5.13.07 Making Mothers Day a Happy Day

 
WESTMINSTER PULPIT
 
    The Rev. Dr. David Thompson
 
 
May 13, 2007                                    “Making Mother’s Day A Happy Day”                      Matthew 12: 46-50
                                                                                                                                                                                 
Text: “Whoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister and mother.”    Matthew 12: 50
 
Mother’s day is such a happy day for many people. It is a time to celebrate our mothers and thank them for all they do to make our families and thus the world a better place. All across this great country mothers will be celebrated in Churches and homes for their selflessness, for their nurturing love that goes the second mile, for their wise advice, for their intuition about health and safety issues, for their wise counseling of their families and for the love they give to their children and spouses. And so many of us would agree with Kate Douglas Wiggin: “Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world.”
 
But Mother’s Day can be very tough for some people! One young woman came to me with sadness. She said, “I have trouble with Mother’s Day. I can’t have children of my own.” Another older woman confided in me saying that she had adopted a girl after she discovered that she could not have children; but that her adopted daughter had now found her birth mother who she was calling her “real” mother and so this older woman was now feeling like a fifth wheel.
 
On Mother’s Day some mothers feel left out. Their husbands are inattentive. They forget birthdays, anniversaries and Mother’s Day is totally ignored. They are the sort of guys who show up in church and say “O is it Mother’s Day?” Some children have trouble too. Mother is an alcoholic or is addicted to drugs. Some children fear their mother’s early death from cigarettes or alcohol. They feel utterly powerless as they watch mother do herself in.
 
I have had mothers come to me with problems with their children. One said to me, “I wish I had never had children. I have nothing in common with them.” A mother once told me that her daughter in law had cut her out of her son’s family so Mother’s Day was an empty one for her.
 
There will be some of these sorts of difficulties here today in church. These people will see mothers here supported by loving families and they will perhaps feel envious. “Why couldn’t I have had a warm supportive family and husband,” they ask? “Why do I have to feel so bad when they are feeling so good?”
 
Today I have decided to seek help from the wisest man in the Bible. People came from far and wide to hear the wisdom of King Solomon. Sheba came all the way from the Southwest portion of the Arabian Peninsula just to listen to him speak.
 
 The passage we read today concerns two mothers. Solomon who had absolute power and great wisdom, was to hear a case that none knew how to solve. The two women lived in the same house. There were no witnesses to the baby switch. It was simply one woman’s word against the other. When both claimed the child, Solomon asked for a sword to be brought to cut the child in half. He could kill the child and divide it in half. He was the absolute Monarch and it would make the point with rough justice. The true mother could not agree to have the child cut in half. Her mother’s heart would break. So immediately she said, “Give the child to her!” The other mother was all for dividing the child in half so neither would have a living child. Her reasoning was easy to follow. She had already lost her child, so why shouldn’t her rival suffer loss as well? And Solomon knew by that who the real mother was. What gave him the insight? He recognized what mother love is: Love that was selfless, love that could not bear to see her child die, was a true mother’s love that was not just a feeling but ACTIVE. “GIVE the child to her!” She was not at all passive, she acted to give up control over her son for love.
 
In the New Testament, Jesus, (who was once described as greater than Solomon), is told that his mother and his birth brothers are waiting to see him outside. Some folks have difficulty with this saying of Christ when he is told this, seeing Christ as unfeeling and hard. But that is to miss the point completely. Jesus is not rejecting his mother and brothers. Christ loves his mother and his brothers. We know that because when he is dying, in a moment of great tenderness as his mother and brothers are watching him die, he gently tells his mother and brother to look after each other.
 
But in this situation before us today, Christ is making a point that will help those of us who may have come here today troubled within our natural families. For Christ here is talking about something new and wonderful: A whole new kind of family. He says; “Whoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and my mother.” What Christ is saying here is exactly what Solomon said long before him: What makes families family, is active love, and Christ is adding that active love can make families out of strangers!
 
There is a hugely important verse in Scripture that says: “God puts the solitary in families.” If we have been rejected by our families, there is another family to which we can turn. It is the kind of family Jesus had in mind when he founded His church. The original idea of church was that of a family, not of blood ties but knitted together by active love ties. People who actively really love us, are doing the will of God. They become our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. God becomes our Divine Parent. We become brothers and sisters of Christ. This was the original dream for Christ’s church—a great family related beyond blood and kinship ties, with former strangers to each other, but now together at home. That is the dream we have for Westminster. That is why everyone is accepted here without discrimination of any kind.
 
