The Good Shepherd And The Good Mother:a Tough Job Description
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Dear Fellow Preacher,
It is not only pressing news events that challenge us to offer an immediate word to our congregations. There are strong cultural traditions that linger somewhere not quite in, but not quite outside the church that also call for a fresh interpretation. We at The Immediate Word believe Mother's Day is one of those traditions. For this installment we have asked team member Carter Shelly to use the lectionary gospel text from John 10:11-18 to reflect on this persistent holiday in the light of the Gospel.
As always this installment includes comments from the rest of the team, as well as an alternative approach to the topic. There are also relevant illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
The Good Shepherd and the Good Mother:
A Tough Job Description
By Carter Shelley
John 10:11-18
Sheep and shepherds are not particularly meaningful analogies for 21st century Americans. We understand that David was in charge of sheep as a boy before he became a king. The Psalm most often connected to David's personal authorship is Psalm 23. The opening words, "The Lord is my shepherd," are potent with meaning for a nomadic people originally directed by their God from Abraham and Sarah to follow where their shepherding God would lead.
The words of Jesus in John 10:11-18 do two important things. First, they link the town and agrarian Jesus to the traditions and language of that nomadic society and God. Second, they link Jesus to God in a special way as the role of the shepherd shifts from God's making sure the human flock "shall not want ... leads me in the paths of righteousness ... anoints my head ... goodness and mercy ... and the house of the Lord forever ... "1 on to an incarnate shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep, exactly because he is their shepherd and not a hired hand.
Sheep and shepherds are not part of 21st century language unless one is a farmer in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. which none of us are. This pastoral language didn't exactly zip off the pen of the author of the first epistle of John either. In this letter to first century Christians a link is made between God and Jesus, only in this instance the theme of sacrifice appears minus the sheep. "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another ... And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us" (NRSV verses 3:16 and 23).
All three of these biblical texts talk about care and love either explicitly or implicitly. And, the best way for most of us to comprehend the love of God for us is through Christ's incarnation and our own humanity. So, here we are on Mother's Day talking about love and sacrifice. It would be easy to get all schmaltzy and sentimental at this point and talk about mothers possessing the saintliness of Joan of Arc, the culinary skills of Julia Child, and the fortitude of Mildred Pierce. Aside from the fact that Joan of Arc never had children and Mildred Pierce was an idealized character in a tearjerker movie, there are several things wrong with idolizing mothers on Mother's Day. Not everybody has that kind of a mother. Not everybody wants that kind of mother. Not every woman here today is that kind of mother.
But ask any mother to describe the birth of her child. Ask most fathers to describe holding his baby for the first time, and what you invariably hear are words of joy, awe, wonder, and love. Overwhelming love arises from the heart of most parents the first time they hold their newborn child. It may be one of the ways we are most like God, for this love comes unbidden, even unsought. The love is simply there. It's not rational. It's not earned. It comes as naturally as breathing. And it's one of the most powerful emotional commitments we humans can make.
When Jesus speaks of himself as the good shepherd willing to lay down his life for his people -- we think metaphorically and accurately -- that Jesus is saying he was willing to die for us. We are grateful and humbled, and perhaps uncertain whether we would have the courage and conviction to do the same for him. But when it comes to our own children, loving is the easy part. It's an unconditional, lifelong commitment most parents sustain far better than we do our marriages or our relationships with our own parents and other relatives. This love for our children -- and I include in this category those of us who are parents via adoption, step-parenting, and God-parenting -- as well as those whose offspring are biological and genetic heirs. This love for our children gives us insight into God's love and Christ's love -- not the Jesus of Nazareth speaking in chapter 10 of John's Gospel, but the crucified and risen Lord.
Theological move: we are more important to God than God's self is to God, because God has sacrificed much in order to care for us.
Poll almost any group of parents and you'll discover our children are more important to us than ourselves. Parents scrimp and save to provide educational opportunities and experiences we may not have received ourselves. Both parents work full time to keep up with the costs of soccer shoes, piano lessons, prom dresses, even cars. Or, one of us quits working and we sacrifice some of the economic extras in order to be home with the children. This is not intended to debate the pros and cons of either parenting choice. Nor does it intend to overlook the fact that May 11, 2003, there are many parents -- due to job layoffs, divorce, teenage pregnancies, etc. -- who don't have the luxury of either of these choices, because there is only one parent in the household. This parent may be on welfare, hold down two jobs, or may struggle monthly to pay rent, cover the groceries, keep the car on the road, and hold on to the basic necessities of life. The point is most parents -- not all -- but most would die for their children if need be.
Theological move: God sacrificed God's own Son in order to save us. Jesus voluntarily was sacrificed for us.
Most of us would die for our children. A Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist was interviewed several weeks back by Terri Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air. One of the cartoons he was cited for related to the war in Iraq. The cartoon showed two panels, both modeled after Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peters in Rome of a grieving Mary holding the dead body of Jesus. The portraits drawn in this 21st century tableau went as follows. The first panel shows a grieving American mother holding the dead body of her soldier son. The second panel shows a sobbing four-year-old Iraqi boy holding the dead body of his mother. The painful message, of course, is the horror of war. No doubt the Iraqi mother would have preferred to die than have her son die. No doubt, both Mary the mother of Jesus and the American mother would have gladly died in their "sons" places. Few parents would balk at such a choice. It is generally acknowledged by psychiatrists, psychologists, grief counselors, and clergy that a parent whose child dies never gets over the loss. He or she may learn to endure, but a parent never recovers from the loss of a child.
Theological move: God the divine parent faces many of the challenges human parents face
As parents we want to do everything right from changing a soiled and smelly diaper, or a two-year-old's tantrums to weathering the mercurial emotions of an adolescent of their equally stark silences. We don't want to be tyrants. Don't want to be overly lenient. Children need rules. They need boundaries. Sound familiar? Sound sort of like God's relationship with us? When our child hurts or fails at something important to him/her, we hurt too whether the pain inflicted comes from a bully at school, a terrible illness, or a sentence to the state penitentiary. Most parents remain steadfast in their love through thick and thin, good times and ghastly times. Just as does our holy Father and Mother God remains steadfast and loving towards us in our most ghastly times.
Theological move: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not make mistakes. God is divine not human, perfect not flawed, limitless rather than limited.
But of course we're going to make mistakes. No matter how hard we try not to, we're gong to make mistakes as parents. We may vow not to do the things our own parents did that drove us crazy, but our children will be able to tell us what things we do that drive them crazy. There will be times when we'll shout or say that angry, cutting, brutal thing that would be better left unsaid. There will be times when we just can't leave it or them alone even when we know better. The hardest thing most individuals ever do isn't their jobs, their illnesses, their finances; it's raising their children. There will always be times when the behavior we preach and the behavior we model will teach our children the wrong things. Again, God could have told us this task would be our hardest and most challenging. We are humans. We fail, not in love, but in stamina, wisdom, sensitivity, energy, experience, etc.
