We have been going through a series called The Story. It is God’s story as told through the people, places, and events in the Bible. Today, because it is Mother’s Day and we are short on time, I decided rather than to focus on some lengthy passages in the Old Testament, I just simply want to look at a passage in the New Testament out of the book of Matthew 12:46. If you would like to follow along, you can open your Bibles there. Before we start, I wanted to ask a quick question. How many of you have ever heard of the book or read the book to your children called “Are you my mother?”? It is a very popular book by P.D. Eastman. The book’s plot is quite simple. It is the idea that you have this little hatchling whose mother decides that before the baby is hatched she is going to go out and seek some food for the baby. While she is gone, the little baby bird hatches and falls to the ground. That little baby bird all of a sudden finds himself very confused because he doesn’t know who his mother is, and he doesn’t know where to find her. So he begins this journey to look for his mother. On the way, he runs into a kitten and a hen and a dog and a cow. He asks the different characters “Are you my mother?” and they all reply no we are not your mother. He continues on the journey and he comes across an old abandoned car and an airplane and a boat, and he asks them “Are you my mother?” They all say no. Out of frustration, he finds this bulldozer and he climbs on the bulldozer and asks “Are you my mother?” It says “Snort”. He says you aren’t my mother. You are a snort. About that time, the bird gets a little nervous, and he begins to get worried about where he is going to end up. What happens is the bulldozer takes the little bird and gently plops him back in the nest just in time as his mother is returning to the nest. It is a great story, but I don’t know really what it has to do with today’s sermon other than that is the story that came to mind when I began to think about today’s sermon. I realized it is a story about a bird that is quite confused about who his mother is. When I thought about the passage out of Matthew, I realized it is a story where Jesus seems a little bit confused about who his mother is. It is a confusion that eventually opens the door to a better understanding of motherhood and really all our family ties.
A little bit of background before we jump into this. Jesus is probably later on in his ministry and he is out there teaching about the kingdom of God as he does so well. He is talking about this wonderful kingdom out there that is in some sense a future promise, but it is also a present reality. It is something that can begin to be experienced right now. This is a very good message for the people. It is a message of liberation. It is especially helpful for the people who are feeling the oppression of the Roman government or feeling the oppression from the religious elite who were trying to control them with the various attitudes and requirements. At this particular point in the story, Jesus is out there doing what he does well. He is out there teaching and preaching. Apparently what happens is a group of his family show up at the place where he is teaching. It could have been a house of some sort. They show up and begin to talk to him. It says “While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brother stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak with you.’” We don’t know exactly why the mother and the brothers were out there seeking him out, but we suspect that maybe at this time in the ministry they were getting a little bit nervous about him because he is out there preaching words that are getting people upset and angry. Some suspect this might be some sort of an intervention of sorts. Maybe they are trying to protect Jesus. Jesus doesn’t respond in the way you would expect when someone says your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to speak with you. This is Jesus’ reply. He says “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” This is a very odd response and somewhat sarcastic. It is odd in the sense that it is unlike the little bird who has reason to be confused about his mother. Jesus really had no reason to be confused about his mother. He knew who his mother was. He knew who his brothers were. It was a bit of an odd answer. Really it was somewhat sarcastic too because, I don’t know about you, but if I was at my friend’s Mark’s house that I used to play with when I grew up and somebody said your mom is outside wanting to see you, and I said well who is my mother, that would not have gone too well. It didn’t go too well with those people at the time. The Jewish people thought that family was very, very important. They knew family was important. They thought that the Fifth Commandment that says thou shall honor your father and mother was probably one of the most important commandments.
If we had time and looked through the gospels we would see that sometimes Jesus comes across a little bit anti-family. He comes across like he is really not about family. In fact, we don’t have time to put it on the screen, but there are a couple verses that I looked into for today. Luke 9:59 talks about when Jesus was out there recruiting followers. He told some guy to follow him and the man replied “‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him ‘Let the dead bury the dead, but you go proclaim the kingdom of God.’” There was another section that says “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.’” Those are strong words. It makes it look like Jesus is kind of anti-family. Really what he is trying to do is demonstrate the priority of the relationship with God. When it comes to God, God trumps the family relationship. In this particular situation, what we see is Jesus is not just dismissing his family. What he is trying to do is give an object lesson about the kingdom of God. He is saying things are changing. Our idea of what is family is beginning to move beyond the blood and marriage-type relationships. Move into the spiritual realm. That is why he points to his disciples and says “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” At this time, you might be thinking what is the will of God. That is a lot to try to unpack in a short amount of time. In a nutshell, it is somebody who is fully devoted to God. Somebody who wants to follow all the commandments of God. Who hears the word of God and follows wholeheartedly. We know that Jesus came to reveal God. He is God incarnate so Jesus is the center of that will. Jesus is at the very center of the will. So someone who desires to know the will of God will become a follower of Jesus Christ. A disciple of Jesus Christ. In doing so, become part of a very large family; the family of God. A family that is not bound by blood or marital status but just because they are bound by the common love of Jesus Christ. In the church collectively, as we call it today, we are all really technically brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one family. I know that sometimes people in the church have a hard time getting this concept down. Some churches seem to do it better than others. My wife used to attend a Pentecostal church. I used to like to go to that church because you go there and somebody says “How is it going brother Chuck?” or “How you doing sister Debbie?” or “How you doing brother Rod?” There is something about that. Even though sometimes it might not be sincere or you may think it might not be sincere. It connects you to the church. It makes you feel like you are part of this larger thing out there. The family of God that moves beyond blood relatives and into that common heritage that you have through Jesus Christ. Jesus was trying to get this across. He was not trying to minimize biological family relationships. He was just trying to expand the understanding of really what family is.
