What I Learned From Jesus' Mothers

(Powerpoint presentation and audience outline accompanies this message).

Slide 1 Happy Mothers Day to you from BUMC. If you are a mother or have been like a mother to someone please stand so we can recognize you. Today’s lesson for this worship service is What I Learned from Jesus’ mothers—yes that’s right Jesus had more than one mother you’ll see what I’m talking about in a little bit. First I want to tell you about how this holiday started.

Slide 2 Have you ever heard of the woman who hated Mother’s Day? There was such a woman. If you think the spirit of Mother’s Day has been spoiled by the commercialism of cards, flowers and once-a-year sincerity, you stand united with the woman credited with giving us the annual event. West Virginian Anna Jarvis was so horrified by the monster she helped create in 1914, she spent most of her later years campaigning to have the second Sunday in May removed from the calendar as the day to honour your mother. In the end, Jarvis lost the fight. The woman, who was never a mother herself, exhausted her financial resources and ruined her mental health in that fight. She died alone in 1948 in an asylum at the age of 84. Just before her death Jarvis told a local reporter: "I devoted my entire life to Mother’s Day and the racketeers and grafters have taken it over.""She simply wanted a day to honor and remember mothers, but in her mind it didn’t turn out that way," says William Pollard, an archivist at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., where Jarvis bequeathed her letters and other writings. In 1914, Jarvis spearheaded a campaign to help persuade U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to set aside May’s second Sunday as a national day for recognition. She orchestrated a letter-writing campaign to Wilson, lobbied influential politicians and clergymen and distributed brochures arguing about the importance of a national day for mothers. Jarvis’ cause came from admiration for her recently deceased mother, Anna Maria, and others like her who had been an inspiration. But by the early 1920s, she was sickened by the commercial circus she had helped create. She felt the day had nothing to do with celebrating the real achievements of women. Jarvis spent her latter days crashing floral company conventions to protest and urging card companies to give the money they made from Mother’s Day to the poor. At one Mother’s Day convention where flowers were being sold she was arrested for disturbing the peace. She even launched a lawsuit to stop a Mother’s Day festival from being held.

Slide 3 The quickest way for a mother to get the attention of her children is to sit down and look comfortable. Mothers can have a few minutes to themselves at the end of the day by doing the dishes. There was a CARTOON. . .that shows a three-year-old, freckle-faced boy in hallway. His pajamas are unsnapped, his diaper’s bagging, and he’s got a little teddy bear dangling in his hand. He’s standing in front of his mother and father’s bedroom door, which is shut. On the door is a little sign written by a weary mother: "Closed for Business. Motherhood Out of Order."What is a Grandmother? (Written by a third grader)A grandmother is a lady who has no children of her own. She likes other people’s little girls and boys. A grandfather is a man grandmother. He goes for walks with boys, and they talk about fishing and stuff like that.Grandmothers don’t have to do anything except be there. They’re old so they shouldn’t play hard or run. It is enough if they drive us to the market where the pretend horse is, and have a lot of dimes ready. Or if they take us for walk, they should slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars. They should never say, "Hurry up!"Usually grandmothers are fat, but not too fat to tie your shoes. They wear glasses and funny underwear. They can take their teeth and gums out.Grandmothers don’t have to be smart, only answer questions like, "Why isn’t God married?" and "How come dogs chase cats?"Grandmothers don’t talk baby talk like visitors do, because it is hard to understand. When they read to us they don’t skip or mind if it is the same story over again.Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don’t have television, because they are the only grown-ups who have time.

Slide 4 I don’t know about you but this list of names from Matthew, is boring to me. To God, this list of names is His family album. What He’s doing in the first chapter of Matthew is opening up His family album to us and proudly showing who’s in His family. Who He calls His beloved sons and daughters. Each person on the list is very precious to God,. just as each of us here are precious to God.But the strange thing about His family album is they include people that you wouldn’t expect to be in there. Here’s a story I ran across (it’s not about me): Through my many years of school, I have taken many history classes. One of the things that always interested me was in trying to figure out if any of those famous people were in my family line. I remember one day talking to my Mamma, my dad’s mother, about her parents and grandparents. I was writing a paper for school and I just knew my Mamma would have some stories of some very important people, and she did. She told me about two boys that lived on the farm next to her grandparents and there was a possibility (if you know what I mean) that we were kin. I recognized this name immediately. One of the boys name was Jesse James. Although this was a pretty “cool” story to tell my friends, did I really want people to know that I was kin to an outlaw? But I did meet one of my distant relatives in NY last summer as my sister and I traveled there to research my mother’s family tree. This woman was essentially a bag lady.