It's never been easy to be a parent. It's never been easy to be a mother. Eve, the mother of all living things, gave birth to sons. One son killed the other. Hagar, the concubine selected for Abraham by Sarah, winds up a single mother out in the desert deserted by a deadbeat dad who happened to be a patriarch. Rebecca favored Jacob over Esau and schemed to help him steal his brother's birthright only to lose them both as an outcome. The childless Hannah prayed to God to give her a son, whom she gave back to God while Samuel was still a boy. Mary agreed to be the first disciple and mother to God's son, then lived long enough to see her boy die. The Canaanite mother submitted to Jesus' insult with humility in order to gain healing for her daughter.
Parenting has never been easy. It probably never will be. To face it, to embrace it, we need the love and support of our Father/Mother in heaven who parents us, loves us, dies for us, saves us when we cannot save ourselves.
Thanks be to God our shepherd. Thanks be to Christ our shepherd. Thanks be that they abide in us when we abide in them. Amen.
Notes
1 This last line indicates the shift from nomadic to settled people with a "house of the Lord" in which to worship rather than the mobile ark that traveled with the Hebrews in their wanderings.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: The lectionary's replacement of Old Testament texts throughout the Easter season in favor of ones from Acts is especially unfortunate on this Sunday when so many rich Old Testament texts provide a background for the Good Shepherd theme: Isaiah 40:9-11 and Ezekiel 34:1-24 are just a couple of important passages which might be used.
"Shepherd" is a metaphor for ruler -- as in the Ezekiel passage above and, e.g., in 2 Samuel 7:7-8. In spite of this, shepherds weren't highly thought of in the Judaism of Jesus' time. For one thing, their occupation made it difficult if not impossible to obey some of rules of Torah. In view of this, it's interesting that in Luke's Gospel, shepherds are the first to be told of the birth of the Messiah -- and that God could be represented as a shepherd. (I'm sorry that I don't have the reference, but I recall being told that one of the early rabbis expressed puzzlement at this imagery in Psalm 23 and didn't really see how it could be appropriate. The fact that we think it's easy to picture God as a shepherd is probably due to our unfamiliarity with the kind of work that real shepherds have to do and our romanticizing of them.)
Carter makes some distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Jesus -- I'm not sure what the point of the distinction is. Jesus of Nazareth who is represented as speaking in John 10 will be the crucified and risen Lord. On the other hand, the standpoint of the writer of John 10 is post-Easter, and the way in which the historical Jesus spoke of himself as the Good Shepherd is seen -- and probably edited and expanded upon -- in light of the belief that he is the one who will lay down his life and take it up again.
Carter offers several examples of biblical mothers. Another example which deserves to be better known is that of Saul's concubine Rizpah in 2 Samuel 21:1-15. After David has impaled two of Saul's sons and five of his grandsons to appease the Gibeonites and left their bodies exposed, Rizpah (the mother of two of the executed men) risks the wrath of the king and camps out by the bodies all summer to keep the birds and wild animals away from them. We might think of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" in Argentina or of Mary near the cross of her son (as in the medieval hymn Stabat Mater Dolorosa. (English versions are Hymn 110 in Lutheran Book of Worship, and Hymn 158 in The Hymnal 1982 [Episcopal].)
For that matter, we can think of the suffering of God the Father in the separation from the Son who is crucified. (See, e.g., Juergen Moltmann, The Crucified God, Harper & Row, 1973, especially p.243.)
The contrast between perfect divine parenting and the imperfect human type is set out well in Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you."
A distinction, but also a unity, between the ideas that God is our shepherd and that the Messiah is our shepherd, can be found in the Ezekiel passage that I noted above. "I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God ... "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd" (Ezekiel 34:15, 23).
The images of God as father and as mother give rather different but complementary pictures of creation. A child is in an important sense something "external" to a father since it develops in physical separation from him. This aspect of fatherhood corresponds in a rough way to the belief that God created the universe "out of nothing," that it is not part of God, an emanation from the divine "substance." On the other hand, a child develops within the mother. One might think of this as corresponding to just such an idea of emanation, which would be highly questionable, since it would blur the distinction between creator and creature. But we could also think of a maternal image of creation in terms of God "making room" within Godself for something other than God. I.e., in a way God empties Godself in order to allow the world to exist -- an "emptying" of a type which becomes clearest in Christ, as Philippians 2:5-11 describes. Emil Brunner (Dogmatics II, Westminster, 1952, p.19) put it this way:
This, however, means that God does not wish to occupy the whole of Space Himself, but that He wills to make room for other forms of existence. In doing so He limits Himself. ... The kenosis, which reaches its paradoxical climax in the Cross of Christ, begins with the creation of the world.
Carlos Wilton responds: I think you've done a wonderful job reflecting on the subject of motherhood, through the lens of "the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep." Motherhood at its best (and fatherhood, too, for that matter) is about self-sacrifice.
Some voices today would like to soft-pedal that aspect of parenthood. They consider the call to parental self-sacrifice to be confining, even oppressive. Yet consider the case of a parent who was prevented from sacrificing herself for her child:
One of the most heart-wrenching stories in all of literature, from this point of view, is Sophie's Choice, by William Styron. (It was made into a film several years back, starring Meryl Streep.) Sophie Zawistowska (pronounced zah-viz-TOV-ska) is a concentration-camp survivor, who's obviously been deeply scarred by her experience as a prisoner. Late in the film, we learn why: she had arrived at the camp with two children in tow, and was told by the Nazi authorities she could only keep one with her. The other would be sent to the gas chamber.
Which one would it be? In an even baser act of cruelty, the Nazis left it up to Sophie to decide. They trapped her in a horrifying dilemma. Sophie couldn't offer to sacrifice her own life in her offspring's place; without their mother, both children would surely die. If she failed to choose, her captors would kill both children.
Sophie made her choice. The horror of that decision haunted her for the rest of her life.
Admittedly, Sophie was coerced into making her dreadful choice; but it was still emotionally devastating. It was so difficult because the act of giving up one's child to be murdered is the utter antithesis of the ethic of parental self-sacrifice: of being a good shepherd and laying down one's life for the sheep. Not only did the Nazis prevent Sophie from being a faithful parent, they forced her -- through the choice they imposed on her -- to become a sort of anti-parent.
God has programmed into us an instinct to protect and nurture our young. Various circumstances in life may interfere with that instinct; no parent, after all, is perfect. Some may even find parenthood to be a burden, at times. Reflecting on Sophie's choice, however, we may come to understand self-sacrifice as an incredible privilege: one that's even more precious when the possibility of such self-sacrifice is taken away.
James L. Evans responds: In my tradition, evangelical and Baptist, the lectionary is not always the main source for worship themes. Events in culture and dates on the secular calendar often have a significant influence on what we are singing and praying about during worship. That is nowhere more true than on Mother's Day. I made the mistake one Sunday several years ago of adhering closely to the post-Easter theme suggested by the lectionary reading. Mother's Day was not mentioned or acknowledged at all during the service. I don't think I could have made more people mad than if I had failed to mention the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.
