On Mother’s Day

A Worship Service by the Reverends Mark W. Christian & Jonalu Johnstone

First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday May 14, 2006

Readings

1996 Mother’s Day Presidential Proclamation

William Jefferson Clinton

America's mothers hold a special place in our hearts, providing the lessons and care that have enabled generations of children to embrace the opportunities of this great land. They embody the compassion, devotion, and energy that have always defined our national character, and their daily efforts anchor our country's commitment to the fundamental values of respect and tolerance. Mothers impart both the strength that enables us to face our challenges and the love that comforts and sustains us.

As we honor our Nation's mothers for past and present accomplishments, we recognize that mothers' roles have changed significantly in recent years. Today, mothers are CEOs and teachers, physicians and nurses, elected officials and Pta presidents, police officers and volunteers, homemakers and heads of households. Many serve on the front lines of the struggle against violence and poverty. These women -- problem-solvers, caregivers, and teachers -- are using their talents in every sector of our society, helping all Americans to look forward with hope and faith in the future.

Mother's Day has long been a welcome opportunity to celebrate motherhood and to remember our mothers -- whether biological, foster, or adoptive. To reflect on all we have gained from our mothers' guidance and to remember their sacrifices

2002 Mother’s Day Presidential Proclamation

George W. Bush

Mothers are central to the success of the American family. Their love, dedication, and wisdom touch countless lives every day in every community throughout our land. And their love and guidance of children help to develop healthy and spiritually sound families.

President John Quincy Adams once said, "All that I am my mother made me." President Abraham Lincoln believed, "All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." These statements are just as true for the millions of Americans who credit their mothers for helping to successfully shape their lives.

Millions of American mothers are at work in communities across the United States, improving the lives of their families and their neighbors through countless acts of thoughtful kindness. They energize, inspire, and effect change in homes, schools, governments, and businesses throughout our country. By their example, mothers teach their children that serving others is the greatest gift they can give. ..

On this special day and throughout the year, our mothers deserve our greatest respect and deepest appreciation for their love and sacrifice. I especially commend foster mothers for answering my call to service, volunteering their time and their hearts to aid children in need of a mother's love.

Mama’s Boys

Penn Gillette (of Penn and Teller)

Transcribed from Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio on XM Radio

There’s two ways that Mama’s Boys turn out.  The one way is the kind of the accepted, “namby pamby” way, the wimpy way.  But there’s another kind of Mama’s Boy who had such complete unconditional love from his mother and father that he had the feeling that he was 12 feet tall and bullet-proof—and that’s what my Mom did for me.  My favorite story about my Mom, about unconditional love, is when Penn and Teller opened off Broadway.  There was the opening.  There’s this tradition in theater that you wait up all night at a party until the New York Times comes out at 3 or 4 am and the review is read aloud and that decided whether your show was successful or not.  So we waited up.  My mother and father were at the party and they were sitting with our producer and they read the review from the New York Times aloud and it was really and unbelievable “money” review.  And the next day I had breakfast with my Mom and Dad and my Mom said, “They read that review from the New York Times and your producer turned to me and said, ‘Doesn’t that make you proud?’  It made me so sad and uncomfortable because I don’t need the New York Times to be proud of my son.  I was proud of you from the instant you were born.”

Prayer & Meditation

May 14, 2006 (Mother’s Day)

The Reverend Jonalu Johnstone

Spirit of Life and Love,

Today we admire and revere some of your physical manifestations, those who have birthed us, nurtured us, supported, and loved us -- our mothers.

            While we admit the complexity of the relations in our lives, in the midst of that complexity we honor our mothers, whatever our relationship.  We are grateful for the gifts she gave and the spirit of love with which those gifts were given.

            Nor do we wish to neglect stepmothers, mothers-in-law, godmothers, grandmothers, aunts, fathers, and others – all who have served in the stead of mother, when she was unavailable or ill-equipped to meet our needs as children or even as adults.

            We remember those mothers no longer with us, who have died, and honor them, too; we carry them with us and in that way, keep them alive.

            We offer our compassion to those who find their relationship with their mothers troubled or tumultuous or simply alienated.  In the complications of life, may you find the nurture and understanding you always wished from her.

            To those who have struggled with their own role as mother, we offer reassurance and encouragement.  May help come to you which affirms you, your children, and your relationship.  And to those who have lost children – in whatever way – our deepest sympathy.  Life has many twists and turns beyond our understanding.  All we can do is offer our hands and hearts to those who need us.

            We recognize and treasure all the nurturers in our own lives -- past and present, whoever they may be.  We give thanks for our parents, grandparents and other ancestors – and those who stand in their stead -- as well as our own children, their children, and the generations to come.  Our gratitude goes to all those – whether or not related by blood -- to all whom we love and are loved by.  We pay tribute to the connections to individual loving people that make our lives worth living.

