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A Reconciling Congregation of the United Methodist Church
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Pastor Reeck

Mary on Mother's Day

A sermon by Pastor Darrell Reeck, Ph.D.
Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2004

Prayer for Enlightenment

Consider Mary as a Mother. What holy virtues and values does she demonstrate when her family is attacked or her motherhood questioned?

I.

First, consider an incident in the Mary-Joseph-Jesus hometown. Everyone knew everyone else. Nazareth was and still is a small place with tightly woven relationships.

A reading from St. Matthew 13:54-57:

He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?" And they took offense at him.

In our current idiom, "Oh, Jesus again. Well, don't pay attention to him. He's one of the Mary-Joseph children. They're from across the tracks." Talk about something to rankle a mother!

Has your family ever been ridiculed, perhaps because of their accent, color, or poverty? When you were in high school, were you excluded from a clique for such a reason? That's when a mother can and must get very protective.

I'm sure Mary, as a mother, stuck up for Jesus. She embodied Motherly Pride. Not pride in herself but pride in her son as a person of worth, regardless of his low family roots.

Appropriate motherly pride provides kids with the courage to continue when they would otherwise give in to pressures.

Mary's pride and loyalty continued right to the end. She stood at the foot of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

Thank you, St. Mary, for giving us a model of motherly pride. Our own mothers must be thinking of you when they defend us, their children from gossip, rumor, unfair slander.

II.

Now consider another hometown episode.

A reading from Matthew 12:46-50:

While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, 'Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.' But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' And pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'

Jesus asserted his independence from his parents. He prefers his followers to his biological family.

How would this feel to Mary? It was shocking. Talk about a bump in the road, a challenge to the emotional foundations of any mother! This would have been like an earthquake. Oddly, Matthew just reports it like a minor everyday occurrence.

I have a friend in Oregon. She's an older person. She recently traveled to Chicago to see her much older mother. The father, now deceased, was a power in a political party of the area. The daughter had switched to the other party decades ago.

In the living room, mother and daughter are sitting on the couch watching TV. The President of the United States comes on the screen. Mother turns to daughter and says, "Isn't he a wonderful man?" Daughter, the party-switcher, says, "Oh, I just can't stand him." Mother turns back to daughter and says, "Marguerite, when will you get over this childish rebellion streak!?"

Mary shows more patience when Jesus spurns his family and his mother. Probably she shed tears. Undoubtedly she leaned on her other children, who were with her, for support. But patiently she waits for him to come back to the family.

Patience is the second virtue that Mary embodies.

Time brings about a happy ending. Mary eventually saw the fulfillment of the predictions made at his birth when the angels sang. Jesus does return to the family circle as the loyal son. Her patience was rewarded.

Patience with a self directed child, even a wayward child, is a virtue of motherhood. Oh, the aches, the pains, the sighs in the night that our mothers must experience as we blaze our own trails! Thank you, Mary, for demonstrating the virtue of Patience. Thank you, mothers, for following the example.

III.

A reading from Matthew 2:13-15:

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.' Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.

Mary embodies protective love! We can hear her saying, "No Roman Governor is going to get my child! Close up the house! Lock the doors! Close the drapes and turn down the furnace and the water heater! Let's head out now!"

Perhaps the flight to refuge doesn't happen often in our lives, but it happens in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Africa and East Asia. Many refugees now living in America, maybe in this community, had exactly this experience of flight for safety.

Love that plucks the children out of danger is typical of mothers and is of God.

Maternal LOVE crowns the virtues. Thank you, Mary, for giving us such a great example of virtuous, maternal love. Your strength must be God-given.

By learning from Mary, we learn much about God-God's maternal pride in his children, God's eternal patience, God's maternal love.

And when our mothers follow the pattern of Mary, they teach us life's most important lessons about God, who accepts us when we rebel, defends us when attacked, and patiently waits for us to come home.

Think, in your moments of quiet reflection, of the mother, perhaps the mothers, and the women that have enriched your life. This very week I've heard people speak of a Higher Power that saved them from ruin. How do they know about that Higher Power? Probably from their mothers.

For our mothers and their God-given virtues we're thankful today.

 

Copyright by Darrell Reeck, 2004. All rights reserved.
Feedback invited at dreeck@msn.com

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