Carter, however, has found a way to be sensitive to what seems to be a powerful need on the part of many people to acknowledge this holiday, while at the same time allowing the gospel to inform and perhaps even interpret the holiday from a particularly Christian point of view. What we find here is not only a helpful approach to dealing with Mother's Day, but a good model for dealing with all those places where culture seeks to encroach on the worship hour.
An Alternative Approach
By Carlos Wilton
Beyond "Do No Harm"
More and more, society's dominant ethical standard seems to be "do no harm." Be a good citizen. Keep to yourself. Keep your head down. Don't hurt anyone.
That's many people's idea of religion, too: simply avoiding the "thou shalt not" behaviors proscribed in the Ten Commandments. (Just hang those ancient laws on the schoolhouse wall, the popular thinking goes, and everything will be fine in our culture.)
That sort of thinking wouldn't have helped Jessica Lynch very much. There she lay, in a prison hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, beaten and abused by her captors: with more suffering (and perhaps even death) likely to follow. Fortunately for her, a bystander named Mohammed al-Rehaief looked on her situation and said to himself, "I've got to go beyond 'Do no harm.' I've got to lay my life on the line for a fellow human being." (The fact that his name was "Mohammed" and not "Matthew" or "Mark" is worth noting.) At great personal risk, al-Rehaief notified American soldiers of Jessica's location, making her daring rescue possible.
Our nation has recently honored Mohammed al-Rehaief by awarding asylum to him, his wife, and their five-year-old daughter. According to an April 30th CNN.com news article, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the National Press Club, "Mr. al-Rehaief should know Americans are grateful for his bravery and for his compassion ... That was a humanitarian impulse."
Mothers do that sort of thing -- good mothers, anyway. So do good fathers. And good neighbors. They consider "do no harm" to be only the beginning: the warm-up for the real race that is ahead.
"First, do no harm" is a loose translation of a portion of the Hippocratic Oath. (The literal text of that portion of the oath is, "I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.") Yet how easily that qualifier "first" is dropped in many people's minds, and the starting-point becomes the finish line, the prerequisite becomes the diploma! (Thankfully, most physicians have far higher standards than that; most of us would run the other way if we encountered a doctor whose ethics not only began with that phrase but also ended there.)
Today's epistle lesson declares a higher ethical standard: "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another" (1 John 3:16). The gospel reading ("The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" -- John 10:11) and the psalm ("You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" -- Psalm 23:5) express a similar message.
"Lay down our lives" does not necessarily mean a single, spectacular act of self-sacrifice (although we can all think of awe-inspiring examples of this sort of selfless love, beginning with the cross of Jesus). From the standpoint of the good shepherd who appears in three of the four lectionary readings for today, laying down one's life has more to do with a steady, continuous discipline of giving oneself for the other. It's more a lifestyle than a single, dramatic act.
That lifestyle ought to begin close to home -- but it cannot end there. We've all heard the old chestnut, "Charity begins at home." Typically, it's quoted by someone with an axe to grind, who means it to be a show-stopping objection to some sort of overseas mission appeal.
That saying has a very interesting -- and little-known -- history. Most people think it means you should spend your money close to home -- that, to quote another aphorism, you should "take care of number one."
But that's not what it means at all. Not even close! The phrase originated with the ancient Roman poet Terence. He used it around 165 B.C.E., in a play called The Lady of Andros. Early English translations of Terence's play used the word "charity," but what they meant was not financial giving at all -- just as the King James Version of 1 Corinthians 13 reads, "Charity never endeth." What those early translators meant to say was, "Love begins at home."
Of course it does! Unless the home has been exceptionally disturbed or unhappy, the place most people learn love is at their parent's knee. What the ancient poet is saying is that the lessons of love are first learned at home by children as they grow. Our model for how to love others, as adults, is precisely the sort of sacrificial love demonstrated by a good and faithful parent.
That puts a whole new spin on the old aphorism, doesn't it? -- and it puts a whole new spin on our approach to loving others as well. If charity -- love -- begins at home, then it also extends outward from that starting-point, in concentric circles, to potentially touch the entire world. Love begins with the parochial, the local, to be sure -- but if it ends there as well, then what kind of love is it, finally?
In the words of Colin Sedgwick, a Baptist minister who writes from Britain's Guardian newspaper, "To make the avoidance of evil the summit of our moral endeavors is -- quite apart from its inherent impossibility -- to condemn ourselves to a life of pointlessness. Even worse, it is to tacitly condone what is wrong; evil prospers, as they say, when good people do nothing. The attempt to avoid evil at all costs should be a given of our lives: but it should be our starting-point, not our terminus." ("Accentuate the Positive," in The Guardian, November 18, 2002)
If, as a species, we can't figure out how to move beyond "do no harm," there's little hope for us. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, offers the best practical framework for learning to do so: on Mothers Day, or any other time.
Related Illustrations
In her novel Souls Raised from the Dead Doris Betts deals with the family dilemma of an organ donation needed by a 12-year-old daughter from her mother. Having left the family three years earlier, and being in denial about how serious the daughter's illness is, the mother does not want to go through the hardship and physical trauma of kidney donation. In the novel there is a scene where two of the grandparents go to the hospital chapel to pray. The grandfather is not a churchgoer and he has an uneasy relationship with religion and God. Thus the interpretation he gives to Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer is unique and insightful in a way few Christians who know both by heart might ever consider. His understanding of Psalm 23 appears on pages 94 -- 97 in both the paperback and hardback versions.
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The recently published novel I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson exams how women juggle career, children, husband and domestic duties. While the heroine of this novel is a high-powered businesswoman with sufficient money to employ a nanny and a part-time housekeeper, what she has in common with all other working mothers, irrespective of job or income level, is guilt. Working mothers always feel guilty. Am I spending enough time with my children? Am I meeting their emotional and physical needs? What if one of them gets sick at school? Am I there when they need me most? In addition to those worries there are many other areas the working mother worries about regularly. There are dust bunnies under the furniture. There aren't any clean clothes in the house. The sheets haven't been changed in a month. The vacuuming hasn't been done in two. Can I get away with bringing home take-out food for dinner tonight? Will my husband remain faithful if I'm too tired to make love as often as we'd both like? The list is as endless and multi-varied as are the working women tortured by the many responsibilities and tasks they have to perform.
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About 10 years ago Newsweek magazine ran a piece about household responsibilities shared by husband and wife. The article noted that many, many more men now help with childcare, housework and cooking than was ever the case among husbands and fathers of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly the article also noted that while men are doing more work around the house and in relation to the family, women tend to go behind their husbands and redo those parts the women do not consider properly done. Examples women cited include: forgot to wipe the sticky counters after doing the dishes, vacuuming but not dusting, not tucking all the covers in under the bed, letting the children eat junk for dinner instead of cooking a proper meal, etc. etc. Ergo, while women may want help from their husbands, women have not been able to let go of the psychic responsibility for many of the domestic chores husbands do.
