May 20, 2007               Sixth Sunday of Easter           Mother’s Day

As most of you know, we’re going on a trip to England on Thursday. It’s a business trip for Marilyn, and I get to go along. This will be a long airplane ride. This has nothing to do with my message for today, but it explains why I found some special meaning in this story I read this week.

The story goes that a man was boarding an airplane one day. As he came on board, he noticed that the captain of the plane was a woman. That was no problem for him, but it was the first time that ever happened to him. As he found his seat, he saw three persons sitting immediately behind him. One was a young boy about six or seven years of age. Next to him was a man in his early thirties. And next to him was a woman in her early sixties.

The man could not help overhearing their conversation as the crew made final plans for departure. As he listened awhile, he realized that they were the pilot's family. The boy was her son. The man was her husband. And the older woman was her mother. Then it dawned on him why the pilot’s family was on the plane. This was the first time she had been a pilot for this kind of plane. They were there to honor her promotion.

The plane taxied down the runway. The engines began to roar, and the plane gained speed quickly. Within a few seconds they were airborne. As the plane began to ascend the bank to the south, the six year old boy began to applaud! "Way to go, Mom. Way to go!"

This morning we are applauding our Moms. "Way to go, Moms, way to go!" Truly, today's Mom deserves all the support and applause she can get. Like God, they know us before we are born. What mothers do remains with us for a lifetime. It takes a long time and a lot of work to raise children until they become adults. I give thanks to mothers and all those who help raise children. Our goal is to raise children that will grow up to be responsible adults. That’s also the goal of any parent and the culture, as well. We hope to raise up children who become responsible adults.

Last Sunday, my own parental delight came when my daughter and her family visited. She was a good child, but she did not always do the things I had planned her to do. But I had to let her go, and now I’m pleased that with what she is doing in her life. Like all proud parents, I feel a sense of fulfillment in that.

Jesus called his disciples “my little children.” The reading this morning is a small segment of his last supper with the disciples. He wanted them to grow up to be responsible disciples. From John chapters 13-17, he was preparing them for the time that he was going away. He was going to die on the cross, be raised, and ascend to heaven. He was going away so that they would complete what began through him. Since we are also disciples of Jesus and his children, this is what Jesus wants for us, as well.

He told them to keep the word. He said, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them.” There are two levels of meaning here. The first is simple obedience. God loves those who obey Jesus. But at another level, Jesus word points us back to the beginning of John’s gospel. And that points us to the time before time began.

This gospel of John begins by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This Word was not just something God said. Before time began, there was nothing but darkness. There was no scientific matter nor energy of any kind.

The Word was the creative power of God through whom the whole universe began. By the power of God’s Word the light separated the darkness. What has come into being through this Word was life, and the earth took her first breath. The Word was the power of life, and that the life was the light of all people. On this special day, we might say that the Word was the mother of all creation.

Then John 1:14 makes this astonishing claim. The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Though Jesus God came to make his home with us. The disciples of Jesus realized that they had seen in him the grace of God, and the truth that is the power of the whole creation. In the reading from Revelation, a different disciple named John of Patmos envisioned that the new City of Zion would come down to the creation again, and God would once again come home to live here.

When Jesus asked his disciples to keep his word at the Last Supper, he was asking them to obey his teaching, but by the power of the Word, to continue to make the universe a new creation. He was asking them to be the light to all nations. He promised to send them the Holy Sprit, the advocate to help them.

It’s a difficult world we live in, mired in temptations and sin. The evil of sickness and death, of destruction is still very active in the world we live in. In this creation we have wars and rumors of war, starvation, hatred between races and nations. We have natural catastrophes like tornados and hurricanes. We have children on the street forced to sell their innocence. These are the same forces of darkness that took Jesus to the cross where he died in shame and defeat.

But when he rose from the dead, God was showing us that the Word was still more powerful than anything else in all creation. This light can scatter all the darkness. And we are children of that light who keep the Word Jesus gave us by the power of the Holy Spirit. As children of the light, we continue to bring Gods’ Word to scatter the darkness of the present world. This is our purpose collectively as a congregation, and individually as men and women.

Today we especially honor women who have been light for the world. They may not have been our biological mother, but they have give birth to God’s light in the world. Let me ask you, who has brought God’s light to you. Do you know one person who was a child of the light? Perhaps your own mother was among them.

One such woman was Cicely Saunders, who lived in England in the 1940s. Cicely entered Oxford University as a young woman who really didn’t know what to make of her life. She just did not know what she wanted to be or do. But she soon came under the influence of a colorful professor of English named C. S. Lewis. Through his influence, she became a Christian.

Out of her new conviction, she left the aristocratic comfort of Oxford, against the advice of friends and family, and began to study nursing. In those days, many in England saw nursing as a step down from an education at Oxford. But Cicely was convinced she was following her convictions. After five more years of rigorous training, Cicley became was certified as a nurse.

Her story doesn't end there. She was working on a cancer ward in a London hospital, and where saw the darkness of death. She noticed that most of the doctors ignored the patients who were deemed terminally ill. It upset her to watch many of them die virtually alone and in darkness. But the light in her was burning.

She wanted to find a more compassionate, loving way to treat them. She approached the hospital administration with an idea she had for surrounding those dying of cancer with friends and loved ones during their last days, rather than isolating them in sterile rooms with strangers.

At first her proposal was deemed too radical, and was rejected. But undaunted, she decided to enroll in medical school to try to make a difference even though she was already 33 years old and would not graduate until she was 39. But soon after, Dr. Cicely Saunders founded a movement that makes it possible for dying patients to live their days with those who give her love and support.

The light of Christ in Cicely Saunders gave birth to a movement in England in the 1950s. It later moved to America and we know it as the Hospice Movement. Today, Hospice care is offered here and in all major cities across this country.

I say, let us pray that the power of God’s Word, the Spirit of Christ work in us. Will you bow your head as I offer the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen