In my younger and more judgemental years, I was impatient with Mother’s Day. I dismissed Mother’s day as a Hallmark Holiday – an excuse, dreamt up in some corporate boardroom, to stimulate the sales of sappy cards and cheap boxes of assorted chocolates down at the local Rite Aide.
Now that I’m a parent myself, I am less apt to scoff at a thoughtful card. One glorious year all three of our young’uns somehow managed to surprise us with both mothers and fathers day cards… a miracle that forever altered my opinion of Rite Aid’s inventory of sappy greeting cards. Cary and I immortalized these great events by magnetting the cards to our fridge door… and wouldn’t you know it – they are enshrined there to this day!
But there is a problem.
It’s all too easy, when you buy a card or a box of chocolates for your mom, to congratulate yourself for being a good son or daughter and leave it at that.
That, you may think, is that.
This morning, I am taking it upon myself to inform you that that, in fact, is not that.
Not at all.
Mother’s Day is not just Mother’s Day. This annual event evolves as life progresses. It starts out as one thing, and then it turns into something else. Then it turns into something else again. And then… then… it turns into something else again!
In my experience, there four Mother’s Day’s.
Count them. (fingers) Four!
My sermon this morning will reveal each of them – but I will be sneaky about it. I like a slow reveal – it keeps you all awake!
**
Let’s take a look at the first scripture that Pastor Liz read for us this morning.
When I read it, again, earlier this week, it surprised me.
The surprising thing about this story is that something – or rather, someone – is missing. This story looks, feels, tastes and smells, and sounds like a classic New Testament miracle story… except for one surprising omission: Jesus. The one who usually performs miracles, is nowhere to be seen.
This story comes to us from the ninth chapter of the Book of Acts. This New Testament book – also known as The Act of the Apostles – is, in fact, not about Jesus. As the name suggests, this book tells stories about the acts of Jesus’ followers, a ragtag group of men and women who dedicated their lives to spreading Christ’s teachings far and wide to anyone who would listen.
Jesus gone, the two main characters of this story are Tabitha and Peter. Tabitha, the text says, lived in a town called Joppa. She is described as a disciple who was devoted to good works and acts of charity.
She sounds like a great lady! But… no sooner are we introduced to Tabitha, then she promptly dies.
Maybe this passage is not a great choice for Mother’s Day!
But wait… after her death, someone – another disciple puts two and two together and points out that Peter – one of Christ’s twelve – is in the nearby town of Lydda. A message is dispatched, and Peter is summoned post haste.
Peter arrives to the commotion of a family in mourning. It’s too late… Tabitha is dead. Unconcerned by this little detail, Peter tells the people to leave, and when he is alone with the body, he prays. Then, the text says:
He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.
This miracle happens almost casually. No smoke and mirrors. No pyrotechnics. No magic words. Almost before you are aware that anything is happening at all, the dead woman comes back to life.
And, surprisingly, the miracle is accomplished, not by the Messiah, but through the intervention of a mere mortal – someone like you and me – who has learned how to bestow a small gesture of love.
Where do you suppose he learned this simple but very powerful skill?
Those of you who know your scriptures well, may recall that an almost identical story is told about Jesus. In the fifth chapter of Mark’s gospel (verses 35-43), a leader in the Synagogue named Jairus approaches Jesus pleading on behalf of his daughter who is “at the point of death.” Jesus agrees to go to the child, but on his way, he gets briefly detained by another woman who wants to be healed, and by the time they reach the Jairus’s house, it’s too late, the girl has died. Unconcerned by this little detail, Jesus sends everyone away except his disciples Peter, James and John, and it is these three – Peter, was one of them – who witness the scene as Jesus prays, and then takes the girl by the hand and says “Little girl, get up.”
And with that one small, loving, gesture, the dead child lives again.
Jesus shrugs off the clamor of the amazed bystanders. Instead of basking in the glow of the miracle, he seems to have the demeanor of a bored police man saying “Nothing to see here…” as he impatiently instructs the family to get this kid something to eat already…
This story, from Acts, elegantly illustrates the first of the four Mother’s Day. The Mother’s Day, of course, is the one that we commonly think of, in which you are a child and your job is to honor the mother who gave you life.
In this story too, life is given.
When you are a child, who do you watch, attentively, to learn about the mysteries of the world?
You learn from Mom – just as Peter learned from Jesus.
And when, in the course of being a kid, you inevitably wipe out on loose gravel and skin your knee, who is there?
Mom.