But how does this teaching of Christ work out practically?
 
There are many cases where there is rejection in a birth family that can be healed by Christ’s words. Friends, good loyal and true, can actually take the place of family and form a new family, one based on practical acts of love that were missing in the birth family. Are you feeling rejected by family today? Reach out to strangers! God will be with you as you turn this sorrow into joy!
 
There are two cases before us today that don’t really fit very well into the model we have so far indicated. What about the mother who feels left out by her inattentive mate? Sure he loves her, but he takes her for granted. And what about the addicted mother who is doing herself in?
 
The very essence of these problems is a matter of trying to control others who we love. You would like an attentive husband, but you can’t control him. You would like a mother to love and value herself enough to fight the addiction, but you cannot control her. You know all too well. You have tried that. So what is the answer? We need to step back to wise Solomon for this one. Remember God’s promise to Solomon? “I give you a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you.” What would Solomon say? How did Solomon recognize true love? The real mother of the child had to give up control of the child in order to save its life.
 
If we really love someone, this is perhaps the hardest thing to do in all the world; give up our attempt to control outcome for our loved ones!
 
Frankie Richardson was brought up without his mother by his grandparents. Frankie’s mother had Frankie out of wedlock with Frank’s father who went off to war. Frank’s mother was only 16 at the time and the grandparents disapproved of her because the child had been born out of wedlock. They persuaded her to leave little Frankie in their charge and to go on with her life. She did so. As Frankie grew up he only had one prized little possession—a picture of his mother taken when he was a toddler. He was curious to meet her. His grandparents would tell him nothing. When his father came back from the war he wouldn’t tell hem anything either. Every time he raised the subject he was greeted with silence.
 
One day Frankie began to realize that he could not control his father. Mother’s Day became for him a total downer. He became a radio announcer and when Mother’s Day came around he ended up talking hollowly about Mother’s Day and feeling terrible inside. One day he reached a watershed and decided to give up control and leave the whole matter in God’s hands. On a particular day he was reporting a news brief. He was reporting the miraculous survival of one of his birth mother’s relatives, but he didn’t know that. However his father heard the broadcast and something got to the father and he phoned Frankie and gave him what he had denied him for forty two years! His mother’s phone number!
 
With his heart in his mouth and hardly daring to hope Frankie dialed the forbidden number. Would his mother welcome the call, would she even care? The phone rang twice and a soft Southern voice answered; “Hello.” Frankie said “Is this Clara?” “Yes it is.” Suddenly Frankie was tongue tied. Finally he said “I love you.” There was a long pause then the silence was broken; “I love you too. Who is this?” Frankie said; “I think you know.” Another long pause: “Is this Frankie?” Three hours later the gaps were all filled in and a mother and son’s life agony was beginning to be healed.
 
“O Frankie!” she said: “I have never stopped thinking of you. I wanted to find you all these years but I wasn’t sure what you had been told.” After the plane crash of her relative Vicki where Vicki had been miraculously saved, Clara had actually prayed that if God could save Vicki, He could help her find her son. She had no idea that the news report she had heard had been read by her son…
 
Frankie Richardson says: “Today when I do Mother’s Day announcements over the air it’s hard to contain myself. You see it’s the happiest day of the year for me!” Frankie had to do what all of us who try to control others for their own good have got to do. He had to give the whole matter over to God and surrender the outcome. That is the way of Solomon. Love surrenders control. That is how you know that it is real love.
 
It’s a very hard lesson to learn that love and control are like oil and water. They don’t mix, no matter how elevated and caring our motivation might be. So why not follow Solomon’s and Christ’s advice and put their advice together this Mother’s Day? Solomon’s key is active love To love actively and freely without trying to control the outcome.   Christ’s teaching is that we are to love God self and neighbor with all our heart and mind and strength. If we do these two things together, this will banish Mother’s Day blues and connect us deeply into the only family that actually lasts forever—The Great Family of God!
 
 Let me invite you this Mother’s Day, sometimes called Christian Family Day, to become wide open to the whole world as FAMILY! If we love God, self and neighbor actively, freely, we will then make the incredible discovery that other folk who are doing this “Will of God” are our brothers and sisters and mothers? Family!! “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister and mother.” And active love is Solomon’s key. Put it in your pocket! It can make the difference between life and death…
 

Email List

Stay up to date on upcoming events, sermons, and more!