Sermon: Mother's Day 2007

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Mother's Day 2007

By Charles Rush

May 13, 2007

[ Audio (mp3, 5.3Mb) ]

ppy Mother's Day! We gather today to praise our Mother's and our mentors in the faith. And it is probably true that it is less complicated to praise women than men in this regard.

I remember as a child, the banks of the Mississippi river flooded pretty bad and one of my schoolmates, Leonard, was sent to Memphis to live with his Uncle and Aunt while his family dealt with the flooding. A week later, Leonard returned by bus in a bit of a surprise to his family and neighbors. A note accompanied Leonard that said, "We are returning our nephew… please send the flood."

Boys come with more issues and these grow with them well into manhood. By contrast, how wonderful it is to see matriarchs that make judicious use of their authority. Several months ago, I was returning to Newark from Atlanta, late at night… you know the drill. Our plane landed with quite a boom, causing all the passengers to jump, yelp, and groan at the same time.

We get to the gate, everyone is filing off, the crew is thanking us, along with the Pilot. It was late, everyone was quiet and getting to where they needed to go. An elderly Grandmother from Atlanta was in front of me. She stopped the pilot and said, "Sir, was that just a rough landing or were we shot down." Pilot, aged 42, got that 'Sorry Mom' look on his face.

Our scripture lesson lifts up the value of Matriarchs, the way that the faith and the values of the Spirit are handed down concretely through three generations (From Grandmother to Mother to Timothy). How important that is for strong families and equally important for strong spiritual families as well…. So often, they give us that sense of identity, that we know who we are, that existential self-worth that turns out to be critical for us to thrive.

I've been blessed to watch it this year. One of our granddaughters lives on a few hours away and we have seen a lot of her as the kids have been home. Both grandmothers live in Summit, also a blessing.

When our granddaughter comes to visit, she just runs for either of her Grandmothers. And then she just wants to sit in their lap. It looks like she is hard-wired for this comfort. Before she could really have any cognitive function that would make this connection, it is like she already knows her grandmothers and they are bigger than life. It is astonishing to see.

There is something subliminal that Grandmother's communicate to babies: it is accepting, relaxing, safe, loved. And that doesn't end with babies either.

You may know of the singing group, "Sweet Honey in the Rock". It is a women's group. Their material is wonderful. They have a song entitled "No Mirrors in My Nana's House". It turns out that the woman that wrote the song grew up poor, in one of those great, extended families in the South. And her Nana helped her get dressed every morning. Nana had a very modest house, no mirrors.

One of her friends asked her, "How did you know what you looked like before you went to school each day?" This is what she said, "My Nana told me. I would say, 'How do I look?' And she would tell me. She would tell me I was beautiful. She said my skin was smooth and golden brown, kissed by the sun, and she said my eyes shone like silver moonbeams. In my Nan's house, there were no mirrors, so I saw myself through my Nana's eyes who loved me and the beauty of everything was in her eyes."[i]

I never knew that my skin was too black.
I never knew that my nose was too flat.
I never knew that my clothes didn't fit.
I never knew there were things that I'd missed,
cause the beauty in everything
was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun);
...was in her eyes.

There were no mirrors in my Nana's house,
no mirrors in my Nana's house.
And the beauty that I saw in everything
was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).

The world outside was a magical place.
I only knew love.
I never knew hate,
and the beauty in everything
was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
...was in her eyes…

"Chil', look deep into my eyes."
"Chil', look deep into my eyes."
"Chil'..."[ii]

Of course, this capacity isn't 'Hard-wired', it is the Spiritual dimension of our calling to be matriarchs. We have to access that capacity. We have to open ourselves to it… But, Man, what a powerful spiritual ability to heal and grow. Once you see what it can be, why wouldn't you want to participate in it?

But it is not just acceptance and self-worth, we are here to praise Matriarchal mentors because they also inspire us morally. It is so important. We remember those examples that gave us that sense of responsibility and ownership so that we not only could make it on our own, we wanted to…

One of my grandmothers would occasionally call to me when I was young. "Charles Thomas may I have a word with you." Charles Thomas… when I would hear those two words, a wave of undifferentiated anxiety swept over me, the same feeling I had when I had to report to my football coach. Usually I would walk in the room, shut the door, and every time I would say, "Yes Ma'am". Fortunately these sessions were few. Fortunately, my grandmother never abused the entrée. But every time, there was something important that I was about to be taught. And the truth was this. I could handle offending God and I could take whatever punishment the President of the United States might dole out, but to offend my Grandmother or have her be genuinely disappointed in me, that was more than a body could take.

