OUR TRUE OHANA - May 10, 2009 (Mother's Day)
John 15:1-12
On this Mother's Day, we remember that someone once said, "The quickest way for a mother to get her children's attention is to sit down and look comfortable."
One of my favorite Mother's Day stories is about comedian George Burns and his mother. When Burns was seven years old, he sang with three other Jewish kids from his neighborhood in the "The PeeWee Quartet." A small Presbyterian church in the neighborhood asked the quartet to represent the church in an amateur talent contest at a picnic for all the churches in New York City.
The boys opened with "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," followed by "Mother Machree," and won first prize -- a purple velvet altar cloth for the church and an Ingersol watch for each of the kids.
"I was so excited I ran all the way home to tell my mother," Burns recalled.
"She was on the roof hanging out the wash. I rushed up to her and said, 'Mama, I don't want to be a Jew anymore.'"
His mother looked at him and calmly said: "Do you mind my asking why?"
"Well, Burns replied, "I"ve been a Jew for seven years and never got anything. I was a Presbyterian for 15 minutes today and already I got a watch." He held out his wrist and showed it to her.
His mother looked at it and said: "First help me hang up the wash, then you can be a Presbyterian."
Today we honor all our mothers, grandmothers, and our aunties and those women who have helped us whether or not they have had children and been mothers themselves. We honor them for all the years of doing the wash, washing the dishes, dusting the house, taking children and young people to school, to karate, to dance, to painting and art classes, to hula halau, and myriad other chores. We honor them for the times they bandaged, and cleaned up scrapes and bruises. We honor them for all the hours of help and encouragement with homework, until the homework got too complicated to help with. We honor them for cooking meals, and making brownies and cupcakes to take to school.
But along with all mothers do that we might traditionally call "women's work," today we remember that the first impulse to honor women and our mothers came from a much different source. The very first Mother's Day Proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 as a protest for war, and a cry for peace. Julia Ward Howe was a Methodist, and is best known for writing the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe, 1870:
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: 'We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.' From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says 'Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.' Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
The next recorded official day to honor our mothers was in May 1907, at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia. Anna Jarvic, a laywoman in the church, organized a special worship service to honor her mother who had died on May 9, 1905. In 1912 the Methodist Episcopal Church recognized the day and it became nationally known. It was several years later that the second Sunday in May was declared a national day to honor all Mothers.
It is important to remember that both Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis were not honoring mothers for their work in the home, but what they did in addition to their "homework" and their responsibilities for family. They were honoring their mothers for their work outside the home, in businesses, schools, hospitals, and in the community.
What they were thinking of were the women, those whose names we know and those who quietly contribute in their communities, who have made a difference in the world. Women such as:
Patsy Mink, from Hawaii, who spoke her truth passionately and was the first Asian American woman elected to the United States Congress. We still long for a woman like her to take her place.
Florence Nightingale, born in 1820, who through her work and vision introduced professional education and training for nurses by founding the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses. She was also the one most responsible for bringing cleanliness and the importance of aseptic conditions to the men she treated on the battlefield, thereby saving many lives.
Madame Curie, who died as a result of her work with radioactive materials; and another kind of mother, Mother Teresa, born in 1910 and thought to be one of the more unpromising nuns, who through her work caring for the poor and dying on five continents was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1979. It was Mother Teresa who said, "Peace starts with a smile." (More Holy Humor p. 147)
Although it is Mother's Day, I want to comment on the scripture lesson today, where Jesus builds on the great statement of God to Moses in the wilderness that we find in Exodus, chapter 3. Moses sees a bush that appears to be burning, yet is not burned up. After an opening conversation with the bush where he discovers it is God seeking him out, asking him to go back to Egypt to appear before the Pharoah and demand freedom for his people, Moses asks how he can identify this God who is making this demand, and the reply is "I Am who I Am."
In other words, this is a God who is not male. This is a God who is not female. This is a God of being -- of all being, of everyone, of all the creation. This is the One God who IS.
Jesus identifies himself with the One God by using the same language, I Am.
By telling the disciples "I am the true vine," Jesus is also telling us one of the characteristics of that One God who is "I Am who I Am."
Jesus says: "I am the true vine. . . . abide in me as I abide in you. . . . abide in my love . . . if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love . . . I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." (John 15:1-12, selected verses)
In the Gospel of John, Jesus also identifies himself by saying:
I am the bread of life (John 6:35)
I am the light of the world (John 8:12)
I am the door of the sheep (John 10:7)
I am the good shepherd (John 10:11)
as well as being living water for the Samaritan woman at the well (John chapter 3).
Today, as we honor our mothers, we also focus on our task, our job, as Christians, which is to abide in the true vine. It is a task for mothers and fathers, for all people. It is an inclusive command, just as Julia Ward Howe envisioned. It is a job that will bring peace, for when we abide in the true vine, the love of Christ Jesus, we will know that we all are the branches of the true vine.
In Jesus day grapevines were not grown on poles with wires strung between to keep the vines off the ground, as they are today. They were simply planted and left to grow on the ground. The branches would become intertwined and thickly entangled, so that it was difficult to tell where one left off and another started.
We are like those intertwined branches, all of us together, abiding in Christ's love. We all are watered together, we all grow together, and it makes a difference what one person, one group, one country does, for when one branch is watered, all the branches are watered. When the branches thirst for the living water of the true vine, all the branches thirst.
There is a story about a man and his wife who moved into a newly purchased home where they found lush grapevines growing on the east side of a screened-in porch (lanai). The first year they were there the vines produced no grapes, but their foliage did provide a good shade from the morning sun. The next year, they noticed that the vines were weighing so heavy that they appeared to be in danger of pulling the rain gutters off the eaves. They decided to see if they could prune the branches, and in the process get the vines to produce some fruit as well.
The husband asked a nurseryman at a local greenhouse how to go about it. He was shocked to learn how drastic the pruning needed to be. He followed the directions, and found that the remaining growth was only a fraction of what had been there before. It was spring when he did this so he also found the vines bleeding sap profusely. He wondered if he wasn't causing serious injury to the plants, but in rechecking the instructions, he found that he was following them exactly.
Even with such severe pruning, he found that by the end of summer there was nearly as much foliage as before. And the next year they had grapes. From this experience, they found that if one wants to produce grapes, one must prune and do so drastically.
Jesus tells us, "The vinedresser removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit." (John 15:2)
Jesus, the true vine, invites us to abide in him. Not come for a cup of coffee or tea. Not come to brunch. Not come to dinner. Not even come for a visit, or for a vacation. No, Jesus wants us to come and live with him, and in him. Jesus is inviting us to abide in him -- to grow in his love just as a branch grows on the vine. Jesus knows that without the vine, the branches will die; without the love of Christ Jesus our spirit will wither and shrink, and eventually die. Jesus invites us to live in his steadfast love, and to have every negative thought, every hurt, every bitterness, every anger, every day of laziness or lack of caring pruned right out of us, so that we can be the people who, like Julia Ward Howe, Anna Jarvis, Florence Nightingale, Madame Curie, Patsy Mink, Mother Teresa, and like our mothers and our mothers' mothers before them, fulfill what we were created to be.
On this Mother's Day, we honor our mothers for all their care and nurture in the home, and we honor them for all they have done in their work. We honor them for their intellect, and for their determination to make a difference in the world.
We know that because of them we have been nurtured in our homes with great love. We also understand that because we are all branches on the same vine, because of the promise of Jesus who says "I am the true vine," we abide together in his love, which is "Our True Ohana."
Amen
Pastor Fran