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A Newsweek magazine piece written in 2002 observed that families where both parents work full time, spend what time they have to spare with their children and with their children's activities such as sports events, clubs, etc. It was also noted that most such family live in messier houses than did their parents, because the thing that gets lost in the time crunch is housecleaning. Considered from that perspective, it doesn't seem too bad. Who on his or her deathbed is likely to say: "I wish I kept the house cleaner"? Frankly, I don't know where the dictum "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" originated, but I'm inclined not to discount it as either scriptural or pertinent to fruitful faith or fruitful parenting.
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Silly, yes, but in the past I have sometimes dealt with acknowledging Mother's Day during announcements by asking everyone to stand who currently HAS or EVER DID HAVE a mother. Then I acknowledge God's graciousness in providing a means of birth and therefore existence for everyone present. It always gets a general chuckle, and usually I get the last laugh, because there are invariably a few in the room who do not stand up and are evidently as yet unborn.
-- Jan Campbell
Worship Resources
By George Reed
OPENING
Hymns
God, Whose Love Is Reigning o'er Us
His Eye Is on the Sparrow
Songs
I Love You, Lord
Your Loving Kindness Is Better than Life
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Come, flock of God, enter the fold.
PEOPLE: WE ARE LOST AND CANNOT FIND OUR WAY.
Leader: Listen to the voice of the Shepherd and follow him.
PEOPLE: OUR EARS ARE FILLED WITH TOO MANY VOICES.
Leader: The Good Shepherd comes to lead you.
PEOPLE: THERE ARE MANY WHO WOULD LEAD US. WHICH ONE IS THE GOOD SHEPHERD?
Leader: See the One who bleeds and dies for you. He is your Good Shepherd.
PEOPLE: WE SEE THE LOVE HE HAS FOR US. WE SEE HIM DIE AND RISE AGAIN FOR US. WE WILL FOLLOW HIM.
COLLECT/OPENING PRAYER
O God who holds us in arms of love and bends down to feed us as a tender mother nurses her children: Grant us such an awareness of your never failing love for us that we may extend that love to those we encounter this week; through Jesus Christ our Risen Lord and Savior. Amen.
God, you are the one who loves us to the point of dying for us. You sent Jesus to be our Good Shepherd and to lay down his life for your flock. We pray that you will make us so aware of this incredible love of yours that we are bold to share that love with others. Amen.
RESPONSE MUSIC
Hymns
The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Songs
Behold, What Manner of Love
O How He Love You and Me!
Thy Loving Kindness
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION/PARDON
Leader: Let us confess our sins to God and before one another:
PEOPLE: O Shepherd of us all, we confess that we have been a troublesome flock. We have strayed from your voice and followed others who have led us astray. We have wandered off in search of things that would satisfy us only to discover that they have made us ill. We have pushed with shoulder and flank and driven others away from you. We have eaten the best and left only miserable scrub for others.
(Silent Confession)
We have heard your voice, O Loving Shepherd, and we have seen the error of our ways. We return to you and ask that you teach us once more your ways of love and care that we may truly act like the sheep of your hand. Amen.
Leader: Hear the Good News! Christ is the Good Shepherd and he lays down his life for you! He rises to new life and offers you new life in him. Receive the forgiveness of our Lord and follow him faithfully.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC
O God, you led your people through the wilderness to the promised land. You led them into exile and then back to Jerusalem. We praise you for your faithfulness that never lets us stray but that you come and offer to lead us back to the good place you have prepared for us.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we have been wanderers. We have not followed you where you have led us. We have gladly gone to green pastures and quiet waters but we have fled from offering the sacrificial love that you have offered for all the world. Forgive us and by the power of the Holy Spirit call us once again to follow you wherever you lead us.
We thank you for all the signs you have given us of your faithful love. We are surrounded by a creation that is not only beautiful but offers us everything we need for abundant life. We are especially aware this day of those you have given to nurture and care for us. We give you thanks for those who have given us birth. We thank you for those who have loved us and cared for us throughout our lives. We thank you for our mothers and those who have mothered us in so many ways. We thank you for those who have chosen not to give physical birth to a child but to find other means to share your love. We ask your blessings upon them. (Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you those who need signs and acts of love this day. We pray for those who find their minds, bodies or spirits broken. We pray for those who have been denied the good things you created for all your children. We pray especially for those mothers, who like Mary, have gone through the agony of losing a child. We pray for those who desire to give birth and are unable to do so. Direct all of us in the ways of mothering love that you have shown for us. Grant that we may, with Jesus, desire to gather your lost children under our wings and show them your love. (Other petitions may be offered.)
We offer our prayers in the Name of the Good Shepherd who taught us to pray together, saying: Our Father ...
Children's Sermon
By Wesley Runk
John 10: 1-11
Text: "When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers" (vs. 4-5).
Object: The voices of mothers whose children are involved in the children's sermon. (Prepare ahead of time statements that can be read by mothers with the idea that children will recognize her voice.)
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is a very special day, isn't it? (let them answer) Can you tell me what day it is? (let them answer) That's right, it is Mother's Day and I am sure that everyone here has told their mother how much he/she loves their mother. But just to make sure, let's all say it together, "I love you, Mother." (Have the children say it with one voice.) Very good!
Are all moms the same? (let them answer) Isn't it strange that everyone has the best mom? (let them answer) I wonder how this works. I have prepared a little experiment. I have asked your moms to read something for me and with your backs to your mom's voices I want to see if you can pick out their voice. (have the mother's read a sentence or so and see if the children can identify the voice Here is some suggested text: "[child's name], do you remember what you had for breakfast this morning?" "[child's name], will you be sure to help me set the table for dinner after church?" ["child's name], don't forget to comb (brush) your hair and brush your teeth!" As each child recognizes his/her mother's voic,e have them stand up and remain standing until all of the children have recognized a voice. If the mother isn't there, ask a grandparent or Sunday school teacher to fill in for the parent).
Isn't it amazing how out of all the voices in our church this morning you know this one voice? (let them answer) That is because you love her and trust her. If you heard a stranger say your name, you would not recognize the voice.
Jesus told his disciples that it is the same way with his followers and him. Jesus has a voice that can be trusted because he loves us and cares for us. Jesus even gave his life for us so that we may live in God's love forever. This is why we come to church and Sunday school. We want to learn about his teachings and follow in his path. When Jesus teaches us to honor our fathers and our mothers, we believe him. When Jesus teaches us to forgive people who have said bad things about us, we believe him. When Jesus teaches us to share with others, we believe him. The voice of Jesus and his teachings we can trust.
You recognize your mother's voice because it is filled with love. Sometimes she tells us things we don't want to hear but we know are true. We trust our mothers and we trust the voice of Jesus because he is the voice of God who loves us and protects us.
Today we thank God for our mothers and for their love. Mothers and fathers are a part of God's plan to teach us the ways that God would have us to be. I hope you are thankful for your mother and that you will tell her how much you love her and for the love that God gave her to share with you. Amen.
