James T. Cleland - "Mother's Day?" (May 9, 1965)
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| - | Even under the drawing down | 0:03 |
| of the saint (indistinct). | 0:05 | |
| Let us pray. | 0:24 | |
| Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts | 0:26 | |
| be acceptable in thy sight. | 0:32 | |
| Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. | 0:36 | |
| Amen. | 0:41 | |
| Mother's Day is an American creation, | 0:50 | |
| the invention of one Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, | 0:56 | |
| who designated the second Sunday of May as an opportunity | 1:03 | |
| for each person to remember his, | 1:08 | |
| her mother by some act of grateful affection. | 1:12 | |
| It is a sentimental festival, | 1:20 | |
| which is somewhat permeated with religious overtones. | 1:23 | |
| Hence the choice of Sunday for its celebration. | 1:29 | |
| Personally, I do not approach the ecclesiastical observance | 1:36 | |
| over this occasion with any great enthusiasm | 1:42 | |
| for two reasons. | 1:47 | |
| The first reason is the vivid recollection | 1:51 | |
| of a traumatic homiletical experience. | 1:54 | |
| 19 years ago, on the second Sunday of May, | 1:59 | |
| I substituted for the then Dean of the divinity school | 2:05 | |
| in a well-known pulpit, | 2:10 | |
| Methodist's pulpit in this state. | 2:13 | |
| On entering the church with the resident minister, | 2:17 | |
| I noticed that every woman in the congregation had a corsage | 2:20 | |
| and every man, a flower buttonhole on his lapel. | 2:25 | |
| I said to the minister, "What's wrong?" | 2:32 | |
| And he responded, "What's wrong with what?" | 2:36 | |
| I commented, "They're all dressed up florally." | 2:40 | |
| And he answered, "It's Mother's Day." | 2:44 | |
| And I muttered, "God forbid." | 2:47 | |
| I had prepared a sermon in which Jezebel | 2:52 | |
| had a prominent part. | 2:56 | |
| (audience laughing) | 2:59 | |
| Now, as I am a carefully prepared impromptu speaker, | 3:02 | |
| it was either Jezebel or no sermon. | 3:07 | |
| I have never been asked to preach in that church again, | 3:12 | |
| (audience laughing) | 3:16 | |
| I have never been asked to preach by that minister | 3:18 | |
| in any of the churches, which he has served since 1946. | 3:20 | |
| And I have never preached a Mother's Day sermon since. | 3:27 | |
| The second reason is an aversion to the model | 3:33 | |
| and yet crash mockishness which envelops this Sunday. | 3:38 | |
| Mother's Day is especially revered season | 3:43 | |
| in the commercial holy year, | 3:47 | |
| which makes use about genuine affection or embarrassed guilt | 3:51 | |
| to boost profits. | 3:57 | |
| Of course, Father's Day had to follow with gifts for him, | 4:00 | |
| often purchased with his credit cards. | 4:05 | |
| And now there is the promise or the threat | 4:10 | |
| of mother in-laws day, or should it be mothers in-law day? | 4:13 | |
| The unique appropriate flower | 4:20 | |
| has been suggested, Snapdragon. | 4:23 | |
| (audience laughing) | 4:27 | |
| Now, who is next in line? | 4:30 | |
| This mercantile approach to Mother's Day | 4:35 | |
| has so worried the church | 4:38 | |
| that it has recommended a different kind of observance | 4:40 | |
| for the second Sunday in May. | 4:43 | |
| It suggests that it be recognized as the Festival | 4:46 | |
| of the Christian Home. | 4:51 | |
| Now that new emphasis is for many people, a sound one, | 4:54 | |
| if May metaphors, the sentimental, | 4:59 | |
| the modeling aspect of Mother's Day | 5:02 | |
| into a spiritual appreciation of the home, | 5:06 | |
| the whole, which is so basic a unit, | 5:11 | |
| in our Western civilization. | 5:15 | |
| So let us turn to the teaching of our Lord on the home | 5:18 | |
| with occasional glances at a mother or two. | 5:23 | |
| The first part of our morning scripture lesson | 5:28 | |
| is captioned in the interpreter's Bible, | 5:32 | |
| Jesus through family. | 5:36 | |
| Jesus had been teaching in someone's house | 5:40 | |
| beside the sea of Galilee, | 5:43 | |
| when a message was brought to him that his brothers | 5:46 | |
| and his mother had arrived | 5:48 | |
| and wanted him to go out and speak to them. | 5:51 | |
| 'Twas a natural request, | 5:56 | |
| which Jesus answered very unnaturally. | 5:57 | |
| Here's how Phillips translates the Greek text, | 6:02 | |
| "Jesus replied, 'And who are really | 6:06 | |
| "'my mother and my brothers?'" | 6:10 | |
| And he looked round at the faces of those sitting | 6:14 | |
| in a circle about him. | 6:17 | |
