A Mother's Love

“A Mother’s Love"

5/11/2008

Rev. John Sattler

Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Indianapolis, Indiana 5/14/2008

Isaiah 66

13 As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;

VIDEO – Mom’s 101

http://sermoncentral.sermonspice.com/listings/88/Mother’s%20Day/

It’s humorous sometimes how children perceive their parents, especially mom…

A teacher gave her class of second graders a lesson on the Magnet and what it does. The next day in a written test, she included this question: My name has six letters. The first one is M. I pick up things. What am I? When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word Mother.

A young father was trying to explain the concept of marriage to his 4-year-old daughter. He got out their wedding album, thinking visual images would help, and explained the entire wedding service to her. When he was finished, he asked if she had any questions. She pointed to a picture of the wedding party and asked, “Daddy, is that when mommy came to work for us?

Kids can get kind of confused about the role that mom plays in their lives, BUT no one, not even her kids, misunderstands the love that a child receives from Mom… and so today, we’re here to worship God, but we do so on a [weekend] day set aside to honor our mothers…

Now, every Mother’s Day I struggle with how to honor mothers without offending anybody… cause there’s all kinds of people here in all kinds of different situations… and so I struggle with saying stuff about mom that makes it sound like dad doesn’t play as crucial a role in the life of their children… or upsetting those women who have chosen not to have children… or tried an can’t… or mom’s who think they’ve failed as a mom, or those of us who can’t really say that we’re thankful for our moms… or those of you who have bcome mom’s through adoption or by marrying into motherhood… or

maybe you’re grieving the recent death of your mother…

You take all that and put it together with the fact that we gather like this to worship GOD, not mom, and it gets kind of sticky.

It’s a similar kind of concern I have about Thanksgiving Day. It seems kind of odd that we should have a single day out of the year that our government has set aside to express our thanks to a God that our government can’t even acknowledge or talk about. …

because thanksgiving is what we do EVERY time we gather for worship… we’re here to be reminded again of what we’re so thankful for… So why do we have just ONE day for giving thanks? ...when it should be something we do all year long?

Same with Mothers’ Day. Shouldn’t we be expressing our thanks to Mom everyday?? Isn’t it odd that we do this one-day-thing?

And for the dads here this morning… please know that we’re not trying to ignore you. You’ve got a day coming up too, but for some reason without all the hype that Mothers’ Day gets.

And just in case there are some dads here haven’t bought anything for Mothers’ Day yet (& I know she’s not your mom… but there still needs to be some recognition of the role that she’s played in your children’s lives…) so… let me give you some tips (in case you were planning to stop by WalMart on your way home)… ---------or at least you are NOW!

1. Don’t buy anything that plugs in. Anything that requires electricity is seen as utilitarian… and it’s not for HER.

2. Don’t buy clothing that involves sizes. The chances are one in 7,000 that you will get her size right, and your wife will be offended the other 6999 times. "Do I look like a size 16?" she’ll say. Too small a size doesn’t cut it either: "I haven’t worn a size 8 in 20 years!"

3. Avoid all things useful. The new silver polish advertised to save hundreds of hours is not going to win you any brownie points.

4. Don’t buy anything that involves weight loss or self-improvement. She’ll perceive a six-month membership to a diet center as a suggestion that’s she’s overweight. You don’t like her the way she is.

5. Don’t buy jewelry. The jewelry your wife wants, you can’t afford. And the jewelry you can afford, she doesn’t want.

6. Finally, Don’t spend too much. Cause she’ll ask "How do you think we’re going to afford that?". But don’t spend too little. She won’t say anything, but she’ll think, "Is that all I’m worth?"

So good luck guys… that doesn’t leave you much…

Some of us here are in a role that puts us in a kind of weird place… and that’s when we’re taking care of our own mother (some of us both parents). It’s called the “Sandwich Generation.” Stuck in-between. We’ve got our own children, who—even when they’re out of the house still take a lot of time. AND we have MOM around too… and so there’s this strange reversal of roles… where now the child takes care of the mom.