6th Sunday of Easter
May 10, 2015
Mother’s Day
Acts 10:44-48; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17
On a recent episode of “NCIS: Los Angeles” one of the
main characters, Detective Deeks signs up for the Big Brother/Big Sister
mentoring program.[1] He’s very excited about all that he has in
common with the Little Brother assigned to him… until the end of the episode
when there’s a last minute change due to a scheduling conflict and a different
Little Brother is assigned to him, one with whom he has very little in
common. Detective Deeks’ supervisor
responds that it is similar to actual parenting, “You can have all the
expectations you want when you have children, but you can never predict who
you’re going to end up with.” The same
can be said for God’s children as well.
You can have all the expectations you want of God’s children, what we’ll
look like, how we’ll behave, what our interests will be, but there’s no telling
just what each child of God will be like.
This
difference between expectations and reality is part of the conundrum faced by
Peter and the early Church in our reading from Acts this morning. They expected the Church, their fellow
believers, to be exclusively Jewish, like them.
But this whole chapter of Acts 10 is about the early Church coming to
realize that God loves everyone and doesn’t
show partiality to one group over another.
Instead, God treats everyone on the same basis.[2] The chapter begins with a man named
Cornelius, who is a religious man who worships God and gives generously to the
poor, but is not a Jew. God tells
Cornelius to send for Peter and so he sends a couple of his servants to go get
Peter. While they’re on their way,
Peter is praying and has a vision of being told to kill and eat animals that
are ritually unclean in the Jewish tradition, such as wild birds and
reptiles. Peter says, “Certainly
not! I’ve never eaten anything unclean.”[3] And God says, “Do not
consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.”[4] This happens three times and
at the end of the vision is when Cornelius’ servants arrive and invite Peter to
Cornelius’ house. Peter goes, and when
he gets there, he tells Cornelius, “You know very well that a Jew is not
allowed by his religion to visit or associate with Gentiles. But God has shown
me that I must not consider any person ritually unclean or defiled. And so when
you sent for me, I came without any objection. I ask you, then, why did you
send for me?”[5] Cornelius explains that God
told him to and in response, Peter says, “I really am learning that God doesn’t
show partiality to one group of people over another. Rather,
in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to
him. This is the message of peace he
sent to the Israelites by proclaiming the good news through Jesus Christ: He is
Lord of all!”[6] And Peter explains the good news about Jesus and it’s while he was
speaking that the Holy Spirit shows up and falls on everyone present, as we
read this morning. What Peter learns
here is that Jesus didn’t come just to save the Jewish people, the
ethnic and religious group he was part of, he came to save everyone. The circle is wide of those
who belong to God’s family and the early Church had to change its ways to keep
up with what God was doing. Their
expectations was that Christianity was a sect of Judaism but they learned that
God had come to offer salvation to the whole world, people of every race and
tribe. God’s family is bigger than they
realized.
Then, we have that statement from 1 John about God’s
family: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. Everyone who loves the parent loves the
child of the parent.”[7]
I was actually told something similar to this a couple weeks ago by a
church member. She said “We love you,
Heather, and I think that’s why folks love your children so much.” Apparently, so I’ve heard, there are some
among us who aren’t kid-people, but I have no idea who you are because everyone
has embraced my children. The gist is that
you welcome my children, and their noises, because you welcome me, and for that
I am very appreciative and grateful. I
realize that I am not your first female pastor and I am not your youngest
pastor, but I am the first one with young children. So, considering that we’re all one family, I
do want to ask you uncles and aunts to please help watch out for my
children. If it’s not something you’d
have let your children do, then don’t let mine do it, either. I’ve noticed that Marylanders seem a little
less inclined to interfere with another person’s family. However, please, if you see one of my
children doing something they shouldn’t, or more likely, going somewhere they
shouldn’t, please, you have my permission to stop them. They are your children, too, in the sense
that we all belong to one church family.
We are all part of God’s family.
And that, on the small scale, is what the 1 John passage is talking
about. If we love God, then we love all
God’s children, too.
This is just another way of stating the commandment that Jesus
gives in our Gospel reading: “Love each
other just as I have loved you.”[8] And what does that mean? To love each other, even when people hurt us,
rather than love us back. To obey God,
even at the cost of our life. To produce
fruit that will last, which we can only do if we remain in Christ and keep his
commandment. Loving each other is going
to look different for each person. It
depends on the need. I am the oldest of
three sisters and my mom once explained that she loves us all equally, but not
all the same, because we’re not the same person. You’ve met my youngest sister, and you can
see how different she and I are. Our
middle sister is equally different from both of us. She’s a violinist and one way our mom shows
love to her is by going to her concerts.
But it would be ludicrous for her to go to a concert because she loves me. It’s
like loving a baby by taking care of her by changing her diaper, but you
wouldn’t change a diaper on a ten year old.
The needs are different and how we show love to one person isn’t going
to be how we show love to another person.
Beloved, our community is in need, as we well know. Over the next couple weeks you will hear more
about two ways that the United Methodist Church is addressing those needs. The mission project at Annual Conference this
year is a book drive. There is a need for books for the children in our
communities so that they have books to read this summer when they are out of
school. There is also a need for health
and hygiene items for our brothers and sisters directly affected by the
unrest. We will collect these items and
distribute them at a couple of the United Methodist Churches downtown. These are physical, tangible ways to show
love to our community and I hope you’ll participate in them. The children’s books I will take to Annual
Conference in a couple weeks, which is why there are only two Sundays to
collect them. If you’re interested in
taking the health and hygiene items with me to Sandtown-Winchester, please let
me know.
We love everyone in God’s family, because we love
God. However, we show love to different
people in different ways, that’s something my momma taught me, and in honor of
Mother’s Day and the wide range of mothers that are out there, I’d like to
close with a litany on the spectrum of motherhood, by a lady named Amy Young:[9]
Litany on the Spectrum of Motherhood:
To those who gave birth this year to their
first child—we celebrate with you.
To those who lost a child this year – we
mourn with you.
To those who are in the trenches with
little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.
To those who walk the hard path of
infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk
with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this
harder than it is.
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms,
and spiritual moms – we need you.
To those who have warm and close
relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.
To those who have disappointment, heart
ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you.
To those who lost their mothers this year –
we grieve with you.
To those who experienced abuse at the hands
of your own mother – we mourn with you that your childhood was not as it should
have been.
To those who lived through driving tests,
medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having
you in our midst.
To those who are single and long to be
married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life is not turning out
the way you long for it to be.
To those who step-parent – we walk with you
on these complex paths.
To those who envisioned lavishing love on
grandchildren – yet that dream is not yet or will not be, we grieve with you.
To those who will have emptier nests in the
upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.
To those who placed children in the
guardianship of others – we commend you for your selflessness and remember how
you hold that child in your heart.
And to those who are pregnant with new
life, both expected and surprising – we anticipate with you.
This Mother’s Day, we walk with you.
Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst.
We remember you and what you have taught us and we give thanks to God for you. Amen.
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