| "Look, he said, 'My mother and my brothers are here. | 6:19 | |
| "'Anyone who does the will of God, | 6:25 | |
| "'is brother and sister and mother to me.'" | 6:28 | |
| Now these are shocking words. | 6:33 | |
| Rough talk, | 6:37 | |
| hardly the lectionary lesson for Mother's Day | 6:40 | |
| or the Festival of the Christian Home. | 6:44 | |
| Jesus' true family were his disciples, | 6:48 | |
| his spiritual kith, | 6:53 | |
| but not necessarily his blood kin. | 6:56 | |
| Now Jesus attitude is understandable. | 7:00 | |
| For one thing, the fourth gospel tells us | 7:04 | |
| that his brothers did not believe in Him | 7:07 | |
| during His lifetime. | 7:11 | |
| Mark is even more emphatic than that. | 7:13 | |
| He says that Jesus' family thought He was crazy, | 7:17 | |
| mad, out of His mind. | 7:22 | |
| Beside Himself, schizophrenic. | 7:27 | |
| Maybe that is why our Lord was forced to dramatize | 7:31 | |
| His conception of the new family of God, | 7:35 | |
| by using a pungent a verb as hate | 7:38 | |
| about one's attitude, to one's relatives. | 7:44 | |
| If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father | 7:48 | |
| and mother and wife and children | 7:54 | |
| and brothers and sisters, yes | 7:59 | |
| and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. | 8:01 | |
| Now we may try to soften the impact of that statement | 8:08 | |
| by talking about Eastern hyperbole | 8:12 | |
| and poetic license and homilectical exaggeration, | 8:16 | |
| but surely we discern His intentional emphasis. | 8:23 | |
| The kingdom of God has a priority, | 8:28 | |
| which may not be usurped by the natural family. | 8:34 | |
| And as a result, | 8:40 | |
| Jesus was not persona grata with His own family | 8:43 | |
| in the days of His flesh. | 8:49 | |
| But for another thing, | 8:53 | |
| Jesus was a realist | 8:57 | |
| regarding the effects of His gospel | 9:01 | |
| upon the family. | 9:05 | |
| Listen to this worrying passage, | 9:08 | |
| again, as Phillip translates it. | 9:11 | |
| "Never think that I have come to bring peace | 9:14 | |
| "upon the earth. | 9:18 | |
| "No, I have not come to bring peace, | 9:20 | |
| "but a sword, | 9:25 | |
| "for I have come to set a man against his own father, | 9:27 | |
| "a daughter against her own mother | 9:31 | |
| "and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. | 9:35 | |
| "A man's enemies will be those who live in his own house." | 9:39 | |
| Now, before we discount this too quickly, | 9:47 | |
| as a matter of preaching style, | 9:49 | |
| let us remember that this is what actually happened | 9:51 | |
| and still happens. | 9:57 | |
| But these must have been unintelligible words, | 10:00 | |
| hostile words to a Jew, | 10:04 | |
| who loved and who kept the fifth commandment. | 10:08 | |
| But Jesus was speaking from His own experience, | 10:13 | |
| and He was anticipating the experience of His disciples. | 10:18 | |
| He had given up His own home for the sake of His mission. | 10:22 | |
| His followers might have to do that too. | 10:27 | |
| Yes, our first scripture lesson of the morning | 10:33 | |
| is a difficult one. | 10:37 | |
| Difficult for many of us to understand, | 10:40 | |
| more difficult for some of us to follow. | 10:44 | |
| The community of the church | 10:47 | |
| is preferred to that of the earthly family. | 10:51 | |
| And yet do notice that Jesus purpose was instruction | 10:56 | |
| rather than censure. | 11:01 | |
| He knew that a man needed family ties. | 11:03 | |
| He knew that His teaching might loosen, disrupt, | 11:09 | |
| disintegrate the old ties. | 11:13 | |
| And so he sought a valid worthy substitute. | 11:15 | |
| He suggested the fellowship of men and women | 11:21 | |
| who would together with mutual assistance, | 11:25 | |
| do the will of God. | 11:28 | |
| And this is what actually happened in the apostolic church. | 11:30 | |
| As we can see from the Acts of the Apostles. | 11:36 | |
| In the midst of persecution, they found a beloved community, | 11:39 | |
| the household of God. | 11:46 | |
| It's interesting to note that from the second part | 11:50 | |
| of the morning lesson, | 11:53 | |
| when Jesus was dying on the cross, | 11:55 | |
| He did not give His mother into the care of her family, | 12:00 | |
| but into the care of the church, | 12:08 | |
| his new family as symbolized by the beloved disciple, | 12:13 | |
| when Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom he loved | 12:19 | |
| standing near, He said to His mother, | 12:22 | |
