Sunday 09-May-10St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Brodhagen
Text: John 10:22-30 Theme: Mother’s love for her children is like Jesus love for us – Mother’s Day
There
are two big days in our Church calendar : Christmas and Easter. These
two dates fix and mark our church calendars – and our family calendars.
Christmas fixes the start of our church year – the four Sundays before
Christmas Day are the Advent Sundays – this year Advent and our new
church calendar starts on 28th November. Then there is Easter –
which moves around quite a bit between March 22 and April 25. Easter
Sunday is the first Sunday - after the full moon following the Northern
Hemisphere's spring equinox which is March 21. Easter then pushes and
pulls the church calendar between and Christmas and Lent (the 5 Sundays
days before Easter) and moves our Day of Pentecost too. Two
years ago we had our Confirmation Day and Pentecost on Mothers’ Day –
this year, Pentecost and Confirmation falls on the Victoria Day
weekend.
So our church calendar and the secular calendar
sometime bump into each other and the two calendars might seem to be
independent – but they are often linked.
Today is Mother’s day
and I would suggest that if an observer from outer space arrived today
and saw the abundance of organised brunches and saw the flower and
greet card sales, they would be hard pressed to guess the origins of
Mothering Sunday as religious event.
Wikipedia the online encyclopaedia has this to say about the history of Mother’s Day:
"In
the Roman religion the Hilaria festival was held in honour of the
mother goddess Cy-bel-e and it took place during mid-March. As the
Roman Empire and Europe converted to Christianity, this celebration
became part of the liturgical calendar as Laetare Sunday, the fourth
Sunday in Lent to honour the Virgin Mary (the mother of Jesus) and the
mother church. During the sixteenth century, people would return
to their mother church for a service to be held on Laetare Sunday. This
was either a large local church, or more often the nearest Cathedral.
Anyone who did this was commonly said to have gone "a-mothering",
although whether this preceded the term Mothering Sunday is unclear. In
later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were
given a day off to visit their mothers and other family members. It was
often the only time that whole families could gather together, since in
other days they were prevented by conflicting working hours. By
the third decade of the twentieth century, the custom of keeping
Mothering Sunday had tended to lapse in Europe. It was revived through
the influence of American and Canadian soldiers serving abroad during
World War II, who celebrated Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May.
People from Ireland and the UK started celebrating Mother's Day again,
but on the same day Mothering Sunday had been celebrated before it fell
into disuse, the fourth Sunday in Lent." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothering_Sunday
Anna
Jarvis was the creator of the North American celebration of “Mother’s
Day”. In 1912, Jarvis trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May"
and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International
Association.
"She was specific about the location of the
apostrophe; it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to
honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers
in the world." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day
In the Ottawa Citizen in 2008 there is an article titled:
“Mother's Day creator likely 'spinning in her grave' - Pity the mother of Mother’s Day - By Canwest News Service May 11, 2008 Anna
Jarvis — never married, never a mother — campaigned for almost a decade
to dedicate a day to honour mothers. She chose a Sunday because she
wanted it to be a “holy” day, not a holiday, and the second Sunday in
May because it was the anniversary of the death of her own beloved
mother.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html
Our church calendar and the secular calendar sometimes bump into each other.
In our calendar of Easter readings – we do not have a particular set of readings for Mother’s Day.
As
it happens – I was preparing for the Fourth Sunday of Easter – April
25th and as I read and wrote notes – this Mother’s Day sermon
starting appearing – so our two calendars bumped just a little more and
I moved the Easter readings around.
The other thing that popped into my head as I reading and studying was the classic text about a finding
one’s mother’s. I was at the library and yes – they had a copy of
this classic text – it is a story about a journey. Even though it
is a short story - let me paraphrase it for you – It’s a story written
by P.D Eastman and it is called “Are You My Mother?”
“It
is the story about a mother bird who knows her egg will be in her nest
where she left it, so she leaves him alone to go and get something for
him to eat. The baby bird hatches. He does not understand where his
mother is so he goes to look for her. In his search, he asks a kitten,
a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No." Then
he sees an old car, which cannot be his mother for sure. In
desperation, the hatchling calls out to a boat and a plane, and at
last, convinced he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an
enormous power shovel (that the baby bird calls a Snort). But as it
shudders and grinds into motion he cannot escape. "I want my mother!"
he shouts. But at this climactic moment, his fate is suddenly
reversed. The shovel drops him back in his nest, just as his mother is
returning home, “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_My_Mother%3F
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READ PAGES 60-62
Just then the mother bird came back to the tree.
"Do you know who I am?" she said to her baby.
"Yes, I know who you are," said the baby bird.
"You are not a kitten.
You are not a hen.
You are not a dog.
You are not a cow.
You are not a boat, or a plane, or a Snort!"
You are a bird, and you are my mother."
--------
At
the start of the book – the baby bird’s first thought and words are
“Where is my mother”. And the end of the book – the baby
instantly recognises his “Mother”. "Yes, I know who you are," says the
baby bird.
And that can sum up our reaction too. We may
feel that we are alone and helpless – and the reaction “where is my
mother - I need her” maybe exactly how we feel. A good
mother’s seem to just be there as we need them.There to care – to feed
and nourish both with the physical and the immediate – and also with
building and encouraging words and love needed for growth. A good
mother gives us life – both the physical act of birth and the again the
life that is needed for our own growth. The cry “where is my mother” is
satisfied when the Mother bird returns with a juicy worm and the baby
bird’s recognition – of “You are my mother”. Even when the baby bird
goes looking – he can not go find and pick out a mother that will do –
he is wanting HIS own mother. We do not pick our mothers but we
hope to be blessed with a good one. And even when the baby bird grows
and realises independence even if our Mother’s are no longer
with us or as close us – we are still our mother’s baby bird. We
are always our Mother’s children.
Sometimes
it is just plain good to hear your mother’s voice. For you know
things will be OK: I will be cared for - I will be fed - I will be
loved.
All of that – is what popped through my mind as I read
the Gospel of John that was scheduled for April 25th – the Forth Sunday
in Easter.
And the people gathered and said “Are you our
Messiah?” And Jesus said” My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and
they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never
perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
The
images in John show Jesus as the shepherd – and we have that image up
in our windows. And truth be told, we can be like sheep – easily lost,
needing care – needing to be reassured, needing to be
feed. Jesus is not just the shepherd from the images in John.
Jesus can be like a good mother. Because we are not just sheep –
we too can be the baby bird to Jesus our good mother bird because that
is how Jesus loves us: like a mother would, caring – feeding –
giving of himself – knowing that we are his.
Thanks be to God
for the gift of our good mothers: Who know us, or have known us,
cared for us, loved us, fed us and given us life. And thanks be to
God for the gift of Jesus – Who knows us, cares for us – Who
loves us and feeds us and give us spiritual life now and the
eternal life for ever.
Amen
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:7
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