            We commit ourselves to the continuity of the generations, to our children and to our struggle to offer to all those coming after us the love, the justice, the wisdom, and the guidance that we may be able to give.   Amen.

On Mother’s Day

A Sermon by the Reverend Mark W. Christian

Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday May 14, 2006

I seem to have great difficulty going more than twenty minutes in a conversation without quoting some piece of popular music.  Sometimes the songs that pop in my head are well known and sometimes they tend toward the obscure.  I have come to accept that this is the way my mind works and I am thankful for those of you who are patient with this eccentricity. 

A couple of years ago this preoccupation with (more or less) contemporary music led me to subscribe to satellite radio.  Recently XM Radio added Bob Dylan as a new guest disc jockey to the channel I most regularly frequent.  This week, as might be expected, Bob’s “Theme Time Radio” focused on Mothers.  In the manner that few lesser mortals can pull off, Bob rewrote a classic mainstay about mothers and began his show with something of a soliloquy.

“M” is for the “Many” things she gave me.

“O” is for the “Other” thing she gave me.

“T” is for “The” thing she gave me.

“H” is for “Her” things which she gave me.

“E” is for “Everything” she gave me.

“R” is for the “Rest” of the things she gave me.

I’ll let you decide if that is extremely profound or just plain silly.  I think I tend toward the latter but it does capture something of the over-arching, all consuming, sentiment connected with Mother’s Day.  Before going on, I should offer the disclaimer that I have to watch what I say very closely today because my mother sits among us each Sunday.  Normally that provides me little extra challenge—but on Mother’s Day it serves as a governor against hyperbole—for I know that if I go too far in excess, either in praise or doubt of motherhood, I will be called to task.  Actually, that is more in my head than in reality but it makes a good story.  In truth, the dual fact that everyone has a mother and no two mother/child relationships are the same makes Mother’s Day something of a homiletic challenge for any minister. 

It is easy to list the motherly platitudes.  “A mother is the only person who can divide her love between 10 children and each child receive all her love.”  “A mother understands what a child does not say.”  “God could not be everywhere, so he invented mothers.”  Each of these sentiments rings true enough—but today I feel called to look for some inspiration and truth beyond what one might find inside a greeting card.  Of course the truth is that very few of us have universally affirming relationships with our flesh and blood mothers.  Those “Hallmark” sentiments are idealized expressions.  They are grounded in what we want, often what we wish we could have, rather than what we experienced of mother and mothering. 

Perhaps a clue to discovering a more holographic depiction of mothers can be found in an odd and unusual encounter that I observed last fall.  One evening, probably before one of our Wellspring Wednesday dinners, I walked into the church kitchen while two young men, one in his teens and the other in his twenties were engaged in the ritualized banter known as “Yo Mama” jokes.  You know the jokes don’t you?  “Yo Mama is so dumb it takes her two hours to watch 60 minutes.”  “Yo Mama is so short she’s the life size model for trophies.”  “Yo Mama’s glasses are so thick that when she looks at a map she can see people waving.”  Actually, those are some of the kinder ones.  This ritual is really a competition, in which the participants are judged not only on the cleverness of the cut but the coolness they display when they are on the receiving end of the stick.  It was not the quality of the banter that caught me that day in the kitchen, though.  What caught me was that the two young men exchanging barbs were brothers—Ann MacDermott’s sons Adam and Jake Lock.  “Yo Mama’s so strange,” I told them, “That her son’s tell “Yo Mama” jokes to each other.”  Only in a Unitarian Church, I guess.

Ann, Adam, Jake, please excuse me—but there was something in that exchange that I just can’t ignore.  I guess, for the sake of full disclosure, I should note that Ann in her role as Youth Coordinator has a whole slew of kids, my son included, who consider her something of a surrogate and extension Mother. 

Today I feel called to ponder how both “Greeting Card” Mom, and “Yo Mama” can both be so deeply entrenched in our common culture.  Both seem true to a point but somehow false at the same time.  There are, unquestionably, some cultural and generational biases associated Mom as “Yo Mama.”  I will also acknowledge that some of you probably find it a bit inappropriate to introduce this “base” kind of humor into a Mother’s Day sermon at all.  I feel called, however, while acknowledging each of our connection and debt to the womb that gave us birth, to note that the idealization of mothers and mothering may do nearly as much damage as it brings praise.