| "Woman, behold, your son." | 12:26 | |
| Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." | 12:30 | |
| And do you know the next verse? | 12:36 | |
| "And from that hour, the disciple took her | 12:38 | |
| "to his own home." | 12:44 | |
| On the cross Jesus fulfilled the fifth commandment, | 12:48 | |
| though its promise was not for Him. | 12:52 | |
| In the land that invented Mother's Day, | 12:58 | |
| and so surrounds it with all the trimmings | 13:02 | |
| of retail advertising, | 13:05 | |
| to such an extent that the church has tried somewhat vainly | 13:08 | |
| to transform it into the Festival of the Christian Home. | 13:12 | |
| It's well to remember what the Gospels | 13:16 | |
| tell us about Jesus' home, | 13:18 | |
| and about the church, | 13:22 | |
| as the Christian's real home. | 13:24 | |
| Now before you damn me too quickly, | 13:29 | |
| let me emphasize one central fact, | 13:33 | |
| Christian sociology is rooted and grounded | 13:37 | |
| in the idea of the home. | 13:42 | |
| It stands foursquare on the analogy of the family. | 13:46 | |
| If one can stand on an analogy. | 13:53 | |
| Now this is because of the teaching of Jesus. | 13:57 | |
| God is not a king. | 13:59 | |
| He is not even primarily a judge. | 14:03 | |
| He is like a father, | 14:08 | |
| like the father of the prodigal son, | 14:13 | |
| men and women are not his subjects, | 14:17 | |
| not prisoners at the bar, but sons and daughters, | 14:21 | |
| if they want to be. | 14:30 | |
| In the relationship to one another, | 14:32 | |
| they are not fellow servants or fellow convicts, | 14:35 | |
| but brothers and sisters, | 14:40 | |
| spiritual siblings | 14:43 | |
| in the family of God. | 14:46 | |
| Brethren is a commonly used noun | 14:48 | |
| in almost all the Apostles in the New Testament. | 14:51 | |
| Jesus and his followers found in the concept of the home, | 14:55 | |
| the idea of which best expressed | 15:01 | |
| the life of the community of God, | 15:04 | |
| both in heaven and on earth. | 15:06 | |
| Home is a good word. | 15:09 | |
| Moreover, it may even be that Mother's Day | 15:13 | |
| hints at something for those of us | 15:18 | |
| who are in the Protestant wing of Christianity, | 15:20 | |
| is it possible that we have omitted, | 15:25 | |
| neglected the feminine qualities in Godhead? | 15:28 | |
| Have you ever heard a sermon preached in Isaiah 66:13? | 15:35 | |
| "For thus says the Lord as one whom his mother comforteth. | 15:41 | |
| "So will I comfort you. | 15:48 | |
| "As one whom his mother comforteth, | 15:51 | |
| "so will I comfort you." | 15:56 | |
| Maybe that's the passage I should have chosen for today | 15:58 | |
| for a sermon on the motherhood of God. | 16:02 | |
| Perhaps our separated Roman Catholic brethren are wiser | 16:07 | |
| than we are willing to allow | 16:12 | |
| in making so much of the Virgin Mary. | 16:14 | |
| For them, feminine qualities are incorporated by osmosis, | 16:18 | |
| into Godhead and life requires feminine qualities | 16:25 | |
| to be complete, to be well-rounded. | 16:31 | |
| Have you ever noticed in Canada that Protestant homes, | 16:35 | |
| which would not display a picture of the Virgin Mary, | 16:41 | |
| had have to have one of Queen Elizabeth | 16:46 | |
| the second of England in a very prominent position. | 16:48 | |
| Now never underestimate the power of a woman, | 16:55 | |
| not even theologically. | 16:59 | |
| Perhaps it's time for a reformed Protestantism | 17:03 | |
| to recover on March 25th. | 17:06 | |
| The enunciation of the blessed Virgin for which Mother's Day | 17:09 | |
| is hardly a fit alternative. | 17:13 | |
| Christian sociology is a family sociology. | 17:18 | |
| It honors the home, | 17:22 | |
| but it has never forgotten that there is such a thing | 17:24 | |
| as priorities, that God and His service come first, | 17:30 | |
| even before the natural home. | 17:37 | |
| This is dramatized for us in the celibacy | 17:39 | |
| of the Roman Catholic clergy, male and female. | 17:43 | |
| Even though we do not accept this manifestation | 17:47 | |
| of the principle, it reminds us of the principle, | 17:50 | |
| everything in its proper place in its appropriate order. | 17:55 | |
| Now this we recognize in other spheres. | 18:00 | |
| Our government may demand that a man leave | 18:04 | |
| his father and mother, his wife and children, | 18:09 | |
| and serve in Vietnam or the Dominican Republic, | 18:14 | |
| or Chilé, or Antarctica. | 18:20 | |
| Even the great industrial companies with overseas | 18:24 | |
