“Our Mother on Earth”

The Sermon Notes of Father S. Peter Donatelli

(May 10, 2009 – All Biblical quotes from the New King James Version)

JOKE:

A teacher gave her class of second graders a lesson on the magnet and what it does. The next day in a written test, she included this question: “My full name has six letters. The first one is M. I pick up things. What am I?” When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word Mother. David Finkelstein recounts, “The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she’d have children if she had it to do over again. “Yes,” she replied, “but not the same ones.”

REFLECTION:

I spent most of my six years at the Bangor Theological Seminary en route to my Masters in Divinity hearing comments about the male-dominated ethos of Christianity. After all God is the Father and the Son and this was problematic for some of the up and coming pastors of this school. Most people leaned heavily on the Holy Spirit as the feminine side of God. Biblical passages that personified Wisdom as the Divine were used to justify this. As it says in Proverbs 8: 12 “I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, And find out knowledge and discretion. 13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate. 14 Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding, I have strength. 15 By me kings reign, And rulers decree justice.” Justifiably we can make a lengthy argument that exhausts all the possibilities from Isaiah 49 to Matthew 23 that sees God as a mother nursing her babies. Even the letters of Paul suggest the apostle feeding milk to his followers. I only wish they could have just sat back and instead of making the issue a battle for women’s rights, we can all just see the beauty of motherhood and femininity as God’s way of completing His work on earth. The beauty of Christianity is our support of the glories of being a woman. This morning I offered the collect, “Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill Her with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where She is corrupt, purify Her; where She is in error, direct Her; where in any thing She is amiss, reform Her. Where She is right, strengthen Her; where She is in want, provide for Her; where She is divided, reunite Her; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen.” Amazingly it was Father Peter who feminized the PC motivated 1979 Book of Common Prayer version of this collect which actually refers to the Church as an “it.” I find that offensive. For those seeking a connectedness to a nurturing Mother simply do what I do; either pray the Rosary everyday or simply rejoice that on earth we participate in the inner nurturing works of our Mother the Church where we become Sacrament for the world and the outer nurturing workings of our Mother seeking to bring Christ to the world.

As early as the 3rd century AD, Cyprian of Carthage wrote: “You cannot have God as your Father unless you have the church for your Mother.” The Church is God’s work on earth. That makes those of us who have accepted God’s call to follow Him, co-creators, co-nurturers, and co-rescuers. It also involves, as Paul reminds us, the need to develop a number of virtues that are characteristic of the family of people who follow Christ: forgiveness, compassion, love, humility, kindness, meekness, patience, and peace. In short, it is Mother Church that nurtures Her community to work together to make a community of peace, love and forgiveness and to take up our responsibility for our community. As we saw, Jesus made the Church central in God’s saving economy and Paul’s letters explain how that is so. The Church embodies in a community the way that Jesus lived in the world, and by doing so it opens up access to God. Just as Jesus made God available to all (sinners and to the righteous), so does (or should) the Church. Just as Jesus forgave people on behalf of God, and so brought real, material salvation from sin, so does (or should) the Church. Paul tells us we should forgive as we have been forgiven by Christ. At the end of John’s Gospel, the risen Christ appears to His disciples and tells these future Bishops and priests that if they forgive the sins of any they are forgiven by God. In other words, we have continuous access to the authority by some (not to mention the obligation by others) to forgive sins on God’s behalf as Jesus did. This is why the Church is our Mother. Jesus won our salvation for us NOT by persuading an otherwise disinclined God that He really should forgive us, but by putting us in contact with the non-competitive God who is already loving and forgiving us, who already accepts us no matter what our moral state. The other side of the coin is that God is also to be found outside the Church, and that we as the Church often fail to embody God’s presence to one another and to the rest of the world. (I appreciate the reflection on the Faith and Theology Blog by Andrew Brower Latz)

Even this morning’s readings suggest the importance of our presence as God’s representatives on earth that can only be through the Church. In the Acts reading Paul is nurtured by the Church in order to fulfill what God created him to fulfill. Acts 9: 26 And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. 28 So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. 29 And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. 30 When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. 31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.