She, like Peter – and Jesus before him – has the rare ability to deliver the casual, everyday miracle… the mother’s kiss that takes away the pain, almost before you know that she has done anything. Your mother – the one who gave you life – is somehow endowed with that inestimable gift – the ability to turn to you, and with one small gesture lift the sting from the texture of life, and then, as if nothing really happened, head off to the kitchen to make you something to eat.
**
Are you wondering what the second Mother’s Day is?
Perhaps you have already guessed.
I came to know Mother’s Day number 2 when I got married, and, in due time, my wife became a mother.
And I became a father.
Now, motherhood meant something altogether different to me. Now the mother that I honored on Mother’s Day, was not the woman who brought me into the world, not the one who nurtured me at her breast, healed my bruises with a kiss, and eased me into my first vague understanding of the world. This mother – who is also my wife – is my friend, my peer, my soul mate, my partner.
Roughly the same age, this mother and I are essentially equal in worldly experience. Together we navigate the bewildering labyrinth of credit scores, daycare pickup, amortization schedules, flexible benefit accounts, car payments and yard work. Now and then we cross paths, waving at each other across the room as one spoons food into a toddler’s mouth and the other wipes dish detergent from her hair. We live in what Zorba the Greek famously called “a full catastrophe lifestyle.”
And yet…
And yet amidst all the insanity, there is something, something about our connection that is no less miraculous than the connection I had with the mother who gave me life.
What was it?
There are two ideas that I can lift from the passage that Liz read from the Gospel of John, that at least begin to answer this question.
In that passage, you may recall, some of the Jews lost their patience with Jesus. Will you quit beating around the bush, they complained, and just tell us whether or not you are the Messiah that we have been waiting for?
Jesus replies: The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me…”
This is another way of saying “The proof is in the pudding” or “Deeds are more powerful than words.”
Look at what I do, and you will see who I am. Through my actions, you will recognize me
After this, he says: My sheep hear my voice.
I love this beautiful phrase – My sheep hear my voice.
This beautiful phrase is all about recognizing wen a relationship is sacred.
Put these two ideas together, and they nicely represent the miracle of my second Mother’s Day – the Mother’s Day that I share with the mother who is my wife…
Through her actions I recognize the sacredness of our relationship.
She is the woman who brought my children into the world, nurtured them at her breast, healed their bruises with a kiss, and eased them into their first vague understanding of the world.
She is sacred to me… so I hear her voice.
I recognize her.
I honor her.
**
Its hard for me to believe that it has been 14 years since my mother, Lois Eleanor Koyama, died on April 13th, 2011. It was roughly a month later, in May of that year, that I came to know a third version of Mother’s Day – the Mother’s Day one experiences when one no longer has a mother.
When Mom was gone, the nature of my existence was forever altered.
In my grief, I remembered how she came to me when, as a child, I cried out in the night.
I felt like a boat untied from its dock. Drifting away from the pier, I wondered if I might get caught in a current and be drawn out to sea. I realized that while she was alive my mother was always there. I don’t mean that she was actually always physically there. I mean that in some mysterious way, when I was worried, she was inside me, giving me a sense of security. The instinct to rely on her – to reach out to her – was woven into my being.
It seemed impossible that she could be gone.
On Mother’s Day number three, I learned a new kind of emptiness. I did not know, until she was gone, that she was not just a person – she was my emotional center of gravity.
As the years passed, I learned that, even though she was dead, she was still with me. When I spoke, I sometimes heard her voice. When I played a beautiful chord on the piano, I summoned her presence.
When I live my life, I give her life.
I give her life.
To give life is to be a mother.
God also gives life.
And so, God, like a mother, is inside of us. When we live our lives, God lives in us.
You can see this truth woven into the fabric of the Apostle Paul’s words, in the third reading that Liz read for us.
God is present in everything Paul writes.
I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world
.
Paul cannot nurture a relationship without bringing God into the relationship.
God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.
The final, and fourth Mother’s Day…
What could it be?
The fourth mother’s day sneaked up on me and revealed itself to me last month when my daughter called me on the phone.
“I have some exciting news!” she said. (sparse pasta from here to the end)
Before she told me her exciting news, I knew what it was.
And you know too – don’t you?
My daughter is going to be a mother!
My mother
My wife
My daughter
Each a mother.
Each filled with life.
Each giving life.
Mother’s day times four! Each is a threshold that leads to love. To care. To all that is sacred. In all four, God is present – encompassing, surrounding, and creating. As divine an experience as can be imagined.
Amen.