| ramifications may disrupt family life. | 18:28 | |
| And this, we accept or else sever the allegiance. | 18:32 | |
| And so with the Christian faith, | 18:37 | |
| it may demand that a man or a woman leave father and mother | 18:41 | |
| and find a home in the family of God. | 18:48 | |
| Now, what does this biblical exposition | 18:54 | |
| say to us this morning? | 18:56 | |
| To some of us it says nothing, | 18:59 | |
| because we don't want to hear it. | 19:01 | |
| We'd like the de facto that stoppeth his ear. | 19:05 | |
| Well, that's that. | 19:09 | |
| To others opposite says nothing | 19:12 | |
| for a very different reason. | 19:14 | |
| There is no conflict between our birthly family | 19:18 | |
| and our heavenly family, | 19:24 | |
| between our natural kin and our spiritual kith, | 19:27 | |
| between our home and our church, | 19:32 | |
| our mothers and fathers brought us up | 19:35 | |
| in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, | 19:38 | |
| the family table, and the family pew | 19:41 | |
| are two items of furniture in the one home. | 19:44 | |
| Good, it's a blessed thing when our earthly parents | 19:50 | |
| and our heavenly father see eye to eye. | 19:54 | |
| One recalls the happy words written to Timothy. | 19:58 | |
| "I am reminded of your sincere faith, | 20:02 | |
| "a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, | 20:05 | |
| "and your mother Eunice. | 20:10 | |
| "And now I am sure dwells in you." I know people like that. | 20:12 | |
| Here's a senior student nurse planning to spend the summer | 20:17 | |
| in Nicaragua and then in the fall | 20:23 | |
| to work in Appalachian, Kentucky | 20:27 | |
| at the frontier nursing service. | 20:31 | |
| Now this is essential, but low salary employment. | 20:33 | |
| I sought to find her motivation. | 20:39 | |
| The answer was short, simple, and assured. | 20:42 | |
| My parents are missionaries in South America, | 20:47 | |
| the earthly family and the heavenly family | 20:53 | |
| are one and the same. | 20:56 | |
| Here's another student. | 20:59 | |
| I graduated two years back now serving | 21:01 | |
| with the peace corps in Africa. | 21:04 | |
| Are her father and mother at odds with her? | 21:07 | |
| Do they think she is deranged, beside herself? | 21:10 | |
| They not only approved her going, | 21:15 | |
| they spent part of last summer in Kenya with her. | 21:18 | |
| Some of us are happily in like circumstances. | 21:23 | |
| Today then is the Festival of the Christian Home. | 21:27 | |
| But to yet others of us, | 21:33 | |
| this exposition comes as a warning, | 21:34 | |
| a warning to get out our priorities straight, | 21:39 | |
| right in proper order. | 21:44 | |
| Now this is not easy. | 21:48 | |
| Don't let us fool ourselves. | 21:51 | |
| The decision may be a matter of spiritual warfare, | 21:55 | |
| not peace, but a sword. | 21:59 | |
| Any counselor will tell you of the agony of decision | 22:03 | |
| when two loyalties clash. | 22:09 | |
| I think it was Hagel who described tragedy in this way. | 22:13 | |
| Tragedy does not arise when we are given a choice | 22:22 | |
| of right or wrong, | 22:28 | |
| tragedy arises when we are given a choice of two rights. | 22:33 | |
| And we choose only one. | 22:41 | |
| And any counselor will tell you that that is tragedy. | 22:47 | |
| Then the question of priorities is important, | 22:54 | |
| and divisive and painful, | 22:58 | |
| especially when the foes of a man are his own household, | 23:03 | |
| as he tries to listen and obey God. | 23:08 | |
| What happened to Jesus in his relations | 23:13 | |
| to the home at Nazareth, can happen again, can happen here. | 23:15 | |
| It would be wise for us to examine ourselves, | 23:22 | |
| to know where we stand to have counted the cost | 23:27 | |
| of being on the Lord's side before the moment to decide. | 23:33 | |
| Who is my mother or my brethren? | 23:41 | |
| It's an old question. | 23:49 | |
| It was once answered. | 23:52 | |
| What do we do with the question? | 23:56 | |
| And with the answer once given. | 24:02 | |
| Amen, let us pray. | 24:09 | |
| Oh God who spoke and who speaks, | 24:17 | |
| assist us to hear the questions, | 24:23 | |
| assist us to give the answers | 24:27 | |
| as thou would have us do | 24:30 | |
| in the spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 24:33 | |
| and now make grace, mercy and peace from God, | 24:37 | |
| the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, | 24:43 | |
| be with you all this day and forever more. | 24:47 |