The Immediate Word, May 11, 2003 issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
It is not only pressing news events that challenge us to offer an immediate word to our congregations. There are strong cultural traditions that linger somewhere not quite in, but not quite outside the church that also call for a fresh interpretation. We at The Immediate Word believe Mother's Day is one of those traditions. For this installment we have asked team member Carter Shelly to use the lectionary gospel text from John 10:11-18 to reflect on this persistent holiday in the light of the Gospel.
As always this installment includes comments from the rest of the team, as well as an alternative approach to the topic. There are also relevant illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
The Good Shepherd and the Good Mother:
A Tough Job Description
By Carter Shelley
John 10:11-18
Sheep and shepherds are not particularly meaningful analogies for 21st century Americans. We understand that David was in charge of sheep as a boy before he became a king. The Psalm most often connected to David's personal authorship is Psalm 23. The opening words, "The Lord is my shepherd," are potent with meaning for a nomadic people originally directed by their God from Abraham and Sarah to follow where their shepherding God would lead.
The words of Jesus in John 10:11-18 do two important things. First, they link the town and agrarian Jesus to the traditions and language of that nomadic society and God. Second, they link Jesus to God in a special way as the role of the shepherd shifts from God's making sure the human flock "shall not want ... leads me in the paths of righteousness ... anoints my head ... goodness and mercy ... and the house of the Lord forever ... "1 on to an incarnate shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep, exactly because he is their shepherd and not a hired hand.
Sheep and shepherds are not part of 21st century language unless one is a farmer in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. which none of us are. This pastoral language didn't exactly zip off the pen of the author of the first epistle of John either. In this letter to first century Christians a link is made between God and Jesus, only in this instance the theme of sacrifice appears minus the sheep. "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another ... And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us" (NRSV verses 3:16 and 23).
All three of these biblical texts talk about care and love either explicitly or implicitly. And, the best way for most of us to comprehend the love of God for us is through Christ's incarnation and our own humanity. So, here we are on Mother's Day talking about love and sacrifice. It would be easy to get all schmaltzy and sentimental at this point and talk about mothers possessing the saintliness of Joan of Arc, the culinary skills of Julia Child, and the fortitude of Mildred Pierce. Aside from the fact that Joan of Arc never had children and Mildred Pierce was an idealized character in a tearjerker movie, there are several things wrong with idolizing mothers on Mother's Day. Not everybody has that kind of a mother. Not everybody wants that kind of mother. Not every woman here today is that kind of mother.
But ask any mother to describe the birth of her child. Ask most fathers to describe holding his baby for the first time, and what you invariably hear are words of joy, awe, wonder, and love. Overwhelming love arises from the heart of most parents the first time they hold their newborn child. It may be one of the ways we are most like God, for this love comes unbidden, even unsought. The love is simply there. It's not rational. It's not earned. It comes as naturally as breathing. And it's one of the most powerful emotional commitments we humans can make.
When Jesus speaks of himself as the good shepherd willing to lay down his life for his people -- we think metaphorically and accurately -- that Jesus is saying he was willing to die for us. We are grateful and humbled, and perhaps uncertain whether we would have the courage and conviction to do the same for him. But when it comes to our own children, loving is the easy part. It's an unconditional, lifelong commitment most parents sustain far better than we do our marriages or our relationships with our own parents and other relatives. This love for our children -- and I include in this category those of us who are parents via adoption, step-parenting, and God-parenting -- as well as those whose offspring are biological and genetic heirs. This love for our children gives us insight into God's love and Christ's love -- not the Jesus of Nazareth speaking in chapter 10 of John's Gospel, but the crucified and risen Lord.
Theological move: we are more important to God than God's self is to God, because God has sacrificed much in order to care for us.
Poll almost any group of parents and you'll discover our children are more important to us than ourselves. Parents scrimp and save to provide educational opportunities and experiences we may not have received ourselves. Both parents work full time to keep up with the costs of soccer shoes, piano lessons, prom dresses, even cars. Or, one of us quits working and we sacrifice some of the economic extras in order to be home with the children. This is not intended to debate the pros and cons of either parenting choice. Nor does it intend to overlook the fact that May 11, 2003, there are many parents -- due to job layoffs, divorce, teenage pregnancies, etc. -- who don't have the luxury of either of these choices, because there is only one parent in the household. This parent may be on welfare, hold down two jobs, or may struggle monthly to pay rent, cover the groceries, keep the car on the road, and hold on to the basic necessities of life. The point is most parents -- not all -- but most would die for their children if need be.
Theological move: God sacrificed God's own Son in order to save us. Jesus voluntarily was sacrificed for us.
Most of us would die for our children. A Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist was interviewed several weeks back by Terri Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air. One of the cartoons he was cited for related to the war in Iraq. The cartoon showed two panels, both modeled after Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peters in Rome of a grieving Mary holding the dead body of Jesus. The portraits drawn in this 21st century tableau went as follows. The first panel shows a grieving American mother holding the dead body of her soldier son. The second panel shows a sobbing four-year-old Iraqi boy holding the dead body of his mother. The painful message, of course, is the horror of war. No doubt the Iraqi mother would have preferred to die than have her son die. No doubt, both Mary the mother of Jesus and the American mother would have gladly died in their "sons" places. Few parents would balk at such a choice. It is generally acknowledged by psychiatrists, psychologists, grief counselors, and clergy that a parent whose child dies never gets over the loss. He or she may learn to endure, but a parent never recovers from the loss of a child.
Theological move: God the divine parent faces many of the challenges human parents face
As parents we want to do everything right from changing a soiled and smelly diaper, or a two-year-old's tantrums to weathering the mercurial emotions of an adolescent of their equally stark silences. We don't want to be tyrants. Don't want to be overly lenient. Children need rules. They need boundaries. Sound familiar? Sound sort of like God's relationship with us? When our child hurts or fails at something important to him/her, we hurt too whether the pain inflicted comes from a bully at school, a terrible illness, or a sentence to the state penitentiary. Most parents remain steadfast in their love through thick and thin, good times and ghastly times. Just as does our holy Father and Mother God remains steadfast and loving towards us in our most ghastly times.
Theological move: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not make mistakes. God is divine not human, perfect not flawed, limitless rather than limited.
But of course we're going to make mistakes. No matter how hard we try not to, we're gong to make mistakes as parents. We may vow not to do the things our own parents did that drove us crazy, but our children will be able to tell us what things we do that drive them crazy. There will be times when we'll shout or say that angry, cutting, brutal thing that would be better left unsaid. There will be times when we just can't leave it or them alone even when we know better. The hardest thing most individuals ever do isn't their jobs, their illnesses, their finances; it's raising their children. There will always be times when the behavior we preach and the behavior we model will teach our children the wrong things. Again, God could have told us this task would be our hardest and most challenging. We are humans. We fail, not in love, but in stamina, wisdom, sensitivity, energy, experience, etc.