John reminds us in the second reading that our participation in action and obedience is not only a command, it defines us as Christians. 1 John 3: 18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. 20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. 24 Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Finally John again reminds us that if we cannot obey what God commands us to do, then God will get someone else to do it. In the last year of his life Mozart was approached by a outclassed stranger who offered him generous payment for the composition of a requiem, at the same time swearing him to secrecy. Seriously ill, Mozart believed the commission was an omen of his own death and began working feverishly to complete what he feared would be his funeral music. Five months later, on his deathbed, Mozart, 36, gave final instructions about the unfinished Requiem to his pupil, Franz Sussmayr, to whom Mozart’s wife entrusted the work. Sussmayr arranged the music in accordance with Mozart’s intentions, filling in gaps with sections of his own composition. The Requiem was represented to the stranger (who turned out to be the steward of the eccentric Count von Walsegg) as being entirely by Mozart. The deceived nobleman then deceived others by having it performed as his own composition (hence the secrecy). Later Mozart’s wife identified the work. Mozart, ironically, had been thrown into an unmarked pauper’s grave without benefit of sacred music, but his Requiem was played for Beethoven and Chopin at their funerals. John 15:  1″I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

I just want to end this Mother’s Day sermon to remind us that as great as mothers are in bearing fruit, so must we all be in bearing the fruit that God not only requires us to bear but created us to bear. Do NOT let anybody tell you differently. Though the media, and the pagan culture that surrounds us, and the popular powers that be win a few battles, the victory belongs to our God and we are purposed to evangelize His Word to all people mostly in what we do everyday in our Christian lives. I read this on Catholic Online (www.catholic.org); “Happy Mothers Day: Queen of the Holy Ordinary” By Jennifer Hartline; 5/9/2009. “I’m a mother and a homemaker, and it isn’t glamorous. It’s tedious, monotonous, thankless, messy, germy, and it can be really hard on your manicure. It’s also the greatest job in the whole world. Provided I stop looking to the world to validate and praise me for doing my job well, ’cause they never will. People with ulterior motives may pay political lip service to mothers and the sacrifices they make for their families, but it’s just self-serving schmooze. I don’t need it. I have the smile, the blessing of my Father in heaven, and I follow in some highly-favored footsteps. Before she was Queen of Heaven, she was the Queen of the Holy Ordinary. I am awestruck by what our great God did for us and how He did it. It is truly what sets Christianity apart from every other religion. God could have chosen to take human flesh and come among us as a grown man, fully capable of taking care of Himself. But He didn’t. He came to us utterly helpless and vulnerable. He came to us the same way we have all come to be – through a mother. By inhabiting the womb He proclaimed the honor and dignity of motherhood. By choosing to submit Himself to the care and authority of a mother, He put His indelible stamp of approval and merit on the vocation of motherhood. He declared it sacred and gave it the highest esteem and honor. In fact, He thought motherhood so important that He didn’t want to miss out on having one Himself. In my admiration and wonderment of the Holy Family I often forget that the normal rhythms of earthly life still existed for Mary and for Jesus. The daily tasks of motherhood remained. This God-child depended on her for His survival. He required her milk for food. He needed her to keep Him clothed, warm and bathed. He needed her constant care. She set about raising Him the way every mother does, doing the same ordinary, everyday things that must be done. There was a home to be kept, laundry to do, food to cook, dishes to wash, even diapers to change. She did all of it, and let there never be any doubt ever again that all these ordinary things are holy in God’s sight.” Happy Mother’s Day and may God bless all the women of the world who did not give into the pressure of or liberal society and instead chose to give life to their babies, everyone of God’s beloved children.

Amen.

~ by ordani on May 10, 2009.