I was amused to see an interview with Tim Duncan, probably the Most Valuable Player in the NBA for the past 4-5 years. You may know that he is a graduate of that outstanding institution of higher education, Wake Forest University. One of the guys from ESPN was asking him about all the young buck players now that go straight from High School to the Pro's and the other new trend of more and more College Juniors skipping their senior year to go straight to the Pro's. Tim Duncan did not do that but stayed his senior year to graduate from college. The reporter asked Tim Duncan why he stayed in college for the full four years. He got this furrowed look on his face like this was a trick question or something. He said, "Are you kidding me man?" The reporter said, "No, why did you stay?" Tim said, "My Mom." What other reason in the world could there be for doing anything completely. Somehow, I find it deeply gratifying that in the world of sharks, agents, scoundrels, thieves, and NBA owners, the voice of Tim's mom was louder, clearer, and had the ability to trump money, vanity, and hype.

And the same thing is quietly true across our country with less fanfare and celebrity. David Bunting and I went to see the graduation of the inmates from a college program that we support at Christ Church for prisoners at Sing Sing prison in New York. These guys finished high school in prison and finished college. So they were in the joint for some serious time, usually for doing some bad things. As they received their diplomas, almost all of them gave a tribute to Mom. It was moving in its own way, just thinking that Mom was probably the only one not to give up on them, to stay with them through it all, and keep them pointed in the right direction, regardless of how many times they goofed it up.

That is the very unromantic stature of a Mother's moral presence. And we need moral character. We need to be people of serious moral substance, as well as people of joy, celebration, passion. I was reminded of this reading about the woman that actually first proposed a day to honor Mother's. She did it to promote peace, that Mother's might never have to have their sons die in useless military campaigns, a sentiment that frankly has relevance at the moment.

The woman was Julia Ward Howe. You probably know her name vaguely. She wrote the lyrics for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". [Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/ He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword/ His truth is marching on.] She was an abolitionist in the 19th century and that poem, first published in the Atlantic Monthly became the unofficial hymn of the Union army in the Civil War.

But the scope and depth of the aftermath of that war, turned her focus again to the horrors of war itself. Particularly, it was the Franco-Prussian war just a few years after the end of the Civil War, in 1870-1871 that gave rise to a new German military caste and political order that I am sure appeared to be the wave of the future at the time, not only of Europe but probably the future for the United States as well.

Julia Ward Howe was a suffragist in the 19th century. She had watched men with exclusive control of the political process. She had watched as war was increasingly used to settle conflicts and like so many of the women suffragists of the day, she had a simple plea that there simply must be a better way and that the contribution of women could only elevate the mode of conflict resolution between the nations.

So she called for a Mother's Day of Peace, for women to come together and unite their voices in moral protest against the over use of violence. And this was her original declaration.

"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,

"Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. "Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.

"We women of one country will be too tender towards those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,

And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

Those words are spoken with an authority that only people who have lived through the horrors of war and experienced the very unromantic reality of its aftermath can speak. The point is not to quibble with one line or another, but to note the overall moral courage and fortitude that the original leader had before the Floral industry and the Greeting card business dumbed it down and fluffed out the holiday until it had no moral fiber in it.

We need Motherly Mentor's with moral backbone, Motherly Mentor's who are confident about what they bring to the table that is missing if they are not present in leadership. No, the Motherly Mentor's entry in the lexicon of life that carries the subtitle "Courageous Moral Force" is not yet fully subscribed…

So Happy Mother's Day to all of you Motherly Mentors. Yours is a high and holy calling, from changing diapers, to hugging your Godson at his graduation, to walking in a March on Washington. We need your wings of refuge, support, and compassion. And may God grant you a vision of what you should be about in this next chapter of your life and who else you can include in your influence. May God grant you joy and spiritual gravitas at the same time. For better and worse, nobody else is going to do this, nobody else can do this, but you. Amen.

[i] Dynamic Preaching, vol. 22, no. 2 (April-June, 2007) p. 47.

[ii] From http://www.ymbarnwell.com/nomirrors-lyr.htm (now gone)