SERMON

WHO DO YOU OBEY? (IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE!)

MAY 14, 2000

Fourth Sunday of Easter

MOTHER'S DAY

Readings: Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

The Call to Worship: (Psalm 23).

The Scripture Reading:

Our first lesson this morning comes from 1 John, the third chapter beginning at verse sixteen and reading through the remainder of chapter three. (1 John 3:16-24 RSV)

Our second lesson this morning comes Acts, the fourth chapter, beginning at verse five and reading through verse twelve. (Acts 4:5-12 RSV) The setting for this scene is that the disciples have been walking to the temple. As they walked to the temple, they met a man who was begging. He was begging because he was lame, that is, he couldn't walk. And as he begged, he looked at Peter and Peter, the scriptures tell us, fastened his eyes on him. That's called an inner-occular lock. It is when you fasten your eyes on someone -- right in their eyes -- and they don't dare look away and you don't either.

Peter, in fact, said, "Look at us." And when the man looked at him, he said to him, "Silver and gold I don't have to give you." Now these are not his exact words. "But what I have, I am going to share with you." Isn't that what we just read from 1 John? " Sell whatever you have and you can meet someone's needs and share it with them." So Peter locked his eyes on him and said to him, "Look at us. We don't have silver and gold to give you, but what we have we're going to give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk."

Now that gift was received. It was taken. So Peter reached out his hand to this guy's hand and helped him stand on his feet. When Peter pulled him up, those feet that hadn't walked held the man up and he stood. That wasn't good enough for his excited experience, so he jumped -- he leaped up and down with joy -- and yelled about this new experience. As he yelled about the new experience, he attracted a crowd and this got Peter and James and John and the rest of them into trouble with the authorities. So we pick it up from there.

The gospel for the day comes from John, the tenth chapter, beginning at verse eleven and reading through the eighteenth. (John 10:11-18 RSV) If you can and would, would you stand with us as we hear the gospel?

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The Sermon:

This is a very special day. It is Mother's Day. It is a day when we have been blessed already with Beth's singing and with the singing of the congregation. I feel special on these days, and whenever I think about Mother's Day, there are some things that come to mind that I just cannot help.

Mothers are the most unique persons in the world. Mothers have the greatest investment in children in the world. And it doesn't matter how we, as fathers, want to claim any kind of rights to that, the truth is, they are denied. Because a mother has a relationship with a child that only is available to a mother. For it is out of the very inside of the mother that the child comes. No one else has that kind of relationship. So when we come honoring mothers on this day, we recognize first and foremost that mothers are very unique people. They are persons who have provided the wherewithal, including the risk of life, that there may be a continuation of life on earth.

So, I concede as a father, I never did that. Never shall. Nor can any other male do that either. Consequently, therefore, mothers are very, very special. As you think about mothers' relationships, think about it from that point of view first, but then think about it from all the other mother-figures that we have. We all have more than one mother figure. We have mothers, then we have grandmothers, and then we have great-grandmothers and some have step-mothers, step-grandmothers, and step-great-grandmothers. Mother figures in our lives are all around, but there is only one in all the world that is that mother, that is, the one who risked it all that you might live.

Today we come to honor these persons, these Moms, and as we do, let us give them some praise as we can. Now I know that not all mothers are excellent mothers, but they all do the same thing up to that point of birth. How they care for their unborn child varies from one to the other. One of the great pushes in our society here in Mississippi is to help us to learn and to teach and to implant some way in the minds of the young that it is critical to the care of the future generation as to how they care for the unborn child. This is aside from the whole issue of abortion and all of that, this is an issue of the health of the child and the health of the mother.

