions and criticisms.   I ran into a list entitled: “Things My Mother Taught Me”, that shows this darker side of parenting:

·  My  mother taught me IRONY.

"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

·  My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.

"Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

·   My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.

"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

·   My mother taught me about STAMINA.

 "You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

·  My mother taught me about WEATHER.

"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

·  My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.

"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

·  My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.

"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

·  My mother taught me about ENVY.

"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."

·  My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.

"Just wait until we get home"

·  My mother taught me about RECEIVING

"You are going to get it when you get home!"

         The danger is that we take many of these harsh messages we hear growing up and turn them into distorted views of relationships and life.  Our inner lives reflect our families of origin – and become patterns for our future friendships, marriages or self-esteem.   Ways we relate to others are determined early on in our families, and they even determine our image of God.  That is why Mother’s Day – or this Celebration of the Christian Home – is so important, because it allows us to re-envision our inner values and ways to relate. 

Richard Rohr wrote this message about the danger of internalizing a negative image of God – turning God into a bad parent:  “There is no way that the scriptures, rightly understood, present God as an eternal torturer. Yet many Christians seem to believe this, and many are even held back from trusting God’s goodness because of this “angry parent in the sky” that we have created. The determined direction of the scriptures, fully revealed in Jesus, is that God’s justice is not achieved by punishment, but by the divine initiative we call grace, which enables us to bring about internal rightness, harmony, balance, and realignment with what is.”     We truly need to claim this grace, this holy mercy in our faith lives – and in our relations with others – even if our own families did not teach this to us.    

Woodie Guthrie wrote a piece entitled: “I Hate a Song,” that highlights these values of grace, acceptance and love that we so need to hear. 

“I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. 

I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose.  

Bound to lose.  No good to nobody.  No good for nothing. 

Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim. 

Too ugly or too this or too that. 

Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. 

I’m out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. 

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. 

And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.”

         This is how God sings, with grace, with glorious and big-hearted acceptance and love.  This is how mothers and fathers sing unconditional love to their children.  This is how churches are meant to sing.  Jesus also hated songs that cut people out, that put people down, that divided people into labels and tribes.   Early Christians hated the songs that their society were singing so much that when they heard the song Jesus sang, they jumped on board and started communities of faith and love.  When it became clear that Christian communities were based on love and justice, on equality and sharing, they gathered in ever-larger house churches and communities.  They became so filled with the spirit and vision of this song that they became like family to each other, families that shared food and funds, care-giving and inspiration, as we hear in Acts:

 “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-48)

         On this Mother’s Day or “Celebration of the Christian Home” we highlight what homes and families and even churches can do: love without condition; share their possessions, and hearts, and homes.  Families are committed to care for those who are hurting and to build up those who are in need.  When you knock on your family’s door, they should let you in.  What we do in families, we usually don’t do out in the world; we draw the line when it comes to a stranger or a group of people who don’t share our last name.  

But what we hear in scripture today is that the early church blurred that line, at least for a time.  They treated those in the community of faith like family – as if they were truly there to serve and give to each other out of love.  House churches became real homes for those who were shut-out of society or who longed for authentic equality and love.   They went so far as to share possessions and care-giving – in the way that families do.

James H. Rucker, Jr., pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Monticello, Indiana, tells the story of an old woman struggling to find a way in this life. Rucker and his wife Pamela were driving through a decayed and down-on-its-luck Indianapolis neighborhood when they noticed a taxicab pulled up in front of a small, shut-up church. As they watched, an extremely elderly woman struggled her way out of the cab and began to negotiate the steps up to the church. She was dressed in her "Sunday best" -- a pastel purple dress that had seen considerable wear. Concerned, the Ruckers stopped to lend assistance -- helping the woman slowly make her way to the door--only to find the church was indeed locked up tight. It became apparent the woman in the purple dress had gotten confused and come to church on Saturday instead of Sunday.

  The Ruckers offered her a ride home -- and found themselves in a neighborhood even more decrepit than the one where the church stood. On the way, the woman shared with them that she was 92 years old and had no family. Her only son had died years ago. Although she was extremely poor and frighteningly fragile, this woman had taken her dwindling precious resources of money and strength and used them to get dressed in her Sunday dress and to pay for a cab ride to church.

  What impressed the Ruckers most was the woman's calm acceptance, her unshakable trust that "everything would be all right." She believed with all her heart that God would provide for her.  And the Ruckers did that day – offering her a ride, a trip to the grocery store, and some money to get her through the week.  The woman in her best purple dress didn't know what would happen to her. But she did know that Jesus Christ would walk with her.

This is what families are meant to do, to walk with us, to sing to us of acceptance, care, and grace.  Within our faith we have the ideal of a God who acts more like a mother or father, than a prison guard, banker, retailer, or army general.   Within our tradition we find a desire to return to the vision of the early church, of a peace-loving, accepting and caring community, in which people share with each other, and treat each other with love. Hard to imagine in our age, and even harder to put into practice.

Richard Rohr writes that God’s love and grace are at the very center of the Bible and our faith:  “This concept of grace is first called mercy, or hesed in Hebrew, the ever-faithful, covenant-bound love of God. I would go so far as to call grace the primary revelation of the entire Bible. If you miss this message, all the rest is distorted and even destructive.  I can’t emphasize this enough.”  This is also true of families: if the love is missing, if the faithfulness and sharing and genuine concern and unity and self-giving is missing – then we miss the point of family.  It is about caring about the other person’s well being as much as our own.   

         This is what church is meant to be for us: compassion, sharing, and love.  Let’s extend Mother’s Day – the Celebration of the Christian Home – out to all of our relationships and all of our lives.  Amen.