Mother's have joint custody of our souls

Mother’s Day May 10, 2015 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17 6th Sunday of Easter Year B There is a story about two tribes in the Andes that were at war. One tribe lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains. The lowlanders didn’t know how to climb the mountain. They didn’t know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn’t know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain. Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home. The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet. Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below. As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby’s mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn’t figured out how to climb. And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be? One man greeted her and said, “We couldn’t climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn’t do it?” She shrugged her shoulders and said, “It wasn’t your baby.” (4) Today we celebrate the care and concern and love of our mothers. Leonard Sweet says that we never have sole custody of our souls. A mother has joint custody. Wherever we are and whatever we are doing, our mothers are always thinking about us. They go with us, and they have just as much of a stake in what we do, as we do. On the other hand, I have also heard it said that being a mother has to get used to her heart living outside of her body. Being a parent changes you, because suddenly your life is not all about you. It is about that child, who never grows up, and is never able to be on his own. Mothers are with their children through each stage of their life, and with each new stage you learn to love your children in a whole new way. One pastor said that the price of love is a broken heart. And no matter how hard we try, at some point we have to give our children away. We give them away to God when they are baptized, we give them to the teacher when they go to kindergarten, we give them away to life, when something happens to them, we give them away to the system when they go to college, we give them away to a stranger that they call boyfriend or girlfriend, we give them away to a husband or wife, we give them away for life, to live their own life, we give them away out of love, for love, to love. And ever since Easter, that has been our constant scripture lesson. And what better message for Mother’s day for us to remember, is the love that we have received, and the love that we give to others. 1 John 5 says whoever loves someone who is a parent, loves the child born to the parent. Not only do we love Jesus because he is the son of God. we love the children of God. this scriptures says that the children of God are those who are willing to do God will – and God’s will is to love. We all need to be loved, and we all have to learn to give love to others. Love is not good at math. Love does not do division, it does not know how to divide. Love only knows how to multiply and to grow. There are important qualities of love, especially God’s love that help it to multiply and spread throughout the world. God’s love is inside of us, in every cell of our body. It is round us, it flows every where. God’s love is pervasive and ever present. Like sap flows through a tree and nourishes the inside of the tree, God’s love nourished our soul. In John 15 God says to love one another as I have loved you. Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your enemies. If love is inside of you, and flows within you, then spread it around to others. We all saw the pictures of the mom last week in Baltimore, who fought with all that she had to keep her son out of the rioting. She came with all that she knew in her soul and her heart to make her son do the right thing. That is that all present all pervasive love. God’s love also spreads like wildfire to everything that it touches. Jesus says I am the vine and you are the branches. If you are connected through Jesus to God’s love then you can bring love to any situation. And you automatically know when to spread love. In her book Making babies, stumbling into motherhood, Anne Enright talked about breast feeding her child. When she heard the baby cry, then the milk would start to form in her breast. But she said that the brain, understands the signal for love, but does not recognize the face of love. So whenever she would hear a baby cry, or hear a story that touched her, then the milk would form. That is an example of being a mother, but it teaches us that love is not just for our relatives ad friends, but it is for anyone. Anyone who asks for the love of god will receive it. Love is no respecter of receiver, it is a respector of the giver. That is why we are taught that we should love all, God loves all. And finally god’s love is there for us when we are not there for ourselves. There is a new novel called family life. In the story an immigrant from India, who now lives in New York pays the airline fare for his mother to go to India every month. The mother is very proud of her son, and proud of what he has done with his life. But she takes the money but she does not spend it. Afterall, what will happen if her son loses his job and cannot take care of himself. She keeps his money and set it aside, just in case he may need it some day. Only a mother would think like that. She uses God’s love to take care of her son. God’s love is all encompassing, continually growing, and always thinking ahead. Happy Mother’s Day to all who are albe to share that kind of love. But I think that it is important for us to remember, that God’s love is not just about women. We speak so much as God the father, that we forget that God is both mother and father. God is a spirit that transcends our idea of gender. Which seems to be changing anyway – but that is a whole different sermon. But I wanted to point out that there are just as many mothering images of God as there are fathering images. Motherhood and Compassion. A few days ago I made a marvelous discovery. In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament the word for “compassion” comes from the root word, “womb.” The picture is of a birthing. Something new is being born. If I apply this in a human experience, it means that my compassionate acts always give the other person another chance. I do not hold past failures against them. I offer a “fresh start.” I want this for myself from others. Am I willing to give it to the other person? Such compassion will dramatically change the way we relate to each other. Brooks Ramsey, Pastoral Counseling and Consulting Center, Memphis TN. John 15 says that the gift of giving love to another is complete joy. Joy that all is well. I am able to get through this mothers day, after having just lost my mother because me joy is complete. I know that my mother did all that she could to love me and all of her family. I am not sad today, because in love, joy is complete. She gave what she had, and now god has called her to another task. Blessed be the name of the Lord. If I know how to love others, then she has done her job. Robert Brault says that if you have a mother, there is no where that you can go that prayer has not already been. We do not have sole custody of our sole, our mother has joint custody. Let us make sure that we give God full custody. That we live in God’s love, feel God;s love and give God’s love. No matter what – love is a lot of hard work! to love is to be for another, to act for another even at the cost of oneself. Happy Mother’s day to all! We have all felt god’s love in our life in some way, given by someone. Today let us spread that love, not just to our family, but to someone in need of God’s love in their lives. Amen. Exegetical Aim: Obedience is the most appropriate expression of our love. Props: None Lesson: [With each of these questions allow several children to express their thoughts.] Who knows what love is?(response) Ok, what is love? (response) A little humor for the adults: Now I suppose that your mom's love you...they do don't they? (response) How does your mom love you? What does she do for you? (response) Those are all very good ways that mom's show their love. Now let me ask you a different question. Do you love your mom? (response) How do you show your love to your mom? What do you do for her? (response) Those are all very good ways to show your love for mom. Who knows what today is? (response) It's Mother's Day! Are you going to do anything special today to tell mom how much you appreciate her?(response) What are going to do? (response) Well, if you haven't gotten her anything yet, I can get you out of a little hot water. Here's what you do. All day today when your mom ask you to do something, I want you to say, "Yes, ma'am," and immediately go and do what she told you. It will be the best Mother's Day ever if you do this. Listen to something Jesus said; he said, "If you love me, you will obey me." What did Jesus mean: If you love me, you will obey me? (response) He was telling us that the best way to show our love for God is to obey him and do what he tells us to do. This is also the best way to show our love for Mom. We need to do what mom tells us to do. If she tells you to sit up and eat your lunch then you need to sit up and eat your lunch. If she tells you to pick up your toys then what do you need to do? (response) That's right. If she tells you to be polite and say excuse me, then what are going to do? (response) This is Mother's Day. Today you are going to tell mom how much you love her. The best way to show her your love is by being obedient and doing what you are asked to do. Then she will know how much you love and care for her. You cannot take Jesus to India. You cant take Jesus to Africa. We cant take Jesus anywhere. He is already there. He is making a difference, Jesus takes us and asks us to join him in service to his children. He has already been there. He takes us, we never take him. Ripley’s Believe it or Not says that the longest love letter ever written was written in 1875 and it was written from a Parisian painter by the name of Marcel de Leclure. The letter was addressed to Magdalena de Villeray. The painter was so in love with Magdalena that he wanted to write, Je t’aime “I love you” in French a thousand times for every year on the calendar. This was in 1875, so he decided to write “I love you” one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand times. Of course, he didn’t want to write “I love you” that many times himself. So he hired a secretary to do it. But, he did not want to diminish his expression of his love, so he did not tell her to write the sentence one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand times. Rather, he dictated each “I love you” to her separately. So he said “I love you” one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand times and she wrote it one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand times. Ripley describes this feat like this, “Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort.” (7) It’s a great story, but Ripley was wrong. There was once a time when love was made manifest by a greater expenditure of effort than that of this Frenchman. It was that time when the Lord Jesus hung on a cross to show us how important we are to God. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command . . . This is my command: Love each other.” The Golden Rule, as wonderful as it is, is insufficient for this task. We are not simply to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We are to do unto them as Christ has done unto us. -