Mother's Day
May 8, 2005 (Seventh Sunday of Easter)
By
The Rev. Benjamin J. Newland
(From The Lectionary Page)
The Book of Common Prayer, as set forth for use by the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, makes provision for the celebration of Independence Day (July 4th) and Thanksgiving Day (the last Thursday in November). These two national holidays are the exception, all other special days are more or less directly related to Jesus. Sadly, Mother's Day is completely disregarded by the BCP.
This leads to an annual debate amongst clergy. Do you preach and celebrate Mother's Day and thus open yourself to ridicule as pandering to a secular holiday invented by Hallmark Cards, or do you stick with the religious themes of the particular Sunday involved and thus open yourself to the wrath of all mothers in the congregation? This year, Mother's Day also happens to be the Sunday immediately following the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, so the lessons are even less suitable than they might have been for adopting into the Feast of Mother's Day. I for one am less afraid of clergy than I am of mothers, so I fully intend to acknowledge the secular holiday however inappropriate the lessons may be.
Not much mothering going on in the first reading, our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, in which we have the opening story of this book of deeds. The author reminds us of where he left off in the Gospel of Luke, and continues by repeating the story of Jesus being taken up into heaven. Acts is a book of actions, a recording of the how the early church began. Appropriately, the first story in this book describes Jesus giving his disciples orders on how to carry on in his absence. Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, a promise we will mark next week at the Feast of Pentecost. He then is lifted up and carried off by a cloud, whereupon two angels inform the disciples that Jesus is gone, and that they should get on with things. They then return to Jerusalem and that upper room that will become so famous next week. The only mother involved is Mary who, along with certain other women, receives mention as praying with the disciples.
The second reading isn't much more help for celebrating Mother's Day. 1 Peter is a letter sent to an early Christian community under siege. For whatever reason, the Christians receiving this epistle are being persecuted. The author encourages them, drawing the distinction between normal suffering as a result of wrongs they may have done and the suffering they experience for no reason other than that they are seeking to live the life Jesus of Nazareth recommended to them. The concept of righteous suffering is offered as a comfort to a group of people who most likely didn't appreciate the situation in quite that way. Unless your mother was one of those perpetual martyrs, 1 Peter probably doesn't apply.
The Gospel lesson is least help of all, as we hear a part of the Gospel of John known as the Farewell Discourse. In this long and intriguing section, of which we hear only the beginning, the disciples (and we who read this) are privy to a final conversation between Jesus and God. In the theme of Ascension, Jesus readies things for his immanent departure, asking God to care for those he leaves behind as Jesus has cared for them up to that point. The most beautiful part of this prayer is the last line of today's reading, when Jesus asks God to make his followers one, as he and God are one. Jesus' final request to God is that the Christians who would continue to follow him after his earthly death would achieve a level of unity of spirit something like that shared by Jesus and the Father. How different this is from how we usually look at the Trinity. The mystical union between Christ and God the Father is too often a subject for theological debate, not a model for community life among Christian people. But yet again, not a lot of help for someone looking to make a Mother's Day speech.
As I was pondering these lessons last Wednesday I opened the Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts to prepare for the daily noon Eucharist service. It just so happens that last Wednesday was the feast day of St. Monica. Monica, fortunately for me, is the patron saint of mothers and wives, just in time for Mother's Day. Even better, she is specifically the patron saint of difficult marriages and disappointing children. I have a feeling there will be a run on St. Monica memorabilia at the local Catholic supply store after this sermon.
In all seriousness though, Monica's story is a great one for Mother's Day. She was born into a Christian family, but married to a pagan with a temper. She devoted her life to converting her husband and children to Christianity. After many years, she did manage to have her husband baptized on his deathbed. She was slightly more successful with her children, the eldest of whom was named Augustine. Augustine was a wild kid, and his conversion to Christianity was a whole hearted about-face from the life he'd been living. Augustine would himself be sainted one day, after becoming the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa and one of the Fathers of the Early Church. His mother Monica died six months after his conversion and baptism, and most of what we know about her life comes from what he wrote in his Confessions. Now, The Confessions of St. Augustine is normally considered more a cure for insomnia than good bedside reading, but I recommend to you those pages Augustine wrote about his mother as a moving and fitting tribute to Mother's Day and the power all mothers have to change the world by doing nothing more than loving their children.
I have to admit that Mother's Day is not my favorite holiday. It's not that I dislike it in particular, though I am a little suspicious of so-called Hallmark Holidays, as dangerous as it might be to say such a thing here in the heart of Hallmark country. And it's not that I resent the obligation. I happen to have one of the world's best moms, and it is no trouble to give her a call, or write her a note, or take her to dinner on the second Sunday of May each year.
My uncomfortableness with Mother's Day is the way that it seems to view all mothers through a soft-focus lens. On Mother's Day, all mothers are happy, and are taken to brunch by their dutiful children and husbands. This may indeed be the way it is supposed to be, but it is not reality for many. For each mother that will be happily brunched today, another mother has too many children to feed and educate and care for herself. For each mother who will receive a Mother's Day card today, another mother waits in anguish for word of her children who are in danger or trouble. Mother's Day is just a little too perfect for me. Real mothers suffer more than the rest of us I think, often on behalf of their husband and children instead of themselves. Real mothers are victims of abuse, work dead end jobs to feed their families, and sacrifice themselves for children who may never notice that gift.
I don't mean to bring everyone down and ruin Mother's Day for us all. It's just that I'd like Mother's Day to be a little more balanced. In addition to the brunch and cards and flowers that we will happily remember our own mothers by today, remember also a mother less fortunate than yours. I know a woman who, between her first and second child, had a miscarriage. You probably know someone in the same circumstance, as this is more common than most of us realize. I never really talk to her about it, but I imagine that being mother to that stillborn infant must be more difficult than being mother to the happy, healthy children she does have. I don't think about this most of the time, and she probably doesn't either, but it always comes to me on Mother's Day, and I pray for her especially.
Now that I think about it, maybe today's Gospel lesson is about Mother's Day. Jesus, knowing he will not be around forever, prays that God will care for us, and that we will come to love as completely as we are loved. In the end, isn't that what our mothers have been trying to do for us all along?