Love One Another as I Have Loved You a sermon for Mothers' Day
This Sunday presents a provocative juxtaposition of events--and a challenge to any preacher who dares to claim the authority and responsibility of the pulpit.
Let's begin with Scripture. The lectionary appointment of the Gospel lesson is a regression of sorts on this fifth Sunday in Easter--bringing us back to that upper room on Maundy Thursday. It is immediately after Judas has angrily left the evening Passover meal with Jesus and his fellow apostles, which as Jesus already knows, will forever be memorialized as "The Last Supper." In the face of this great betrayal, Jesus gives his disciples a most amazing directive--a maundatum, from whence we get Maundy Thursday. He says, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another."
Today is also Mother's Day--and these lovely
gospel words seem especially fitting to frame the day. "Love one another." How many of us have grown up hearing those words from the lips of our mothers? How many of us have said those exact words, or a variation of those words, as we pull angry children apart in an intense playground or sibling squabble? And, for our troubles, we'll be treated to dinner, given flowers and a lovely card, perhaps a lavishly expensive present, and feel self-satisfied with our roles as peacemakers and love bearers in the human family.
To leave it there would be the safe thing for
any preacher. Or, perhaps, just say a few more elegant words that sound distinctly theological, give out the carnation at the end of the service, and feel self-satisfied that no one will leave here feeling the anger and betrayal that Judas felt of Jesus. You may recall that it was Judas who felt betrayed by Jesus on the public and political implications of His religious movement.
How can I ignore, from this pulpit, on this particular Mothers' Day, the disturbing and distressing images with which we have been bombarded all week? How can I gloss over the fact that it was a woman-indeed, a pregnant woman!--who is seen with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, engaging in disgusting and disturbing acts which have been designed for the humiliation and debasement of the Iraqi prisoners in her charge? How can I not offer at least a commentary on the effects of the war in Iraq in the face of these words of Jesus, which come today by no accident: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another" ?
Interestingly enough, Mother's Day began as
a holiday that commemorated women's public activism, not as a celebration of a mother's devotion to her family. According to historian, Ruth Rosen, the story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna Reeves Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia. Her immediate goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities. During the Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to care for the wounded on both sides. Afterward she convened meetings to persuade men to lay aside their hostilities.
In 1872, Julia Ward Howe, author of `The
Battle Hymn of the Republic," proposed an annual Mother's Day for Peace. Committed to abolishing war, Howe wrote: "We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." She called for "a general congress of women without limit of nationality (to) be appointed...to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace." For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for Peace on June 2.
Many middle-class women in the 19th century
believed that they bore a special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the casualties of society and to turn America into a more civilized nation. They played a leading role in the abolitionist movement to end slavery. In the following decades, they launched successful campaigns against lynching and consumer fraud and battled for improved working conditions for women and protection for children, public health services and social welfare assistance to the poor. To the activists, the connection between motherhood and the fight for social and economic justice seemed self-evident.
In 1913, Congress declared the second Sun
day in May to be Mother's Day. By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined women as consumers for their families. Politicians and businessmen eagerly embraced the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by individual mothers. As the Florists' Review, the industry's trade journal, bluntly put it, "This was a holiday that could be exploited."
The new advertising industry quickly taught
Americans how to honor their mothers--by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who were selling carnations for the exorbitant price of $1 apiece, Anna Jarvis' daughter undertook a campaign against those who "would undermine Mother's Day with their greed." But she fought a losing battle. Within a few years, the Florists' Review triumphantly announced that it was "Miss Jarvis who was completely squelched." Since then, Mother's Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry--not limited to flowers, but including greeting cards, phone calls, and expensive gifts.
Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a provocative juxtaposition of events: Today is Mother's Day, which we commemorate in the midst of disturbing and distressing images of women at war even as the words of Jesus echo for us to "love one another as I have loved you."
What is a Christian to do? Is the connection
between motherhood and the fight for social and economic justice still self-evident for us in our day, as it was for women in the 19th century? Do we bear a special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the casualties of society and to turn America
into a more civilized nation? Or is that an antiquated, outdated and now rather quaint piece of history which modern social capitalism has forever obliterated?
I will leave you to ponder these things today,
not to disturb your peace or sour your celebration, but to inspire your hearts and stir your souls. For this, ultimately, is the awesome task and responsibility of the preacher. The sacred trust given to me is not to tell you how to live your life by following these rules: one, two three, but by challenging you to live an examined life. To embrace the formidable task of taking the gospel seriously and finding application of its principles in your own lives of faith. I remind you of the words of Jesus, and leave you with the words of Julia Ward Howe, in her 1870 call to institute an annual Mothers Day for Peace. Here, in part, are her original words:
"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all
women who have hearts, whether our 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
of 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 to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God."
Jesus said to his disciples then, as he says to us
today, whether our baptism be of water or of fear: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Amen. Blessings,