We have seen children who have been born because of un-good practices -- I guess that's a word , un-good -- that is, the using of drugs and other things during the time of the pregnancy. And as a result, we have fetal alcohol syndrome babies and we have crack babies and we have thalidamyde babies. We have all kinds of things that come as a result of neglect and bad practices. To everyone of those born life is important and to each one of those, some mission in the universe can be ascribed. Sometimes those appear to be good and sometimes they are not, but every unborn child and every child that is in the process of being born is going to have an impact on the society into which they come. And the mothers are the ones who are going to catch most of the brunt of the outcome.

As we think about mothers, I want you -- for a moment -- to think about your mother in that sense that I have just presented. No one else in the world, no one else in all of the world, could have been your mother. You have no choice about that. Now you can, if you want to, you can complain about what she was like, you can complain all you want to, you can fuss, you can reject, you can do hateful things, you can make your life miserable trying to make her miserable if you want.

But the point is, no one else in the whole world can be your mother. Genetically that is impossible. You are who you are because of your mother and your father. Now the way you are shaped and the way you develop and the things that you acquired in the way of learning and knowledge and all of that is also a great deal from your mother -- or the person who became your mother.

Oh, I know people who have never been married, I know of persons who have never had sex and they are mothers, because they have taken on that responsibility with a child. That is possible and they do the mothering things for the child. These are to be praised, as well. But genetically, that person who gave life to you is the only one who could do it. So now, when you fuss about what your momma does -- and I'm speaking especially to those who are young and sometimes know more than their mothers do -- you've got to remember that if it wasn't for her, you wouldn't be. So just be quiet and go on about your business. That's my advice. Just think about it.

Now let's look at these people that we honor today. Usually they are in a young age of life when they start off being mothers. Sometimes nowadays they may be in their forties, but they are still young to me. But usually they're in their twenties and thirties and they don't know everything in the world. None of us do. So some of the things that your mother may have done with you, you think are really bad news. And they might have been. But did you know that before some sculpture or some piece of metal can be formed into the most glorious looking piece of metalware in the world, it has to be hit a lot of times with a hammer?

Just think about it -- all those times when your mother or a mother figure may have done something to you that you thought was like a hammer blow -- that helped to shape you into the kind of person you are. Oftentimes, in human life, where the hammer falls depends on how we have turned. If we have been doing things that we get a lot of flack about, you could change that amount of discipline we get by doing things differently. Just a thought to think about!

What do we know about this person we call Mother? How do you see her? Do you see her as this person who lives out the essence of love? That is what we would dream of happening with our mothers. Every mother would be a dream come true, a human being who loves. Mother is the one who exemplifies more than anyone else those verses about love that we read from John and 1 John.

There are some things, though, that I think mothers want from us as children, and you that are mothers can check this out and let me know if I am close or far. Love is one of those. Mothers like to receive expressions of love. What are some of the first things that you do when a baby is born? Now you boys may not think this is true, but a lot of times we push our face close to theirs, blow bubbles in their tummies to get them to do funny things with their little hands. And what do those little hands do? Those little hands reach for that face that is close by. So from the very beginning of life, to feel the baby's fingers on your face and wrapped around your neck and cuddling are expressions of love. It goes both ways. Mothers love to receive expressions of love. If you haven't loved your mother's neck and she's available today, do it. It doesn't matter how old she is, because mothers love to receive expressions of love. That's not only from the children, it is also from the husbands. Just thought I'd throw that in to make you men stay alert.

But there are some other things about what mothers would like. They like to be respected. Respect comes in many different forms and one of the ways of being respectful to someone is to honor what they say. Whenever a mother gives you a command or tells you to do something, and you do it, you show respect. You honor them by doing what you are asked to do.

Sometimes, unfortunately, in my profession in the past, I've seen young people -- especially adolescents -- who did not have respect for their parents. And not always was this lack of respect due to something the parent had done, but it was due to the way that the child had been taught by mass media, movies, and other ways of viewing the mother and the father or the authority person. Our society can train a child in such a way that they don't respect anything and can put you in double binds to the point that you could never gain their respect if they stayed with their way of thinking. But to be respected is extremely important, it seems to me. So today, show respect.

