Homily for May 13, 2007

Homily May 13, 2007, Mothers’ Day, Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Since it's Mothers' Day, I hope you'll indulge me a little moment of silliness. I remember it was on Mothers' Day 11 years ago today that I first came here, and I was quoting from a book. I've long since lost the book. The book was Heart Talks with Mother God, and in that book there was a little ditty that I sang. And of course I can't sing now the way I could then, but I'm going to try to teach you that little ditty today, okay? I think it goes like this: “Mother God, Mother God on your lap hold me. I feel secure when your arms enfold me. Mother God, Mother God, how I love you.” Can you sing that?

[All singing]: Mother God, Mother God, on your lap hold me. I feel secure when your arms enfold me. Mother God, Mother God how I love you."

That's a nice little ditty, isn't it? And I just always like to begin on Mothers' Day with the reminder that it is as true to say God is our mother as it is to say God is our father. In fact, there are a lot of mother images of God in the Bible that get buried. I just want to share one of them with you that I think relates very much to motherhood. And I am not a scholar of Hebrew, though I know just a little bit, enough to be dangerous. But somebody told me that in Hebrew there are no abstract words, or there are no words for abstract concepts. So what they do is they take something concrete and make it plural. So for example, we often read about the compassion of God, but there is no Hebrew word for "compassion." So, do you know what they use when they want to speak of God's compassion? The plural of the word "womb." So whenever you read of God's compassion it's really speaking of God's womb and of God's womblike love, because the womb knows how to nurture and how to protect without possessing, and it knows how to nurture and let go into new life. Does that seem an appropriate image of motherhood? That was just kind of something at the beginning of the homily. The other thought I had connecting with the readings and with Mothers' Day is, do you know Jesus left very few detailed instructions for the church? He didn't spell it out for us, what we were supposed to do. Instead He said, "I'll send you my Spirit, and my Spirit will teach you what to do. And so, figure it out." That almost seems appropriate for motherhood, too, doesn't it? I mean, there aren't any detailed manuals that children come with, and there aren't any detailed instructions. God says, "Figure it out, and my Spirit will be with you." And so it's not surprising that in the early church there were a lot of conflicts and a lot of arguments as they tried to figure it out. The first reading today gives us one of those big arguments in the early church, and that was what to do about the Jewish law, especially for Gentile converts to Christ. The issues were: Should they be circumcised? Should they keep the dietary laws? Should they keep the laws of purity? And some said you can't be saved unless you do those things. And others said, "No, you're saved by grace. You're saved by God's love and by faith." Now, those particular issues are long since gone, but that underlying conflict has been with us throughout the centuries, and it surfaces again and again in various ways. Let me just ask you very succinctly, "How are you saved? Are you saved because of your success in living up to the standards of the law? Or are you saved by God's grace?” What do you think? God's grace? How many would agree with me? Okay. We all know that, but deep down isn't there part of us that has that nagging feeling that we have to save ourselves by doing everything right? I mean, don't you? You know - I'm fond of quoting this - that in every relationship, or most relationships, one person wants it more than the other, and one person is always bending over backwards, going the extra mile, taking the first step. And in our relationship with God, who wants it most? God does, but many of us have lived our life as if God was looking for an excuse to break it off, and God isn't. God wants to be related to us far more. Now, if I were to apply that to Mothers' Day, I think of all the beautiful Mothers' Day cards that people send. If I were a mother they would make me feel very guilty. Can you relate to it? I mean, you know, those of you who are mothers, think of your image of the ideal mother. Think of your image of the ideal children. Think of your image of the ideal relationship between mother and child. How many of you live up to that perfectly? [Inaudible response] Kat said, "Can you tell our kids when they get back that we're not supposed to live up to that perfectly?" Do you know where I'm going? If we hold that ideal too much in our mind and measure ourselves against the ideal, we can end up beating ourselves up pretty badly, and we can end up getting beaten up pretty badly. Contrasted to that is grace. One of my heroes as a spiritual writer is Gerald May, and in one of his books he says the ultimate moment of sanity for parents - and I would add, maybe the ultimate moment of grace - is when you walk in to your child's bedroom and the child is asleep, and in that moment you don't have to do anything about the child. You don't have to fix it, you don't have to correct it, you don't have to manage it, and you don't have to do anything about yourself in relation to the child. You can just enjoy the mystery and the wonder of who they are. Can you relate to that? There are moments of grace in our lives, aren't there? I mean, I think often they come in the midst of our striving to do the right thing and to be the right thing. I don't want to be misinterpreted as saying you don't have to do anything. So let go of the ideal. I think we always try to live toward it. But there are moments that come to us in the midst of our striving when we are aware of something wonderful beyond all of our striving, something mysterious that can reach out and envelope us and grab us, and for which we can just simply feel grateful. Think for a moment, can you recall moments of grace in your life? I hope we all can, and I just want to invite you for a minute or two to recall some moments of grace, and maybe savor them and taste them again and hold them before God