"LOVE FROM OUR MOTHER TO ONE ANOTHER"

The bottom line, of course, is that Mother's Day is a secular holiday built on the foundation of sentimentality. Much of it is rooted in authentic feelings for the woman or women in our lives who may have loved us through childhood and beyond. Some people believe that much of our sentimentality on this day is society's attempt to ease its guilt over how badly women have been treated historically. I think it's also fair to recognize that a sizeable portion of the attention given to this day is courtesy of the floral, greeting card and long-distance telephone industries. I mean if you didn't reach out and touch your Mother with flowers and a card today...well, that's just wrong! Right?

Well, on this sentimental day, the assigned lectionary reading from the Gospel of John is a scripture passage that has also often been overly sentimentalized: "I give you a new commandment: Love one another. This is how all will know that you're my disciples: that you truly love one another."

Love is a theme that has long been romanticized as well as trivialized. It's been worn thin over the years by preachers, writers, movie directors and musicians.

Often, the "love" we so readily speak of is really a self-absorbed emotion. It's about how someone else makes us feel. A lot of the time, we're like the young man who told his mother he was in love. "Oh, Mom," he said, "He thinks I'm smart, handsome and strong." "And what do you like about him?" his mother asked. Instantly the son replied, "He thinks I'm smart, handsome and strong!"

This is mostly what passes for love in popular culture. But that seems a long way from what Jesus meant when he spoke of love.

The words of Jesus we heard this morning are recorded as being spoken just after Jesus has washed the disciples' feet at their last supper together. Having assumed the role of a servant with them, Jesus then tells them, "...you're to love one another the way I have loved you." Sentimentally, these words have been used over and over through the years to talk about us being "servants" to one another and humility and having self-effacing concern for others. But, in the context of our lives today, surely we have to ask, "HOW?" How are we to love one another as Jesus loved us? Jesus loved those first disciples...and loves us today...unconditionally, actively, openly. What has to happen inside of us that will enable us to love one another like that? Something certainly has to...because rarely do we ever really love one another like that. We tend to love sporadically, conditionally, in word but not in deed, based on our moods and circumstances, out of guilt or neediness, taking personally whatever response we do or don't get in return. This is not the way Jesus loves. And we are told to love one another as Jesus did.

So what is it we need within us that will enable us to better love one another as Jesus has loved us? We have to be thoroughly convinced that Jesus does love us! We must believe that we are genuinely, individually, loved by God. John understood the logic of this as he wrote in his first letter, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent Christ as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:10-11)

On this day when we celebrate mothers, - now no offense to any of you here this morning, but - we know that the "Hallmark card" version of "mothers" isn't always true. In fact, it's rarely true. We all have or had imperfect mothers. Some of us have or had mothers who didn't show us the love and affection we needed...who may have abandoned us emotionally or abused us physically or failed to care for us properly. That's just a fact. But God...whom tradition has revered as "Father"... is also our perfect "Mother."

Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" In fact, God says, "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands...." (Isaiah 49:15,16a)

A young woman had been seeing a psychiatrist. The doctor had established that she was the mother of three children, and he asked, "Which of your three children do you love the most?" She answered instantly, "I love all three of my children the same." The doctor paused. The answer was almost too quick, too glib. He decided to probe a little more. "Come, now, you love all three of your children the same?" "Yes, that's right," she said, "I love all of them the same." He said, "Come off it! It's psychologically impossible for anyone to regard any three human beings exactly the same. If you're not willing to level with me, we'll have to terminate this session." With this the young woman broke down, cried a bit, and said, "All right, I don't love all three of my children the same. When one of my three children is sick, I love that child more. When one of my children is in pain, or lost, I love that child more. When one of my children is confused, I love that child more. And when one of my children is bad - I don't mean naughty, I mean really bad - I love that child more." Then she added, "Except for those exceptions I really do love all three of my children about the same."

The Christian faith lifts up a God who knows and loves you just as God knows and loves all other human beings on this planet - but with this addition: when you are sick or hurting or lost or confused or in pain or on a destructive path - God loves you even more. So, we personalize the message that "God loves each one of us as if we were the only one to love."

The disciples really didn't understand what Jesus was doing when he washed their feet. Neither do we. We have trouble conceptualizing the significance of what he did. We could do footwashing here. It's been done in this and other churches, usually during Holy Week on Maundy Thursday when we remember the acts and meaning of the Last Supper. But it's not a common practice in our everyday lives the way it was for Jesus and the disciples.

They wore sandals and walked most everywhere on dirt roads...rain or shine. That means their feet would be dirty, often muddy, perhaps flecked with bits of donkey dung or whatever else they might have stepped in through the day. Plus, remember, there were no nail clippers, no Dr. Scholle's Odor-Eating Inserts and no one had ever had a pedicure. So, frankly, washing another's feet was a gross thing to do. And a common one - not something a powerful person would have done for others.

To put it in perspective for us, sweeping the kitchen floor is a commonplace thing but for Queen Elizabeth to come and sweep my kitchen floor would be pretty uncommon. In the same way, for Jesus to wash the disciples' feet was an uncommon and powerful image of humility and servanthood.

It's impossible for us to imitate this kind of service to others unless we have a clear understanding of what Christ has done for us. Jesus only expects his disciples to wash someone's feet after they have been washed themselves. Similarly, Jesus does not expect us to give of ourselves and our loving service to others until we see the depth of the love and service that has been given to us. Without a prior, life-consuming experience of God's love for us, we will be quite ill-equipped to love anyone else.

This kind of experience and awareness is often what characterizes the lives of people who have given themselves to profound acts of Christian service around the world. The story of their pilgrimage begins with an overwhelming encounter with God's goodness, which never fades for them.

Henri Nouwen was...and remains even after his death...a very popular author. His books, like The Wounded Healer and Creative Ministry are on the bookshelves of pastors and lay people around the world. This theologian, who had taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, could have easily spent the later years of his life touring and speaking and enjoying his fame.

Instead, in 1986, he chose to move to a community in Canada called Daybreak...a residential community serving about a hundred mentally challenged people. He spent the remainder of his life living with and working for those people who could offer nothing to his intellect...but everything for his spirit.

Nouwen once wrote, "[This place] exists not to help the mentally handicapped get 'normal,' but to help them share their spiritual gifts with the world. The poor of spirit are given to us for our conversion. In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel." Here was a man whose life had been so deeply touched by God's love that it transformed him and gave him the joy of service to others. He had been washed by Jesus and so he was washing the feet of others.

Our knowledge and understanding of Jesus' love and service for us can transform us and empower us. Without such knowledge we cannot serve others with joy - we cannot really love others as Jesus has loved us.

To love one another as Jesus loves us does not automatically translate into one believer's death for another, nor does it mean to deny one's self for others. Jesus did not deny himself; he lived his identity and vocation fully. Rather, to love one another as Jesus loves us is to live a life thoroughly shaped by a love that has no limits, that knows no boundaries and no restrictions.

From the book of Revelation we heard, "Now the dwelling of God is with people, and God will live with them. They will be God's people, and God will be with them and be their God. God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." God is the ultimate good Mother...who has promised that our tears will be wiped away and "everything is gonna be alright 'cos Momma's here."

When we really choose to know and accept and believe that intense, unconditional, accepting, active, amazing love that God has for each of us...that Jesus gives to each of us...we will find ourselves set free to love each other more, to serve each other in joy, to forgive each other and accept each other and lift each other up instead of putting each other down. We will be able to take the love of our true Mother...and give it to one another. Amen.

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