Then, show consideration of that person's feelings and thoughts. What are those things that your mother values? The things that she has valued through her life are those things that she has taught you, because we teach that which we value. We teach them what we need them to consider as right, and as we listen and learn, we do those things that are right. Therefore, if we listen and learn from what they believe and what they feel and what they love and what they dislike, we show consideration to those things.

Oh, we've been telling you from time to time about our life with our daughter and granddaughter and it is very hard for a thirteen year old going on twenty-six to respect someone who has been living only sixty-something years. It is just kind of hard. Those old folks just don't know what's going on in the world. They've never been there before, you see. At least that's the way some teenagers think.

Give consideration to how this person came to believe what they believe, for after all, this one we call mother has laid her life on the line that you and I can be here. So give consideration. Give tokens of kindness and expressions of love. Practice what they have taught you. That's the way of honoring someone especially. And then, be faithful. Practice fidelity. Practice being faithful to them in every way that is possible. Yep, mothers are special. They are the most unique people in all the world. And to those of you who are mothers, we give you a special honor today.

I had asked my brother, who is a singer, to come and perform today. I told him that we have opera stars in this congregation. He didn't decline for that reason, though I think he was tempted, but he declined because his wife didn't want to be away from her children on Mother's Day.

In our household, we had five boys and one girl, and I've told you this before. But what I haven't told you before is that each one of these males had Biblical names. Now you may laugh at one of them, and that is mine. Not Eldridge. The other "E" in my name is for Erastus. Down where I grew up, people didn't know how to put an "E" in front of it, so they just called it 'Rastus. Now Rastus, Remus, Ras and Rufus -- you get the drift? Erastus was the treasurer of Corinth and a politically important person, apparently, with the Apostle Paul.

My next brother's name is Hiram. If any of you have been around Masonic lodges, you know about Solomon and you know about the trees of Lebanon and you know about Tyre and you know the king of Tyre was Hiram.

The next one is Joseph. You know about Joseph. Nowadays, he has a technicolor coat or something. But you know about Joseph. My brother Joseph is the one with the melanoma in his left eye. We've shared and prayed about that.

And then the next is David. David is the biggest one of us all.

And then John. John is the baby. John is the one who told me that it was tradition that the youngest inherit all of the father's goods. That's John.

We all have one sister, but her name is not Biblical. Her name is Eleanor Jane. I posed that earlier today and a couple of people named Jane assured me that Jane is not in the Bible and neither is Eleanor in the Bible.

My mother stayed seven years as an invalid, totally paralyzed on the left side, before she died. She couldn't speak very well, because you see, this stroke was so complete that even the vocal chords were paralyzed and you couldn't usually understand what she wanted to say. And sometimes when she wanted to laugh, she cried. She would try in her frustration to say something, but she couldn't. You couldn't understand her.

My brother Joseph, remembering what she was like when he was a boy, put together a poem about her hair. My mother had dark hair and right over here (left side), starting when she was young, even before she was twelve years old it was there, there was a white streak that went right back through her hair. As she got older, that white streak turned more like gold in color while the rest of it turned silver. So Joseph wrote these words about her hair and put it to music. He has recorded it.

The gold is like the sunshine in her smile.

The silver seems to sparkle like the dew.

She gave me the world as a child.

Mother, how much silver did I give to you?

She pulls me close with trembling hands.

Now her little boy has become a man.

The troubles I've caused her are shining in her hair.

I wonder how many I've put up there.

In her hair there's the silver and the gold.

With a faith like a mountain, she holds.

The gold tells the good times she's had,

And the silver reminds us of the bad.

Life sometimes becomes a strain.

The struggles of life are very plain.

I see it's reflections in her hair,

But I wonder how much gold have I put up there. Copyright Joseph E. Fleming

Think about it on this day called Mother's Day. Mothers, we honor you and we thank you. Amen.