It's never been easy to be a parent. It's never been easy to be a mother. Eve, the mother of all living things, gave birth to sons. One son killed the other. Hagar, the concubine selected for Abraham by Sarah, winds up a single mother out in the desert deserted by a deadbeat dad who happened to be a patriarch. Rebecca favored Jacob over Esau and schemed to help him steal his brother's birthright only to lose them both as an outcome. The childless Hannah prayed to God to give her a son, whom she gave back to God while Samuel was still a boy. Mary agreed to be the first disciple and mother to God's son, then lived long enough to see her boy die. The Canaanite mother submitted to Jesus' insult with humility in order to gain healing for her daughter.
Parenting has never been easy. It probably never will be. To face it, to embrace it, we need the love and support of our Father/Mother in heaven who parents us, loves us, dies for us, saves us when we cannot save ourselves.
Thanks be to God our shepherd. Thanks be to Christ our shepherd. Thanks be that they abide in us when we abide in them. Amen.
Notes
1 This last line indicates the shift from nomadic to settled people with a "house of the Lord" in which to worship rather than the mobile ark that traveled with the Hebrews in their wanderings.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: The lectionary's replacement of Old Testament texts throughout the Easter season in favor of ones from Acts is especially unfortunate on this Sunday when so many rich Old Testament texts provide a background for the Good Shepherd theme: Isaiah 40:9-11 and Ezekiel 34:1-24 are just a couple of important passages which might be used.
"Shepherd" is a metaphor for ruler -- as in the Ezekiel passage above and, e.g., in 2 Samuel 7:7-8. In spite of this, shepherds weren't highly thought of in the Judaism of Jesus' time. For one thing, their occupation made it difficult if not impossible to obey some of rules of Torah. In view of this, it's interesting that in Luke's Gospel, shepherds are the first to be told of the birth of the Messiah -- and that God could be represented as a shepherd. (I'm sorry that I don't have the reference, but I recall being told that one of the early rabbis expressed puzzlement at this imagery in Psalm 23 and didn't really see how it could be appropriate. The fact that we think it's easy to picture God as a shepherd is probably due to our unfamiliarity with the kind of work that real shepherds have to do and our romanticizing of them.)
Carter makes some distinction between Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Jesus -- I'm not sure what the point of the distinction is. Jesus of Nazareth who is represented as speaking in John 10 will be the crucified and risen Lord. On the other hand, the standpoint of the writer of John 10 is post-Easter, and the way in which the historical Jesus spoke of himself as the Good Shepherd is seen -- and probably edited and expanded upon -- in light of the belief that he is the one who will lay down his life and take it up again.
Carter offers several examples of biblical mothers. Another example which deserves to be better known is that of Saul's concubine Rizpah in 2 Samuel 21:1-15. After David has impaled two of Saul's sons and five of his grandsons to appease the Gibeonites and left their bodies exposed, Rizpah (the mother of two of the executed men) risks the wrath of the king and camps out by the bodies all summer to keep the birds and wild animals away from them. We might think of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" in Argentina or of Mary near the cross of her son (as in the medieval hymn Stabat Mater Dolorosa. (English versions are Hymn 110 in Lutheran Book of Worship, and Hymn 158 in The Hymnal 1982 [Episcopal].)
For that matter, we can think of the suffering of God the Father in the separation from the Son who is crucified. (See, e.g., Juergen Moltmann, The Crucified God, Harper & Row, 1973, especially p.243.)
The contrast between perfect divine parenting and the imperfect human type is set out well in Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you."
A distinction, but also a unity, between the ideas that God is our shepherd and that the Messiah is our shepherd, can be found in the Ezekiel passage that I noted above. "I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God ... "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd" (Ezekiel 34:15, 23).
The images of God as father and as mother give rather different but complementary pictures of creation. A child is in an important sense something "external" to a father since it develops in physical separation from him. This aspect of fatherhood corresponds in a rough way to the belief that God created the universe "out of nothing," that it is not part of God, an emanation from the divine "substance." On the other hand, a child develops within the mother. One might think of this as corresponding to just such an idea of emanation, which would be highly questionable, since it would blur the distinction between creator and creature. But we could also think of a maternal image of creation in terms of God "making room" within Godself for something other than God. I.e., in a way God empties Godself in order to allow the world to exist -- an "emptying" of a type which becomes clearest in Christ, as Philippians 2:5-11 describes. Emil Brunner (Dogmatics II, Westminster, 1952, p.19) put it this way:
This, however, means that God does not wish to occupy the whole of Space Himself, but that He wills to make room for other forms of existence. In doing so He limits Himself. ... The kenosis, which reaches its paradoxical climax in the Cross of Christ, begins with the creation of the world.
Carlos Wilton responds: I think you've done a wonderful job reflecting on the subject of motherhood, through the lens of "the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep." Motherhood at its best (and fatherhood, too, for that matter) is about self-sacrifice.
Some voices today would like to soft-pedal that aspect of parenthood. They consider the call to parental self-sacrifice to be confining, even oppressive. Yet consider the case of a parent who was prevented from sacrificing herself for her child:
One of the most heart-wrenching stories in all of literature, from this point of view, is Sophie's Choice, by William Styron. (It was made into a film several years back, starring Meryl Streep.) Sophie Zawistowska (pronounced zah-viz-TOV-ska) is a concentration-camp survivor, who's obviously been deeply scarred by her experience as a prisoner. Late in the film, we learn why: she had arrived at the camp with two children in tow, and was told by the Nazi authorities she could only keep one with her. The other would be sent to the gas chamber.
Which one would it be? In an even baser act of cruelty, the Nazis left it up to Sophie to decide. They trapped her in a horrifying dilemma. Sophie couldn't offer to sacrifice her own life in her offspring's place; without their mother, both children would surely die. If she failed to choose, her captors would kill both children.
Sophie made her choice. The horror of that decision haunted her for the rest of her life.
Admittedly, Sophie was coerced into making her dreadful choice; but it was still emotionally devastating. It was so difficult because the act of giving up one's child to be murdered is the utter antithesis of the ethic of parental self-sacrifice: of being a good shepherd and laying down one's life for the sheep. Not only did the Nazis prevent Sophie from being a faithful parent, they forced her -- through the choice they imposed on her -- to become a sort of anti-parent.
God has programmed into us an instinct to protect and nurture our young. Various circumstances in life may interfere with that instinct; no parent, after all, is perfect. Some may even find parenthood to be a burden, at times. Reflecting on Sophie's choice, however, we may come to understand self-sacrifice as an incredible privilege: one that's even more precious when the possibility of such self-sacrifice is taken away.
James L. Evans responds: In my tradition, evangelical and Baptist, the lectionary is not always the main source for worship themes. Events in culture and dates on the secular calendar often have a significant influence on what we are singing and praying about during worship. That is nowhere more true than on Mother's Day. I made the mistake one Sunday several years ago of adhering closely to the post-Easter theme suggested by the lectionary reading. Mother's Day was not mentioned or acknowledged at all during the service. I don't think I could have made more people mad than if I had failed to mention the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.
