Landmine Day. No, not an official event on the calendar. Rather it is a reference to the delicacy of this day. An indicator of how it just might go wrong. Mother’s Day. A day worthy of honor, certainly. A subject worthy of recognition. More than Shrimp Scampi Day, at least as much as Nurses Day, or any other day of honoring. Yet, a difficult day, nonetheless. What might start out as an attempt to give honor ends up with hurt feelings. And the potential for hurt seems so vast. Not out of maliciousness but out of unknowing. You didn’t know how your story of a mother’s selfless love rubbed against the one who lived under the thumb of a domineering mother, or endured a lifetime of neglect from a mother ill-equipped for the task thrust upon them. You didn’t know. You didn’t know how your little story of how becoming a mother changes a person inside and out and makes you a little more aware of the power and presence of God broke the heart of the woman who ached to have a child and yet seemed unable to the increasing frustration of the family as whole and stretched the marriage to the breaking point. You didn’t know.
Some might think this is just “political correctness” run amok. That people shouldn’t be so sensitive. Can’t we just recognize the institution of motherhood without all the tears and hurt feelings? Probably not. These are deep matters, things that strike at the very core of our being. Mother, like father, isn’t something we do. It is something that we are. It is the essence of the self. Or, it is the primal need we are each born with, created with a need to be nurtured, cared for. Oh, I know we value the rugged individualist who carves his or her own path through the world, not dependant on anyone for their sense of worth and value. But, frankly, it’s a lie we’ve bought into. That we don’t need anyone. That we don’t need to be mothered. To be tended, supported, loved. That’s not a flaw to need this, it is part of the design. It is how we are made.
And God wants to be our Mother. Wants to be the One who comforts us in our distress, who encourages us when the winds of opposition blow so hard we can barely move, who directs us when the clouds of doubt obscure our path. God wants to be the One who takes us by that hand and teaches us how to walk. Hosea told us that. Poor Hosea who was asked to live an impossible love so that he could bear witness to a mothering God who won’t give up on us no matter what we do, where we go, who we hurt. And the One we hurt is usually the One who loves us most.
God is our mother, care-giver, nurturer. This is a biblical image as meaningful as the father image. And in such an overwhelmingly patriarchal culture, it is even more significant that God as mother images appear at all, let alone with such poignancy and power. We struggle with the language sometimes, assigning gender roles to God, but it is our limitation, not God’s. It is our hesitation, not God’s. Our inability to see God at work in the best of us regardless of gender.
See, that’s how this works, this nurturing thing, this caring for thing, this mothering thing. It’s God, the model, the vision, the hope. But since we have trouble dealing with things beyond our reach we need intermediaries. We need those who stand in the place of God. Not limiting access, but opening doors. Not gatekeepers, but windows into a deeper reality, a higher plane. God designed life in such a way that we have these contacts. We have access to the divine through the community that surrounds us. We find our way into the Presence of God by staying close to the people God puts in our path.
Romans 16:1-16 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, 2 so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. 3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, 4 and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. 5 Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. 8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9 Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10 Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11 Greet my relative Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. 12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother-- a mother to me also. 14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them. 15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
What an odd passage to read on Mother’s Day. Or any day for that matter. It’s a list. Just a list. We’re not going to get a lot of inspiration from the list. From this list. Or any list, come to think of it. We’ll be preaching from grocery lists next. From inventories. From the table of contents, or the index at the back of the book. What’s with the list?
I like it. I suspect Paul does too. He likes it because it is his. His list, his memories, his family. Did you hear it? In the recitation of the unpronounceable? Tucked away in the funny names, and the formal mission oriented language? There is a heart here. Paul’s heart. Which is surprisingly like our hearts.
Of course I honed in on verse thirteen. Rufus. Greet Rufus. Chosen in the Lord. Chosen for what? We don’t know. Chosen how? We don’t know that either. Did Rufus know he was chosen? Was this the big reveal? Did Rufus read this and slap his forehead? OMG, he says under his breath, Chosen? I was chosen? For what? But, if Rufus was surprised there was one who wasn’t. His mom. Right there behind him. She knew a good thing when she saw it, and her Rufus was a good thing. She was his cheerleader, his main support, the one who believed in him when he forgot how to believe in himself. She knew he was chosen before any Tarsus born Saint came along to name him as chosen. She knew. But she also knew who would help her boy find himself. So when Paul showed up, looking like something the cat dragged in because he’d been running for his life, she made up the guest bed and showed him where the towels were and what time breakfast was served, and if he knew what was good for him, he’d wash his hands before he sat down at her table. Paul says, with a smile, she was a mother to me also. Got his elbows off the table and told him to sit up straight and he wasn’t going out preaching wearing that, was he? And yeah, ok, he could raise the dead, but maybe he should cut his sermons short anyway, so another kid doesn’t doze off and tumble out a window.
I don’t really know what she did to get this mention in Paul’s magnum opus. No one knows. Except Paul, and Rufus and his mom. And that’s the story behind all the names in this list. Somehow they made a connection. Epaenetus, he was the first one who thought maybe Paul had something to say, not just a crazy preacher with an odd accent, but a Word of life somehow. He thanks the workers, Mary and Persis and Urbanus, and Prisca and Aquila who not only worked but went out on a limb with him, strayed into the wrong part of town because folks there needed Jesus too. Oh, and Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord, Paul says. They have to be twins, with names like that. And you know Paul kept getting them mixed up; called Tryphaena Tryphosa more than once and while anyone else made them mad when they couldn’t see that in their own eyes they were as different as night and day; when Paul did it it only made them giggle and shake their heads at him. Then he greets his cell mates, Andronicas and Junias, the ones who helped him with the third verse of the hymns he tried to sing when they were locked away in the dark.
There are two he doesn’t greet directly, but greets their family. Greet the family of, he says, Aristobulus and Narcissus. Maybe they were traveling, and Paul wanted to thank their families. Or maybe they had died, gone ahead into the kingdom, and Paul wanted to tell them he remembered them, they were part of the family, numbered among the saints. That they too, through their loved ones, were windows into the grace of God. All these windows that Paul mentions and the ones you’re thinking of right now and the ones on my list they don’t replace God in my life, but they help make God knowable. The invitation this holiday is to give thanks to all those who have nurtured us, all those who have mothered us, all those who have helped us know God our Mother. Happy Mother’s Day.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment