A Sermon Delivered by
The Rev. John D. Painter
at Centenary United Methodist Church
Metuchen, New Jersey
May 10, 2009
(Mother’s Day)

Text: John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
—John 15:1-8, NRSV

As the speaker was winding up his powerful Mother’s Day message that morning, he confessed to his audience: “The best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife.” He paused…long enough for the dramatic effect of his words to ripple through the group. “Yes,” he repeated for emphasis, “the best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife—my mother!”

There was a young preacher in attendance that morning, and he was impressed with this clever approach by the seasoned speaker. The young preacher vowed he would remember it for his own use. But, as we preachers sometimes neglect to do, he didn’t write it down.

A year later, as he slowly approached the pulpit to offer his own modest Mother’s Day Message, that experience suddenly flashed into his mind, and with a kind of renewed enthusi-asm, he hastened to the pulpit and opened his sermon by declaring to his congregation, “I want to confess to you this morning that the best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife.” In the ensuing pause there was a perceptible gasp that swelled through the congre-gation. And the pastor’s wife—behind him in the choir loft—initially exhibited a look of curios-ity and then a rather severe frown.

“Yes,” he repeated, “the best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife.” Another lengthy pause…discomfort becoming evident among the squirming flock, and the First Lady of the congregation now had a beet red face with what appeared to be traces of smoke coming out of her ears.

Once again the young preacher—now visibly uncomfortable himself—let forth once more with the words, “The best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man’s wife…but for the life of me, I can’t remember who she was!”

Now you know why I have either notes or a manuscript up here with me in the Pulpit when I preach!

When the Grafton, WV, native, Anna Jarvis, began her campaign in the early 20th century to observe an annual Mother’s Day in this nation, I don’t know if she realized how “successful” those efforts would become. As the idea caught on, I doubt that Anna Jarvis anticipated spending significant effort trying to thwart the commercialization of the day, or the exploitation of it for extraneous purposes. Obviously, her efforts were not entirely successful. I’ve heard from various sources that more long-distance phone calls will be placed today than on any other day of the year. (Conversely, I have heard that Father’s Day holds the record for the most collect telephone calls in a single day.) Normally, this is one of the busiest weekends for florists and restaurateurs; and the sale of greeting cards for Mother’s Day may be exceeded only by those for Valentine’s Day. Truly it is a Hallmark™ day.

I wonder if in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation officially creating Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May—and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryant proclaimed its establishment to our nation and the world—they realized what a tough as-signment they were handing to us preachers. We have struggled ever since to say something fresh or meaningful…to acknowledge the special blessings of motherhood, while seeking to avoid sounding saccharine, slipping into clichés, or evading the Gospel message for the morning.

I suspect many of you will remember Robert Fulghum…the fellow who wrote All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. From his experience of being a son, a father and a minister, Robert Fulghum talked about Mother’s Day in one of his later books with the provocative title, It Was on Fire When I Lay down on It: “For twenty-five years of my life, the second Sunday in May was trouble. Being the minister of a church, I was obliged in some way to address the subject of Mother’s Day. It could not be avoided. I tried that. Mind you, the congre-gation was quite open-minded, actually, and gave me free rein in the pulpit. But when it came to the second Sunday in May, the expectations were summarized in these words of one of the more outspoken women in the church: ‘I’m bringing my MOTHER to church on MOTHER’S DAY, Reverend, and you can talk about anything you want. But it had better include MOTHER, and it had better be GOOD!’

“She was joking—teasing me. She also meant it.”

Well, what better theme for Mother’s Day than Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John about abiding in God’s love? Why? Because, “We didn’t have anything to do with our birth. We are all here because some woman somewhere gave us life. Her pain, her effort, for our life. And when a mother gives that to a child, she is showing us what God is like.” God is pure, abiding love.

In his grand image of the vine and the branches, Jesus’ emphasizes that the branches are brought forth from the vine, and that the branches need to remain connected to the vine if they are to stay alive and bear good fruit. This language of connecting and abiding restates the idea that Jesus will remain present with the disciples after his departure from them. Through all-encompassing love the disciples will be able to abide in Jesus even when they do not see him. And it will be by abiding in his love that they will be given the ability to love one another. A branch that bears fruit is a disciple who keeps Jesus commandments, summarized by him in those memorable words from John 15:12: “…love one another as I have loved you.”

A lot of times persons think of God as being “up there,” aloof and distant from us. I sus-pect you’ve heard folk occasionally refer to God as “the man (or woman) upstairs.” For some that is a comfortable image of the deity, especially if it allows them to jolly well go off on their own way and live as they darn well please. But we Christians believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, so it would seem that “the man/woman upstairs” came downstairs, so to speak.

“The Christian faith is not some arduous ascent up to God; the Christian faith is the joyful acknowledgment that in Jesus Christ God has reached down to us and caught us and drawn us near to the heart of God. Salvation is what God does. When the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ comes very near, salvation is what happens in that encounter. When God goes to work, moves into action, makes a move, that work (God in action) is an aspect of ‘salvation’ (God get-ting what God wants).”

As Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading: God is the vine and we are the branches on that vine. God will abide with us. That is a remarkable synopsis of the whole good news of the Gos-pel—that in Jesus Christ God is determined to abide with us, no matter what. That God comes to us; becomes fully human; becomes Immanuel; becomes “God with us.”

The Gospel of John, which we have been reading during these Eastertide days, begins with this wonderful image: “And the Word became flesh and tented among us” (John 1:14a). Is that not a fair summary of much of Scripture—that God has got “this thing” for us? That God is determined—through Creation, through the words of the prophets, through the teaching of the law, through the birth of the Christ—to get close to us. For those who think when we say “God” we have in mind some impersonal power, some fair-minded, balanced bureaucrat who is skilled in the dispassionate administration of natural law from some safe distance in eternity, we need to issue this corrective: Our God is intensely, unreservedly, lovingly personal.

Our God connects with us—and once connected, our God stays connected. Our God abides with us. God keep coming back with new ways to seek to connect with us. Even in the crucifixion, God is not driven away from us. The Divine One somehow, remarkably weaves such grave tragedy into God’s purposes, making of our greatest sin God’s greatest triumph.

This is a God who loves unconditionally. Remember that both the Gospel reading and the Epistle lesson for today speak of love—God’s pure love. Our God has this overwhelming desire to be with us, to have us, to love us. Our God even values love more than sovereignty—or better yet, our God is sovereign precisely because of that great ability to love, no matter what.

What we are being reminded of on this Mother’s Day is God’s divine parenting, which is no false, demanding image, but the real thing—the kind of parenting we need for our survival, and the kind we appear to crave, sensing its importance. Not that we always remember to come to God for it. All too often we search for it instead among fallible humanity, and find ourselves let down and abandoned as a result.

God is the One who embraces all of us, holding us all in those loving arms, mopping all our tears and setting us on our feet again. We hear of terrible, tragic situations of heartache in our world, many of which can be redeemed by God’s abiding, parenting love.

As Paul says, God is the One who comforts us in all our troubles. We don’t have to pre-tend with God that there aren’t any troubles, or that we’re managing very nicely, thank you. God knows what life is about. God knows the heartaches and the conflicts. God knows that loving makes us vulnerable. God was and is with us!

That’s why God is so well able to comfort us within our real situations, and enable us to cope with the ordinary troubles of life without being overwhelmed by them; God has the re-sources we need available and the everlasting, loving arms outstretched in welcoming embrace.

And how does all this imagery of vines and branches and abiding love tie in to the obser-vance of Mother’s Day? After all, I have to take seriously what his outspoken parishioner told Robert Fulghum: “Reverend…you can talk about anything you want. But it had better include MOTHER, and it had better be GOOD!” Well, as Rob Bell reminded us all in the Ault Study just a little earlier this morning, when God speaks through the ancient prophet Isaiah, God promises: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13, TNIV).

“And when Isaiah is speaking to his people who are wondering if they even have a future, they’re disillusioned, they’re filled with despair, they don’t have any hope. Of all the images Isaiah could use, Isaiah essentially says to them, ‘Have you ever seen a mother comfort a child? Well, that is what God is like. And that is what God is going to do for you.’

“When you see a mother doing her mother thing, when a mother’s heart breaks for her children, she is tapping into the very nature of who God is and what God is like and that is a gift. That is grace, that is divine.”

Unconditional love is the most precious gift we can receive…and it is the greatest gift we can give to one another. God’s abiding love is not only unconditional, it is eternal. Jesus has pledged that if we love him and love one another, his love shall not end. By his grace we shall “abide.” Jesus says that when we abide in him, he will abide in us, and that our joy will be full. Joy! In the next chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the future: “…I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22, NRSV). Joy—unending, always.

This same God, who so relentlessly seeks to connect with us in this life, shall abide with us. This is the great promise of eternal life. The abiding—the joy that begins now—shall one day be forever. And nobody, and nothing—not even death—“will take your joy from you.”

+ + + + + + + + + +

PRAYER
Dear Jesus, in ways too numerous to mention, you have drawn us toward yourself. You not only loved us, but you reached out to us, embraced us, and drew us toward your love. In countless moments, we caught glimpses of you, heard some snippet of a word, felt some tug at our hearts that let us know that you were drawing us toward you. You connected with us and you found a way to stay connected.
We rest secure in the knowledge of your love, Lord Jesus. We know that though we fail you, your love does not fail us. Thus we gather on this day in confidence that because you abide in us, we will always abide in you and that nothing, not even our failings as disciples, can sepa-rate us from your abiding love. Amen.