One of the places he does it the best, surprisingly, is actually on the cross during the crucifixion. Last month we celebrated Good Friday and Easter Sunday. You may or may not know that on Good Friday it represents the day that Jesus spent time on the cross and was crucified on the cross. You may know that he actually spoke some words on the cross. He didn’t speak a lot of words, but the ones he spoke were very important. At one point, the first words he simply said “I am thirsty.” At another point he asked God to forgive the Romans who had put him on the cross. At another point, he looked up to God and asked that God would not forsake him and forget about him down there. At another point he reached out to the thief that was next to him and he said “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Then we know the words that he said at the very end. He said “It is finished.” Then he committed his spirit up to God. But we really know that there are some other tender words in there. There are words that he spoke to his mother and his favorite disciple John. The scene is very heart wrenching. Here is Jesus on the cross, suffering this phenomenal pain and bleeding profusely and on the verge of death. He sees his mother and the disciple John there. It says “When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother ‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, the disciple took her into his home.” It is a really interesting thing here because, to me, it demonstrates the care that he had for his mother. He has reason to care for his mother. At this stage in her life, it is likely that her husband Joseph is deceased. It is likely that she is probably in her late 40s, early 50s. She doesn’t have a lot of opportunity to make any tangible income, so she would be dependent on the family to take care of her. In the Jewish household, that responsibility would often fall on the oldest son, which in this case would be Jesus. Jesus is demonstrating that he understands the Fifth Commandment. He understands the need to care for his mother. An interesting thing too is happening here. You notice that he doesn’t give his mother over to his biological brothers. Why didn’t he have them take care of her? We really don’t have a definite answer. Some suspect that at that particular point in the ministry at the crucifixion, maybe Jesus’ brothers were not actually devoted followers of him. So he hands his mother over to his spiritual brother John. In this passage, he is demonstrating his care for his biological mother but also saying the family of the kingdom of God extends well beyond that.
Some of you may be thinking that is all well and good Chuck, but what does this have to do with Mother’s Day. The answer is not a whole lot in one regard but a whole lot in another regard. Contrary to what some may think, Mother’s Day is not a biblical holiday. It is not in the Bible. It is a holiday that has been created by man to show honor to all the mom’s out there who put up with their kids for their entire life. It is a way to pay honor and tribute to the mothers. To pamper them one day of the year. That is a good thing. When I was a little kid I used to get upset because I remember saying to my mom at one time there is Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but why is there no Children’s Day. Her reply was every day is children’s day. I didn’t get that when I was a kid, but I get it now. I understand it because every day is in some sense children’s day because they get all the attention. Obviously, the mothers deserve a day of their own to be pampered. Amen. It is okay for the church to acknowledge that. But I also know that even though Mother’s Day is so good and so important and so wonderful for so many moms, for other moms it is a day of heartbreak. It is a day of deep pain with deep wounds associated with it. Mother’s Day is great if your mother is alive and you have had a great relationship with her. Some people here today I suspect that their mothers are no longer alive. Or maybe the relationships they had were a bit strained. Last week I made it a point to talk to several mothers in our congregation and ask them what their relationship with their mother was like. I was surprised at how many, like 1 out of 4, said they had a good relationship with their mother. That was sad. For those people, Mother’s Day is not necessarily a day of joy. It is a day of heartbreak and bitterness and in some sense it could be anger. Then there are other women out there whose longest desire was to be a mother but for whatever reason it just didn’t work out. They were unable to have children of their own. What they are experiencing is a different sort of grief. They are feeling a grief over something that will never be. Mother’s Day can be really sad for a woman like that. Then you have maybe some of the older moms out here who have maybe lost contact with their children or their children disowned them or they are incarcerated or whatever it is. They don’t have that contact with their children. Then there are the single moms out there. The ones that are struggling and balancing trying to be a single mom and a dad at the same time and ready to pull their hairs out. Of course you have all sorts of other situations that speak of maybe a mom who has just become pregnant and is anticipating their pregnancy with a little bit of fear even that they might not be able to handle being a mother and raising a child in this crazy world.
