Sermon for May 10, 2015
Sixth Sunday in Easter
Rev. Amy Welin:
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was a teenager, I had several friends who were from large families. With 7 or 8 or 10 children, there was always something going on. Their homes were wonderful, happy, exciting places for me, and I loved to be there. There is something to be said for parenting with the zone defense in such a large family. I remember one mother in particular, who tended to be a bit dramatic as she managed her rambunctious brood. Breaking up the umpteenth squabble on a rainy afternoon, she scolded her little darlings. What do I have to do, bleed for you? I’m your mother. I love you. Can’t you just act like you love each other? (Thank you Mrs. C).
Mrs C was an echo of Jesus, who told his friends Love one another as I have loved you.
Doesn’t that sound like the sort of advice a good mother would give her children?
Jesus was comfortable in a motherly mode with his large group of disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew, he likens himself to a mother hen, who would shelter her chicks under her wings. In medieval spiritual reflections, Jesus was sometimes called motherly, because he embodies the love and tenderness of God. Bernard of Clairvaux actually spent significant time writing essays to monks about Jesus as their Mother. Julian of Norwich said that Our Savior is our true Mother, in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come. And although I bring this up because it is Mother’s Day, this is not some eccentric theology. This is a dimension of traditional Christian spirituality in the middle ages, articulated by mainstream Christian religious thinkers. Jesus is our mother because he tells us what to do, nurtures us with affection, and feeds us with his own body and blood.
When Jesus admonishes his disciples to love each other, he is doing so in the looming shadow of his death. It is the night of the Passover. Jesus knows that he is going to die. After washing the feet of his friends, and after watching Judas leave the dinner to betray him, Jesus begins to tell his followers about the meaning of their life together. He knows that the cross is to come, and his parting words begin with everything they need to know – and they are all about love.
Love one another. He is not just asking them to behave nicely after he is gone. He is commanding them to see each other through the eyes of Christ. And just in case they don’t hear him the first time, like my mother, Jesus repeats his message three times. Love one another.
To practice loving is no easy task. To practice loving is not the same as falling in love. Real love is more difficult than random acts of kindness to strangers. Although romance and kindness are part of love, real love surpasses romantic love and it far exceeds just being kind. To practice love is to make the conscious decision to cherish another person, to see their beauty and value as Christ sees it, to encourage them to grow into their full selves, to live up to their potential. It is a way to live life.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the only one who ever really knows what is going on. In this gospel, we are reminded constantly of the divine nature of Jesus. When Jesus acts in this gospel, he is doing the work of God. And when he speaks, he is revealing deep truths about the life God wants us to live. When Jesus the Son of Man, the Son of God, is glorified, it is on a cross. By his cross and his rising, Jesus shows us the glorious love of God.
Love one another. To practice love is probably the most demanding spiritual discipline. Jesus knows this. He is not teaching in a vacuum. He is human, too, and he lives with real human relationships. Jesus’s best friends are not very insightful. One will betray him, and another will deny knowing him. The rest are simply dense and quarrelsome. His religious community keeps asking him for signs to prove he is the Messiah, and when he performs them they accuse him of sorcery. His enemies are not only malicious, they are also murderous. Still, Jesus teaches love and he practices it.
This motherly love of Jesus is not exactly the Donna Reed type of idealized mother love. Jesus may be the good shepherd, but sometimes he practices a tough love. Maybe this is because the sheep seem to be so obtuse! I am thinking here about the manner in which he cleared the money changers out the Temple, shouting and overturning their tables. Or the way in which he argued with supposedly religious people who refused to recognize him. But throughout this entire gospel, Jesus does not stop loving either God or the people of God. He offers grace to a Samaritan woman at the well. He offers forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery. He heals a blind man everyone assumes is a sinner. He spends time with people only their mothers could love. Jesus acts a lot more like Marge Simpson or Gloria Delgado-Pritchett than Donna Reed, saying what he really thinks, caring for the weak, embracing the imperfect and welcoming the stranger. By his action, Jesus teaches us how to love in a Godlike manner.
As we celebrate these fifty days of Easter, we certainly celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we also celebrate the cross – the way God loved us so dearly that he destroyed our death, by entering it. In this gospel, Jesus reveals that the only way to overcome the power of evil and death is through love.
Love one another. Jesus is telling his disciples that the way to rise with him to new life is to practice loving. For that little community, survival depends on their ability to see one another through the eyes of Christ. Their love will allow them to continue to experience life with Christ, even after he is gone from their midst. Their love will sustain them. Their love will identify them as the people of Jesus Christ, and will empower them to transform the world.
Love one another. The motherly love of Christ still has the power to transform our world. I have witnessed the people of St John’s ministering to the community and to each other. You are able to do that because you love one another, and you share that with the world. And make no mistake, it is the love of Christ that lives in you that can lead you to do great things.
Love one another. Listen to Jesus, your mother.
Reference:
Caroline Walker Bynum. Jesus As Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.