Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Those Who Love Me "
Date: May 13, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  John 14:23-29

When we graduated from college, my roommate went to work for Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania.  Since he bought a new Chevy Impala convertible, he was told those with American cars could park in front of the offices.  Those who drove foreign makes had to park in the back, out of sight.  I was reminded of that last October when we passed the Damlier-Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan.  Sure enough, all the cars, trucks and SUVs parked out front were Chryslers, Dodges and Jeeps.  No Chevys, Toyotas or Hondas were visible out there.

You don’t drive a GM product in a Chrysler town.  And you certainly don’t tell a church it shouldn’t celebrate Mother’s Day.  Some causes are worth martyrdom.  But purging Mother’s Day from the Christian calendar isn’t one of them.

Truth be told, Mother’s Day does not show up on the calendar of religious holy days.  We as a nation and a people celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Memorial Day and Fourth of July, but they are not found on any liturgical calendar.  Nor did Jesus have any of those subjects in mind when he spoke or when the gospel-writers compiled their Gospels.

I can’t think of a Mother’s Day in 34 years of preaching that I haven’t touched on the subject however.  It is often a popular day for baptisms.  None in this worship service, but on Mother’s Day 1975 I set a record:  16 baptisms!  And the church wasn’t that large, but we were the only church in town.

As I just mentioned, Jesus did not have any of our Hallmark/See’s Candy/FTD holidays in mind when he spoke in the Gospels.  And if you are patient, I will return to Mother’s Day and tie it in at the end of my sermon.

Last Sunday, we heard Jesus tell his disciples on the last night of his life they were to love one another.  Those who could see their love for one another would be able to identify them as Jesus’ disciples.  In that same evening’s conversation, again preparing to make his leave-taking from them, he answers a question about how he is to reveal himself to his believers.  “Those who love me,” he replies, “will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (14:23) 

Jesus continues to make the connection between God the Father and himself.  Earlier in this Gospel, he said, “The Father and I are one.” (10:30)  While we might take that to mean of the same substance, or related in the divine-human way only Jesus and his Father can be, what Jesus really meant is that they are of one mind.  “If you know me, you will know my Father also.” (14:7) 

Intimacy, love, trust, peace, belonging, community, identity—these are the things our spirits crave.  In the best of parental relationships, we should acquire some of these from our mothers.  Yet Jesus, too, spoke to his disciples’ most basic fears and insecurities when he shared his farewell discourse with them.  The incarnate Christ knew about the longings and loneliness that reside inside every human heart.  Jesus offers to banish this emptiness forever.  Jesus promised that, through love, he and the Father will “come to” and “make a home in” the hearts of all who love them.

Don’t we desire that?  Don’t we want to know that somehow the Christ dwells within us to love us, to comfort us, to guide us?  Through his love for us, and ours for him, don’t we want to feel intimately connected to God the Father? 

Then what promise does Jesus ultimately leave his disciples with?  It is one of the most familiar passages from the Farewell Discourses in John, one I frequently read at funeral or memorial services:  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. … Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (14:27) 

One commentator has remarked, “Whenever I see the word ‘peace’, I think that it needs to be interpreted first in a communal aspect – the way people get along with one another, rather than in an individual sense of inner tranquility.  However, the inner sense might be implied in this verse which goes on with the command, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’  So it may have a sense of the inner feelings (of the community) in this verse.” (Brian Stoffregen)  This would be consistent with Jesus’ new commandment we heard last week, “that you love one another.” (13:34)  He wasn’t speaking of loving the whole world; he specifically meant that particular group of believers gathered there in the Upper Room.

Now I will confess to you that when I looked at all the lectionary readings for this Sixth Sunday of Easter, I was seeking hard to ferret out some inkling that I could relate to Mother’s Day, and here it is.  Commenting on today’s passage, one professor of preaching declared, “When Jesus’ disciples follow his own model of love, then, it is possible for relationship with Jesus to extend beyond the first generation of believers.  Relationship with Jesus does not depend on physical presence, but on the presence of the love of God in the life of the community.  And the love for God is present whenever those who love Jesus keep his commandments, when they continue to live out the love that Jesus showed them in his own life and death.”  (Gail R. O’Day, The Interpreter’s Bible, [Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1995] Vol. IX, pp. 751-752.)

I don’t want for a minute to deny that that is said about the love of Jesus and God and believers.  But allow me to paraphrase it to relate to the love of mothers as well.  Some here have mothers still alive, others are at rest in the Lord.  But our relationship with our mothers does not depend on their continual physical presence in our lives.  And our love for our mothers is present whenever we continue to live out what they taught us in life, and we continue to live out the love they had for us in our relationships with others.  Thus, their love for us is possible to extend beyond our own generation.

As I worked on this theory, I could envision turning this sermon in to my late professor of preaching, and him saying to me, “That’s quite a stretch, Charles, although it’s creative.”  But I ask you:  if you, or I, have had a good, formative, healthy relationship with our mothers, who better demonstrates in our very human lives the kind of love Jesus is talking about in these last two Sundays?  If our own mothers don’t love us the way God does, who does?

Oh, one more thing mothers:  no pressure from me to be caring, compassionate, loving and forgiving like God!