I say all this stuff not to take anything away from the mothers out here that really do celebrate this day, but just as a man to acknowledge that some women have a deep whole and a deep pain in their heart that sometimes gets ignored all throughout the year and especially on Mother’s Day. That is why I really don’t like doing Mother’s Day sermons. In fact, I didn’t like going to churches that were doing Mother’s Day sermons especially when my first wife passed away in 2001. I remember I didn’t take my kids to church on Mother’s Day. I took them to a park because I didn’t want them to experience that fresh grief. That is just the way it is. But I have come to realize, and especially thinking about this passage, I think this passage, if we process it right in the context of the kingdom of God as something new that was coming in, new opportunities and new possibilities there were coming in, we begin to see that there is hope. There really is hope again here. Hope in the sense that in God’s kingdom everyone is part of the family. The people in the Dominican Republic say La Familia. We are a part of The Family. Today, it is a reminder to everyone out here that are Christians that we are all part of the family of God.
Being that it is Mother’s Day, I want to target the remaining part of my message to the women here. I will save my preaching to the men next month for Father’s Day. Today, I just want to address the women that are here today. Especially the women who may have had a phenomenal relationship with their mother. Especially the women who know how to nurture people. I would put the challenge out there that you have to learn to take your nurturing abilities outside your biological family and extend it out into the spiritual kingdom of God. In a nutshell, what I am saying is some of you need to learn to be mothers to the motherless. You need to be able to go out there and realize that in this church and in this entire community there are a lot of women with a deep, deep, deep whole in their heart. Because they lost a mother through death, maybe possibly at a young age. Or maybe they never had any sort of connection with their mom. They have this deep whole that only God can fill, and he is going to fill it through other women that come along and are able to minister to that woman. Then there are those out there that just need to come alongside some of those teenage girls out there. The ones that are struggling with this whole idea of trying to navigate some sort of adolescence. They just need somebody to listen to them, to hear them, and to allow them to just help process this whole thing. Then you have the women who wanted to be mothers but for whatever reason it wasn’t going to happen. To those I would say you need to challenge yourself to begin to look around the church and look in the community and begin to see there are all sorts of children out there that are looking for women who will model a good mother-daughter relationship. Then you have the elderly women out there who actually are looking for a daughter. Maybe they have been away from their kids or the kids disown them or the kids might be deceased. They need daughters to come along and spend time with them and to listen to them and to visit with them so that their golden years will not be so lonely. That is a challenge to all the women out there.
In closing, Mother’s Day is a day of celebration, but it is also a day, for many, of tears. It is a day that you would honor your mother, but it is also a day that for some of you it is okay to experience regret for maybe what will never be. But through Jesus Christ, we always know it is a day of hope. It is a day of hope. We know, as we truly understand what it means to be part of La Familia, we know that what we are missing in our biological family can be given to us through our spiritual family, those women who are in Christ. What I would like to do at this time is close the sermon but open the front steps here for prayer. I would like for some of you women to consider coming forward for prayer. This is what we refer to on First Wednesday as ministry time. There is nothing that magical about it. It is just allowing the people of the church to minister to each other, to pray for each other, to encourage each other, and to come alongside each other. I would encourage the women that are really experiencing some sort of a pain to consider coming forward and allow the other women of the church to minister to you. If for some reason you are not sure if you are someone that should go forward, I would just say take it through the filter of Mother’s Day. Do I feel extremely joyful today or do I feel extremely sad? If you are a woman who feels extremely sad, I would invite you to come forward and kneel at the steps and sit in the pews and allow another woman to minister to you. I say women because as much as I love praying over people, I know that, myself as a man, I cannot understand the depths of a pain that a women goes through. A woman that has lost a child or has no connection with the family, whatever it is, I cannot understand it. But I know that some of you spiritual women out there can and so I would challenge you, as the women come forward for prayer, that you would get out of your seat and come forward and pray for these women or get out of your seat and go back and find the women who were too nervous about coming forward. You know who those women are. I don’t have to tell you. By doing that what you begin to do is you demonstrate that you understand this idea of La Familia. You understand that we are all the family of God. We are all untied together by the common love of God in Jesus Christ. More than that, you understand that, when you come alongside and you pray for somebody, you encourage somebody, you put your arm around them, or whatever it is, that is not you. That is the spirit of the living God that is working through you to comfort, to encourage, and begin the healing of these women who so desperately need it.
