Sermon 2023.05.14
So it’s Mother’s Day! Thank you to all the Mothers and Mother figures. Mothering is not easy. It’s a tremendous and difficult job. It is a job, perhaps it is the most important job that there is, but it isn’t a job, because you don’t get paid being a mom. It’s the most underpaid and undervalued job that there is.
Fridays are normally my sermon writing day. This past Friday, however, was a little different. My daughter had a field trip with the Pioneer Junior High band. Where did they go? They went to Disneyland! Why did they go? They went because they auditioned for, and won the opportunity to go backstage with their instruments to a recording studio and play Disney songs from movies under a guest director. So that’s what they did! The thing is, they are not given any of the music in advance, so they have sight read everything. Most bands will struggle to play two or three songs during their two hour time slot. The Pioneer Symphonic band played six, this past Friday. My wife Sheri got to go as a chaperone. Only one other school band played more songs than them, and they were a high school all star band. So major props to Mr. Shant Kerouliean and the awesome Upland music program. So while our oldest and my wife were at Disneyland until midnight, who was in charge of the rest of our kids! This guy! Not only was I in charge, but yesterday was an early release, so I was in full time dad mode starting at high noon.
My son gave me a warning. He said, “Dad. All the junior high kids are going to go to the colonies so it’s going to be crazy.” And it was! Groups of teens were calling out to each other from both sides of Euclid and the median as the different groups made their way to wherever they would be socializing. Hearing them carrying on sort of felt like they 13 going on 23. Kind of scary! I found my kid waiting patiently close to the school office, not caught up in the fray.
It’s the little things in life we take for granted; like being able to sit in an office and write until five o’clock in the afternoon if you want or need to. For the next three hours at each hour I was running to different school for a different kid. That’s barely enough time to breathe let alone put together coherent sentences into something that might be called a sermon. When that is taken away you begin to realize just how much work it is to take care of children. It’s not just taking care of them, but it’s feeding them! Luckily we had all the ingredients for a nice hamburger dinner. But how do you cook the food, serve the food, and clean up? How do you do all that on a Friday when the kitchen and dining room are full of homework and end of the year school projects.
I was very fortunate that the kids were willing to help. It helped that I absconded all of their screen devices and wouldn’t give them back unless they helped. But the hamburgers were grilled, and the potatoes were eaten just in time to get dressed up and go back to school for a spring fundraiser. They did what is called a “color run,” where the kids run around their field and the bystanders spray them with color powder. Someone said it was cornstarch. The timing was perfect though because we had just cleaned the inside of my vehicle. Really nice. It was also a fundraiser so all of the cash that was in my wallet was gone in a matter of minutes, but it was for a good cause right?
So back in the car we go home and now it’s bath time, but not just bath time, but clean up the dishes from dinner and work on the laundry that is piled high after a week of school and after school activities. When bathtime and a load of laundry is over there’s a little bit of time for relaxation and fun! So we tried to play a board game. After some emotional breakdowns we thought it would be better to watch a movie. Trying to agree on the same movie was also an emotionally complicated negotiation, until finally after 9pm it seemed best that we all just went to bed. Not exactly the picture perfect Friday night we see on TV sitcoms. Not exactly the Friday night I usually enjoy relaxing with my wonderful wife and the mother of my children. So yes on this Mother’s day I am aware and grateful for the tremendous jobs that mothers do.
These days we hear heated political rhetoric about the sanctity of children and motherhood. But I’m not seeing a whole lot of support for those mothers.
Jesus seemed to know that he would be persecuted by the very empirical powers he was criticizing and that his disciples would be left without him. So he prepares them in this passage saying that, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” The issue is that the disciples might have felt orphaned. This is still the issue today. Many people feel orphaned. We see in the news that hundreds and thousands of orphans are traveling around the globe seeking a better life for themselves, trying to get into wealthy countries for a better quality of life. Many of these orphans are in such desperate situations because of the changing environment, and the so-called spread of globalization.
However the feeling of being an orphan is not just reserved to the desperate children who are at our border struggling for their survival. The feeling of being an orphan, of being lonely, isolated, and without support is a feeling that is widespread within the so called developed economies as well. We are plagued with the disease of despair. The young men who take up arms and commit acts of violence are people who are disconnected from communities and families of care. They don’t see that their victims are their very own family members, their sisters and brothers. Even those of us who are blessed with relative comfort, security, and happiness often struggle with a profound sense of loneliness and isolation. This is all by design. When we are all divided up, isolated, and suspicious of each other we are more easily manipulated and controlled. When we are spiritual orphans each one of us toils away like a hamster on a wheel thinking that if we work hard enough we alone will find our true happiness and purpose. When we focus only on competition and being the best, then we have simply become docile compliant slaves.
So what can we do about it? The answer is right before us in the scripture. Jesus says that if we love him, then we must keep his commandments. His commandments are to not worry so much about our individual success, but to focus on our communal life together. When we cooperate, coordinate, and organize ourselves then we find happiness, purpose, strength and security. We cannot expect this to happen accidentally. If we don’t take the lead as organizers of fellowship, then nobody else will do it for us. To have faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior does not mean that we give up on this world and let it collapse into chaos and disorder. No. To have faith in Jesus, to love Jesus, is to love each and every stranger as if they are Jesus. We are to protect, love and defend immigrants just as much as we are to protect and defend our own biological children. We are to be deeply concerned for the young men who feel excluded from the world and tempted to be pulled into hate. We are to see the Earth not as a passing illusion but as God’s eternal home, and our eternal home. We are to see the Earth as our mother who provides for us all that we need. We should love and respect her, as we do our human mothers who created us.
Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit in order to bring us together as a family, so that there are no orphans. The Holy Spirit brings us together in fellowship and mutual care for each other. Today is Mother’s Day. Thank you to all the moms. The role that mothers do is the role of true Christian discipleship. We could think of the Holy Spirit as a motherly figure. We could think of the Earth as a motherly figure too. Day after day we are showered with blessings from the Earth. The best most beautiful things are right before us. God has given us everything that we need. We have been given life, and the privilege to be alive. We are children of the heavenly father. We are siblings and children of the Earth. We will never be alone. We will never be orphaned. Amen.
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