Carter, however, has found a way to be sensitive to what seems to be a powerful need on the part of many people to acknowledge this holiday, while at the same time allowing the gospel to inform and perhaps even interpret the holiday from a particularly Christian point of view. What we find here is not only a helpful approach to dealing with Mother's Day, but a good model for dealing with all those places where culture seeks to encroach on the worship hour.
An Alternative Approach
By Carlos Wilton
Beyond "Do No Harm"
More and more, society's dominant ethical standard seems to be "do no harm." Be a good citizen. Keep to yourself. Keep your head down. Don't hurt anyone.
That's many people's idea of religion, too: simply avoiding the "thou shalt not" behaviors proscribed in the Ten Commandments. (Just hang those ancient laws on the schoolhouse wall, the popular thinking goes, and everything will be fine in our culture.)
That sort of thinking wouldn't have helped Jessica Lynch very much. There she lay, in a prison hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, beaten and abused by her captors: with more suffering (and perhaps even death) likely to follow. Fortunately for her, a bystander named Mohammed al-Rehaief looked on her situation and said to himself, "I've got to go beyond 'Do no harm.' I've got to lay my life on the line for a fellow human being." (The fact that his name was "Mohammed" and not "Matthew" or "Mark" is worth noting.) At great personal risk, al-Rehaief notified American soldiers of Jessica's location, making her daring rescue possible.
Our nation has recently honored Mohammed al-Rehaief by awarding asylum to him, his wife, and their five-year-old daughter. According to an April 30th CNN.com news article, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the National Press Club, "Mr. al-Rehaief should know Americans are grateful for his bravery and for his compassion ... That was a humanitarian impulse."
Mothers do that sort of thing -- good mothers, anyway. So do good fathers. And good neighbors. They consider "do no harm" to be only the beginning: the warm-up for the real race that is ahead.
"First, do no harm" is a loose translation of a portion of the Hippocratic Oath. (The literal text of that portion of the oath is, "I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.") Yet how easily that qualifier "first" is dropped in many people's minds, and the starting-point becomes the finish line, the prerequisite becomes the diploma! (Thankfully, most physicians have far higher standards than that; most of us would run the other way if we encountered a doctor whose ethics not only began with that phrase but also ended there.)
Today's epistle lesson declares a higher ethical standard: "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us -- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another" (1 John 3:16). The gospel reading ("The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" -- John 10:11) and the psalm ("You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" -- Psalm 23:5) express a similar message.
"Lay down our lives" does not necessarily mean a single, spectacular act of self-sacrifice (although we can all think of awe-inspiring examples of this sort of selfless love, beginning with the cross of Jesus). From the standpoint of the good shepherd who appears in three of the four lectionary readings for today, laying down one's life has more to do with a steady, continuous discipline of giving oneself for the other. It's more a lifestyle than a single, dramatic act.
That lifestyle ought to begin close to home -- but it cannot end there. We've all heard the old chestnut, "Charity begins at home." Typically, it's quoted by someone with an axe to grind, who means it to be a show-stopping objection to some sort of overseas mission appeal.
That saying has a very interesting -- and little-known -- history. Most people think it means you should spend your money close to home -- that, to quote another aphorism, you should "take care of number one."
But that's not what it means at all. Not even close! The phrase originated with the ancient Roman poet Terence. He used it around 165 B.C.E., in a play called The Lady of Andros. Early English translations of Terence's play used the word "charity," but what they meant was not financial giving at all -- just as the King James Version of 1 Corinthians 13 reads, "Charity never endeth." What those early translators meant to say was, "Love begins at home."
Of course it does! Unless the home has been exceptionally disturbed or unhappy, the place most people learn love is at their parent's knee. What the ancient poet is saying is that the lessons of love are first learned at home by children as they grow. Our model for how to love others, as adults, is precisely the sort of sacrificial love demonstrated by a good and faithful parent.
That puts a whole new spin on the old aphorism, doesn't it? -- and it puts a whole new spin on our approach to loving others as well. If charity -- love -- begins at home, then it also extends outward from that starting-point, in concentric circles, to potentially touch the entire world. Love begins with the parochial, the local, to be sure -- but if it ends there as well, then what kind of love is it, finally?
In the words of Colin Sedgwick, a Baptist minister who writes from Britain's Guardian newspaper, "To make the avoidance of evil the summit of our moral endeavors is -- quite apart from its inherent impossibility -- to condemn ourselves to a life of pointlessness. Even worse, it is to tacitly condone what is wrong; evil prospers, as they say, when good people do nothing. The attempt to avoid evil at all costs should be a given of our lives: but it should be our starting-point, not our terminus." ("Accentuate the Positive," in The Guardian, November 18, 2002)
If, as a species, we can't figure out how to move beyond "do no harm," there's little hope for us. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, offers the best practical framework for learning to do so: on Mothers Day, or any other time.
Related Illustrations
In her novel Souls Raised from the Dead Doris Betts deals with the family dilemma of an organ donation needed by a 12-year-old daughter from her mother. Having left the family three years earlier, and being in denial about how serious the daughter's illness is, the mother does not want to go through the hardship and physical trauma of kidney donation. In the novel there is a scene where two of the grandparents go to the hospital chapel to pray. The grandfather is not a churchgoer and he has an uneasy relationship with religion and God. Thus the interpretation he gives to Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer is unique and insightful in a way few Christians who know both by heart might ever consider. His understanding of Psalm 23 appears on pages 94 -- 97 in both the paperback and hardback versions.
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The recently published novel I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson exams how women juggle career, children, husband and domestic duties. While the heroine of this novel is a high-powered businesswoman with sufficient money to employ a nanny and a part-time housekeeper, what she has in common with all other working mothers, irrespective of job or income level, is guilt. Working mothers always feel guilty. Am I spending enough time with my children? Am I meeting their emotional and physical needs? What if one of them gets sick at school? Am I there when they need me most? In addition to those worries there are many other areas the working mother worries about regularly. There are dust bunnies under the furniture. There aren't any clean clothes in the house. The sheets haven't been changed in a month. The vacuuming hasn't been done in two. Can I get away with bringing home take-out food for dinner tonight? Will my husband remain faithful if I'm too tired to make love as often as we'd both like? The list is as endless and multi-varied as are the working women tortured by the many responsibilities and tasks they have to perform.
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About 10 years ago Newsweek magazine ran a piece about household responsibilities shared by husband and wife. The article noted that many, many more men now help with childcare, housework and cooking than was ever the case among husbands and fathers of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly the article also noted that while men are doing more work around the house and in relation to the family, women tend to go behind their husbands and redo those parts the women do not consider properly done. Examples women cited include: forgot to wipe the sticky counters after doing the dishes, vacuuming but not dusting, not tucking all the covers in under the bed, letting the children eat junk for dinner instead of cooking a proper meal, etc. etc. Ergo, while women may want help from their husbands, women have not been able to let go of the psychic responsibility for many of the domestic chores husbands do.
