Be like a Tree

7EasterC, May 12, 2013, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Annette Fricke

            As I was thinking about whether or not to even mention Mother’s Day in my preaching today, I came across this piece.  The author is a woman who is not a mother and in this essay, she expresses how she feels when certain pastors in her life would say on that day, “All of you who are mothers, please stand up.”  Motherhood is much more inclusive than that and she does a great job of articulating the various forms of motherhood within our earthly experience.  Here is what she wrote:

            The wide spectrum of mothering: To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you. To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you. To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you. To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you. To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is. To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you. To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you. To those who have disappointment, heartache, and distance with your children – we sit with you. To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you. To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience. To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst. To those who have aborted children - we remember them and you on this day. To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children - we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be. To those who step-parent - we walk with you on these complex paths. To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren, yet that dream is not to be - we grieve with you. To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you. And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you. This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you. by Amy Young.

            And then I thought of this: This gospel text basically says the same thing three times. "I in them and you in me, and together we ARE the body of Christ..." In the midst of the horrifying yet miraculous news of three girls.... what they endured over the last decade... these three now rescued young women in Cleveland are returning to families who are experiencing bitter-sweet reunions as one's mother had died just two years after her absence. Still there were other family members who can't wait to "catch them up" on their families’ and friends’ lives. We all hurt for these women... and their friends and family because we can only imagine what that must be like. Their names were made known and not forgotten and God's love remained and still remains! We pray for their healing. "I in them and you in me, and together we ARE the body of Christ..." I guess the question is, do we hear Gospel in this prayer--that because Jesus prayed it, God must surely have answered this prayer and our task is to show in our lives the unity that God has already given us...? Or do we hear Law in this prayer--look at how broken and fragmented we are when Jesus prayed that we should be one. How far have we fallen from the prayer that Jesus prayed?

            Jesus' prayer that we may be one, is clearly for the purpose "that the
world may believe that you have sent me" (vv.21 and 23). The Christian community on earth isn't some cozy little gathering of "like minded people" that Jesus has in mind, but a group that will change the world. As said by Peter J.B. Carman, "unity isn't for its own sake but for the sake of (being a) witness to the love of God and the authenticity of Christ as the one 'sent'." In other words, we are the ones sent by Jesus to be witnesses of the love of God to all of humanity. Since the basis of this unity is found in God's love, our message must be rooted somehow in this love, as with all our relationships. We find that peace and that glory when we join in with the love Jesus has for us and extend it to others. We have been given the power to respond in love, even when someone intends us evil.

            Jesus’ prayer is a futuristic prayer.  He is praying for us because we are now his disciples in the world.  Broken though we may be, represented by many different denominations and Christian groups, Jesus calls for us to unite into a single unit. Like the pieces and colors of a stained glass window that lets the light of both the world and Jesus in, so we are.  The nature of the unity of Jesus’ disciples in this world that he yearns for is to be as profound and close as the unity of Jesus and the Father.  As a child, my eyes would wander to the stained glass windows of my church.  Each one of them represented an important story or key phrase from the scriptures.  Above the altar was the picture that represents this gospel text.  It is a picture of Jesus praying on a big rock in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is a reminder that Jesus cares very deeply for us.  That is the kind of deep love he hopes to instill in us so that we will love as he loves us, to hold back the words and thoughts of cursing, name-calling, jealous and malicious gossip, questioning others’ motives. In union with God in prayer, we will be guided to do that which is no longer our will, but God’s will.  Paul followed God’s will when he went to Macedonia, we are told.  He was open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit on a regular basis.  That was his guide for ministry. God calls all of us to that intimate union in constant prayer.  At the very least, we should all pray for each other in our daily lives, in all our contacts with others, all of our relationships. We are made in God’s image to be in relationship with God and all of humanity.  That is the stuff we are made of.  Thomas Merton put it this way, “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.”  Paul was doing that which Jesus did and continues to do through us.  But, as Merton so eloquently states, we need to be like the tree and consent to God’s creative love working in us.  We are called to be God’s love in the world, a world that works at tearing us down rather than building us up; a world where things happen that we don’t understand, where there is pain, crippling of hands, knees and feet.  It is a world of kidnappers, murderers, liars and cheaters. It is a world of violence that we sometimes see as senseless and irrational.  Intentional acts of kindness are sometimes forgotten by random acts of violence.