It is a fact that some of us, men and women alike, have relationships with our mother’s that don’t fit inside a Hallmark Card.  Perhaps we even rely on the card to say the things we wished we believed.  While there are many mothers among us who relish and excel in that role, some among us may feel closer to the butt of the Yo Mama jokes than pinnacles of affection and perfection.  Some here today, through decision or circumstance, have not become mothers and may feel a strange longing on a day like this.  There are some of us, men and women alike, who miss a mother they never had and languish in a maze of confusing emotions this day.  Mother’s Day is anything but simple if you do more than scratch the surface.

My sense is that Mother’s Day needs is healthy dose of humanization.  Real life does not present any of us, in any of the roles we fulfill, as perfectly attuned, always energetic, eternally positive, infinitely patient or perfectly faultless.  Yet I fear that is the standard we tend to apply to mothers and mothering.  I know there are moments in each child’s life when they look at their mother and a sense of perfect love comes from every pore of their being.  I have seen it.  I see it in many of the children in this church.  When it happens it is so powerful that even those standing nearby can bask in its beauty and power.  But those moments aren’t the only moments, are they?

While it is good to live in the positive and to love being loved in so perfect a way, we have all seen the other side, too.  The same child who can cast perfection can wreak havoc on psyche and soul.  Who among us hasn’t heard a toddler or a teen say “I hate you.  You don’t really love me.”  One of those places where I trip up in life is when I begin to believe all the good things people say without at least remembering the faults that are pointed out.  It seems to me that this is true for mothers as well.

This suspicion led me to consider some of the idolized mothers we find in our religious and cultural mythos.  In the Hebrew Scriptures we find Eve, who saw one son be killed and the other become a killer.  Did she wonder about her ability to parent?  She must have.  Consider the story of Sarah, the wife of Abraham who was to give birth to a nation but was barren at age 99.  I don’t think anyone can hear the story of God reiterating that promise of motherhood to the elderly Sarai without understanding how she would laugh, indeed scoff, at the notion that God could still make her a mother.  What kind of mother laughs at God?  O.K. this may not be the right group of people to ask questions about laughing at God—but you get the point. 

Next consider Moses’ mother.  She is remembered for making the selfless act of giving her child up in order to avoid his detection by Pharaoh’s men who were ordered to kill all Hebrew children.  Of course, there was no guarantee that an infant in a reed basket set loose in the currents of the Nile would survive.  Can you imagine the press such an action would get today?  Motherly perfection?  Hardly.  How long would it take for Child Protective Services to come looking for her?

Perhaps the crowing grace of motherly perfection is Mary the Mother of Jesus.  The Virgin Mother—deemed perfect enough to give birth to God’s Son—a savior.  How perfect was Mary, really?  If you don’t accept the whole pregnant by the Holy Spirit idea then you have a pseudo virgin.  Even if you do, you find a woman who was a bit lax on prenatal preparations.  More than that, according to the Lukan Gospel, Mary lost her 12 year old son in a crowd leaving him to wander alone, ending up among the priests at the temple.  In that story, as with Moses and Isaac, things turned out OK—but it would appear that perfection was far from center stage when you look closely at our canonical mothers.

So where does our adoration and expectation of motherly perfection come from?  As with so many things, I think this romanticized notion courses through our television sets.  Harriet Nelson, June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, Ruth Martin—Timmy’s mother on Lassie and Laura Petrie from the Dick Van Dyke Show made it all look so easy…in high heels and pearls no less.  There are some truer depictions from the small screen, of course, but for a variety of reasons we don’t think of names like Roseanne, Marge Simpson or even Murphy Brown—when thinking of what real mothering, in real families looks like.  For the sake of real mothers everywhere, though, perhaps we should.

I’m afraid I haven’t painted the most hopeful of pictures this Mother’s Day.  What I have tried to do is what I hope my Mother would want.  I have tried to give an honest depiction of a complex life.  What I have tried to do is to say that all of us have Mothers and there is a miracle in mothering—but few of us can fit our experiences inside a simple, perfect, idealization of something as contrasting as motherhood.  My hope this day is both to honor and to liberate.  To offer freedom as the only true course of life is our real religious path.  To allow us each to freely find the love that is possible this day is my deepest prayer.

Remember the idealized thoughts of motherly perfection—hold them fondly if they fit.  Consider the complex realities of mothering—judge all mothers, even yourself and your own, by an honest standard.  Remember the loving eyes of a toddler—and remember they grow up to be teenagers…and, if you’re lucky, they may even grow up to be adults.

I’d like to close with one of my favorite pieces on Motherhood.  It holds fast to a bit of the idealism while remaining grounded in grist and guts of the mothering in the real world—

Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it.

Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the  sandbox.

Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens, and happy kids.

Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of shag carpets.

Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.

Real Mothers sometimes ask "why me?" and get their answer when a little voice says, because I love you best."

Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or  years or grade ....  It is marked by the progression of Mama to Mommy to  Mom...

Happy Mother’s Day.  AMEN