Sermon: Mother's Day

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Mother's Day

By Charles Rush

May 13, 2001

the middle of an important City Council meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, Police Chief Phil Keith was surprised to see that his pager went off. He was very concerned when he looked down to see that the phone call was from his mother. This was a City Council meeting where there were a number of press people present to record the events. Like all City Council meetings in Knoxville, it was carried over Cable television.

The Police Chief quickly got up from his chair, walked over to the press table, borrowed a cell phone from one of the reporters and called his mother. She answers the phone and he says, “Mom, is everything alright?”

She says, “Phil Keith, are you chewing gum? I've been watching the City Council meeting on Cable television.”

The Chief said, “Yes Ma'am”.

“Well it looks awful,” his mother said. “Spit it out.”

The vast majority of our phone calls to Mom turn out to be some variant of Chief Keith's emergency call home don't they. Perhaps you recall Shaquille O'Neal going back to finish his college courses. Finally, the day came when he was to graduate and a bunch of news reporters were there. There was Shaq, all 300 some odd pounds of him, 7 plus feet of him, swimming in money, fame, and girls. There he was with his cap and gown on, leaning over as his little old mother straightened his tie on national television. Some things never change. We never stop being our Mother's project if we are lucky enough to have a living Mother.

And we put up with a lot of that small stuff because of the years that go by, day in and day out, ordinary stuff that happens, the way that love gets structured by someone that keeps after us, looks over us, cares about us. Love is helping you get that back pack organized. It is showing up at concerts and games, it is simply being present in the back ground. It is worrying about your wound.

In the wonderful movie Steel Magnolia's Mother and daughter are with a bunch of friends and neighbors in a small southern town, at the beauty parlor, getting their nails done the day before the daughter is to get married. All these women are chatting on about this and that when the daughter, the bride-to-be, at the end of the room, starts to convulse. Her eyes roll back in her head. All the beauticians are slack jawed with fear, immobilized and completely silent. They had never seen anyone go into a diabetic shock and didn't know what to do. Her mother looks toward the silence at the end of the room, sees her daughter in convulsions, and leaps out of her chair towards her, shouting “give me some candy, someone give me some candy.” Her daughter has hit the floor by now and the Mother is sitting on top of her, forcing the candy into her mouth and shouting, “Shelby just look at me and it is all going to be all right.” Just like a Mother to jump right in and nurse us when we are in danger and whether or not we get healed, it is better having her around.

When people are sick in the middle of the night, who do they go to for help? Whoever is the mothering spouse in the family. I will confess that no one wakes me up unless they have to go to the third string.

That is what a Mother's love is like, nurturing, caring, nursing. Jesus says, speaking just like a Mother, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you under my wings.” When you think about most of the images of God that we learn from Jesus, many, many of them have a developed Maternal quality to them. We worship a God that loved us before we were even born, like the way that our Mother's all looked forward to us in anticipation (even if they might also have some worry too). We worship a God that looks after us, and keeps after us and will not let us go. In the story of the Prodigal Son it is the Father that waits on the front porch for the Son to come home but in reality, how really it is characteristically Maternal to wait up, to worry with concern, for errant children to finally come home.

We worship a God that fills us with encouragement and hope. How Maternal to offer support. One of the greatest coaches in N.B.A. history was K.C. Jones, the former coach of the Boston Celtics. Jones became famous for his ability to give his players some unforgettable words of encouragement when they needed it most. If a player scored 40 points or made the game-winning basket, Jones would not say much more than “nice game”. But when a player was down and really struggling, Coach Jones would be tthere to comfort and help and inspire. All-star forward Kevin McHale asked Coach Jones about this one day, and K.C. Jones answered: “Kevin, after you've made the winning basket, you've got 15,000 people cheering for you, TV commentators come rushing toward you, and everybody is giving you high fives. You don't need me then. When you need a friend most is when nobody is cheering.” Wise parents understand that. So do wise spouses. And wise friends. Love is supportive. Love encourages. Love uplifts. Parents know just how difficult this can really be. It is much easier to simply provide our children with a nice home, a good education, opportunities for travel and fulfillment. Often times when our children need support the most, they have genuinely disappointed us, failed to live up to our expectations, they have been acting out. More than anything else, we'd like to just slap them up side the head with a large block of wood. Our own children are much more difficult to coach than a basketball team because we have so much more of ourselves invested in them. When our kids fail, part of every parent is deeply threatened in a way that is difficult to articulate. Love is working through that frustration and figuring out how to be a creative support, a firm structure with expectations to be sure, but a creative support in the difficult times. And if you can do that well- Wow- what a blessing you can be to people…

Another way that God's love for us is like a Mother's is God's willingness to take daring risks on our behalf. We worship the God that came and rescued the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, using an ordinary shepherd, Moses, to turn the great power of Egypt on its ear and set the Hebrews free. We worship the God who sent us the example of Jesus, showing us the meaning of love in the midst of loveless power, turning the Roman Empire on its ear and forever changing the course of Western Civilization. How like a Mother that really is to accomplish profound change without the trappings of power.