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A Newsweek magazine piece written in 2002 observed that families where both parents work full time, spend what time they have to spare with their children and with their children's activities such as sports events, clubs, etc. It was also noted that most such family live in messier houses than did their parents, because the thing that gets lost in the time crunch is housecleaning. Considered from that perspective, it doesn't seem too bad. Who on his or her deathbed is likely to say: "I wish I kept the house cleaner"? Frankly, I don't know where the dictum "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" originated, but I'm inclined not to discount it as either scriptural or pertinent to fruitful faith or fruitful parenting.
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Silly, yes, but in the past I have sometimes dealt with acknowledging Mother's Day during announcements by asking everyone to stand who currently HAS or EVER DID HAVE a mother. Then I acknowledge God's graciousness in providing a means of birth and therefore existence for everyone present. It always gets a general chuckle, and usually I get the last laugh, because there are invariably a few in the room who do not stand up and are evidently as yet unborn.
-- Jan Campbell
Worship Resources
By George Reed
OPENING
Hymns
God, Whose Love Is Reigning o'er Us
His Eye Is on the Sparrow
Songs
I Love You, Lord
Your Loving Kindness Is Better than Life
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Come, flock of God, enter the fold.
PEOPLE: WE ARE LOST AND CANNOT FIND OUR WAY.
Leader: Listen to the voice of the Shepherd and follow him.
PEOPLE: OUR EARS ARE FILLED WITH TOO MANY VOICES.
Leader: The Good Shepherd comes to lead you.
PEOPLE: THERE ARE MANY WHO WOULD LEAD US. WHICH ONE IS THE GOOD SHEPHERD?
Leader: See the One who bleeds and dies for you. He is your Good Shepherd.
PEOPLE: WE SEE THE LOVE HE HAS FOR US. WE SEE HIM DIE AND RISE AGAIN FOR US. WE WILL FOLLOW HIM.
COLLECT/OPENING PRAYER
O God who holds us in arms of love and bends down to feed us as a tender mother nurses her children: Grant us such an awareness of your never failing love for us that we may extend that love to those we encounter this week; through Jesus Christ our Risen Lord and Savior. Amen.
God, you are the one who loves us to the point of dying for us. You sent Jesus to be our Good Shepherd and to lay down his life for your flock. We pray that you will make us so aware of this incredible love of yours that we are bold to share that love with others. Amen.
RESPONSE MUSIC
Hymns
The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Songs
Behold, What Manner of Love
O How He Love You and Me!
Thy Loving Kindness
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION/PARDON
Leader: Let us confess our sins to God and before one another:
PEOPLE: O Shepherd of us all, we confess that we have been a troublesome flock. We have strayed from your voice and followed others who have led us astray. We have wandered off in search of things that would satisfy us only to discover that they have made us ill. We have pushed with shoulder and flank and driven others away from you. We have eaten the best and left only miserable scrub for others.
(Silent Confession)
We have heard your voice, O Loving Shepherd, and we have seen the error of our ways. We return to you and ask that you teach us once more your ways of love and care that we may truly act like the sheep of your hand. Amen.
Leader: Hear the Good News! Christ is the Good Shepherd and he lays down his life for you! He rises to new life and offers you new life in him. Receive the forgiveness of our Lord and follow him faithfully.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC
O God, you led your people through the wilderness to the promised land. You led them into exile and then back to Jerusalem. We praise you for your faithfulness that never lets us stray but that you come and offer to lead us back to the good place you have prepared for us.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we have been wanderers. We have not followed you where you have led us. We have gladly gone to green pastures and quiet waters but we have fled from offering the sacrificial love that you have offered for all the world. Forgive us and by the power of the Holy Spirit call us once again to follow you wherever you lead us.
We thank you for all the signs you have given us of your faithful love. We are surrounded by a creation that is not only beautiful but offers us everything we need for abundant life. We are especially aware this day of those you have given to nurture and care for us. We give you thanks for those who have given us birth. We thank you for those who have loved us and cared for us throughout our lives. We thank you for our mothers and those who have mothered us in so many ways. We thank you for those who have chosen not to give physical birth to a child but to find other means to share your love. We ask your blessings upon them. (Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you those who need signs and acts of love this day. We pray for those who find their minds, bodies or spirits broken. We pray for those who have been denied the good things you created for all your children. We pray especially for those mothers, who like Mary, have gone through the agony of losing a child. We pray for those who desire to give birth and are unable to do so. Direct all of us in the ways of mothering love that you have shown for us. Grant that we may, with Jesus, desire to gather your lost children under our wings and show them your love. (Other petitions may be offered.)
We offer our prayers in the Name of the Good Shepherd who taught us to pray together, saying: Our Father ...
Children's Sermon
By Wesley Runk
John 10: 1-11
Text: "When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers" (vs. 4-5).
Object: The voices of mothers whose children are involved in the children's sermon. (Prepare ahead of time statements that can be read by mothers with the idea that children will recognize her voice.)
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is a very special day, isn't it? (let them answer) Can you tell me what day it is? (let them answer) That's right, it is Mother's Day and I am sure that everyone here has told their mother how much he/she loves their mother. But just to make sure, let's all say it together, "I love you, Mother." (Have the children say it with one voice.) Very good!
Are all moms the same? (let them answer) Isn't it strange that everyone has the best mom? (let them answer) I wonder how this works. I have prepared a little experiment. I have asked your moms to read something for me and with your backs to your mom's voices I want to see if you can pick out their voice. (have the mother's read a sentence or so and see if the children can identify the voice Here is some suggested text: "[child's name], do you remember what you had for breakfast this morning?" "[child's name], will you be sure to help me set the table for dinner after church?" ["child's name], don't forget to comb (brush) your hair and brush your teeth!" As each child recognizes his/her mother's voic,e have them stand up and remain standing until all of the children have recognized a voice. If the mother isn't there, ask a grandparent or Sunday school teacher to fill in for the parent).
Isn't it amazing how out of all the voices in our church this morning you know this one voice? (let them answer) That is because you love her and trust her. If you heard a stranger say your name, you would not recognize the voice.
Jesus told his disciples that it is the same way with his followers and him. Jesus has a voice that can be trusted because he loves us and cares for us. Jesus even gave his life for us so that we may live in God's love forever. This is why we come to church and Sunday school. We want to learn about his teachings and follow in his path. When Jesus teaches us to honor our fathers and our mothers, we believe him. When Jesus teaches us to forgive people who have said bad things about us, we believe him. When Jesus teaches us to share with others, we believe him. The voice of Jesus and his teachings we can trust.
You recognize your mother's voice because it is filled with love. Sometimes she tells us things we don't want to hear but we know are true. We trust our mothers and we trust the voice of Jesus because he is the voice of God who loves us and protects us.
Today we thank God for our mothers and for their love. Mothers and fathers are a part of God's plan to teach us the ways that God would have us to be. I hope you are thankful for your mother and that you will tell her how much you love her and for the love that God gave her to share with you. Amen.
The Immediate Word, May 11, 2003 issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