During the Civil War a Confederate Major by the name of Horace Harmon Lurton was taken prisoner by the Union forces. In prison, Major Lurton developed tuberculosis. His mother came to visit him and was alarmed by his condition. She knew her son would die if he stayed behind bars. So Mrs. Lurton traveled to Washington to beg mercy from the only person she thought could help her, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It was a long shot to be sure because her son was a Confederate officer. Not deterred by the difficulty of the circumstances, she got herself to the White House. Lincoln was so moved by her concern for her Son that he sat down and wrote a note to the commanding forces in charge of her son's prison. It said simply, “Let the boy go home with his mother. A. Lincoln.”

Horace Harmon Lurton was released from prison. He recovered from his tuberculosis. By the way, he went on to become a distinguished lawyer and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Tennessee. What a daring, bold thing for that Mother to do. How like God's daring love for us it really is.

I've been impressed with a number of women I've known in the past several years that have taken matters into their own hands because their kids needed it. You know women that see that education is not working for their children, that this environment is not working for their children- there is a lot of competition around here, a lot of accomplishment, and certain expectations for behavior- it doesn't work for every kid. I admire these mothers that say, “we are moving for our children to a different life that will help them flourish.”

We have a friend, whose child has a rare medical condition. This child is very bright on one level but has serious limitations socially and interpersonally. The school didn't know what to do; the doctors didn't know what to do. By the time this child was in early elementary school, it was obvious that something was not right but no one knew what it was. I've watched this mother for ten years on the hunt for this kid. A phenomenal amount of research, an incredible array of physicians. But this mother came armed. She followed her hunches. She sought out the right experts in the field. She had a thick folder of symptoms, copies of tests. And finally, there was a physician who diagnosed her child properly.

Then she had to formulate a plan for the school board. It wasn't a simple learning disability that was easy to catagorize. She jumped in and helped to craft a lesson approach so that her child could learn, she had to sell that to the school system, and she had to get in there and train teachers every couple of years. I cannot believe what she has done but motivated, persistent, radical love can accomplish a whole, whole lot.

It is a great thing, a noble thing Mother's love for people. And I think that is why, if you watch Mother's closely, they are never so alive as when they are loving and nurturing kids, no matter what their age. In the bible, they call that Kairos time, fulfilled time. They have expressions like “The hour is at hand” or “Behold, the time is now”. Sometimes, Jesus would say, “The kingdom of God is at hand” or “The time is fulfilled” or “the Kingdom of God is in your midst”. It means that this time is filled with the meaning of our existence, so it is rich. You want to be in it, stay in it. It is the time you remember fondly when you are old and infirm or far away or locked up. This time is compressed which is why we always say, hold on to each moment with those babies. It is precious time.

I heard of a businessman from Texas that was in Indianapolis at the ticket counter. He was inquiring about flights to Chicago. This man from Texas didn't realize that Indianapolis is in Eastern Standard Time and that Chicago is on Central Standard Time. He is asking about the next flight. The ticket agent says, “The next flight leaves Indianapolis at 1:00 p.m. and arrives in Chicago at 1:01 p.m.”

The Texan said, “would you repeat that please?”

“Sure” said the ticket agent. “The next flight leaves Indianapolis at 1:00 p.m. and arrives in Chicago at 1:01 p.m.. Would you like to make a reservation?”

The Texan scratched his head, picked up his bag and said, “No ma'am, but I think I'll hang around and watch that thing take off.”

We were at the beach a couple years ago. One of the guys staying with us decided that he wanted to rent a jet ski. They rented by the half hour, so this guy rents the jet ski, takes off immediately going as fast as he could. You could see him out in the bay turning the sharpest corners possible, cutting and spraying people with his fish tails. He was even turning so hard that he would occasionally get thrown into the ocean. After a while, he kept looking back for the flag to go up and signal that the ride was over. He was trying to squeeze every possible enjoyment from that ride.

When it was over, I asked him, “Do you think you would have ridden like that if we had a jet ski that came with the house rental and we had it all week?” “No, not hardly” he said.

Chronological time keeps the same pace. Kairos time slows down when we fill it with meaning, with love, with poignancy. We can do that and that is what God wants to fill us with.

There is a unique telephone service in Chicago called “Grandma, Please”. It is geared for latch-key kids. “Grandma Please” provides a free number kids can call if they are home alone and need someone to talk to. Senior citizens volunteer their time to answer telephones and talk to kids who are lonely or scared or who need a little adult company. The “Grandma Please” switchboard gets about 800 calls per month. Many of the children want to share the news of the day with someone. Some will call because they heard a noise outside or something made them scared. Most call because they want to make contact with another human figure, a supportive person like grandma. One volunteer reports that her phone calls often end with the child saying, “I love you Grandma. What is your name?”

Every child deserves someone to talk to. Every child deserves to feel that they are genuinely loved. Every child deserves to know that there is a bond that nothing in this world can break. That is what Mother God's love for us is like.

The Rabbi's have a saying that “God couldn't be present everywhere at once, so God made Mother's. May you be blessed to show a Mother's love to someone else. I hope your time can be rich, filled with meaning.

Amen.