Sermon 5-9-10 Mothers' Day

May 9, 2010 Des Moines

Mother’s Day

John 5:1-9

Leave it to Mom

It has changed, of course, over the years. Mother’s Day has become as much of an homage to the greeting card, flower, candy and restaurant industries as it is to mothers. But I suppose that should come as no surprise. If Christmas, one of the most theologically central and spiritually immense days of the calendar can be transmogrified by base commercial interests, what possible chance did little ol’ Mothers Day stand?

But rather like Christmas, Mothers Day once-upon-a-time had some cutting edge significance beyond syrupy commendation of the demonstrated capacity for reproduction. There were religious antecedents to the holiday in European traditions, but in our country, the designation of a “Mother’s Day” has its roots in the bloodshed of the Civil War.

You might recognize the name of Julia Ward Howe who was quite the social activist throughout the latter half of the 19^th century. About a dozen years after she had penned the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, seeing the Civil and Franco-Prussian Wars drag, she became increasingly horrified by the carnage from the conflicts. Her abhorrence found companionship with the efforts of another woman, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, a few years earlier, had worked to improve sanitary conditions on both sides of the war, in part by using “Mothers Friendship Clubs” to teach basics of nursing and sanitation which she had learned from her physician brother.

Inspired to do something of her own, and discontent to simply stand idly by and observe or even grieve the devastation, Julia Ward Howe called on Mothers to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. In 1870 she penned a “manifesto for peace” that she presented at international peace conferences that included a call for an international Mother's Day celebrating peace and motherhood:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

"We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

It was a powerful call.

At one point Howe even proposed converting July 4th into Mother’s Day, in order to dedicate the nation’s anniversary to peace. Eventually, however, June 2nd was designated for the celebration, and several cities across the country observed the special day, but enthusiasm eventually waned.

But the idea that had seemed at first like a flower that quickly faded turned out to be a seed that simply needed time to germinate. Close to 30 years after that initial inspiration, the daughter of that Appalachian homemaker revived the observance soon after the death of her mother. Deep in her own grief, she felt the nagging confession that children often neglected to appreciate their mother enough while the mother was still alive. And so, in 1907 she started a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day.

And she succeeded – not immediately, but eventually. Seven years later – on May 9, 1914 – President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be observed each year on the 2nd Sunday of May as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

OK, so the end result of all that effort is a sort of hybridization of anti-war sentiment, parental reverence and memorialization of children killed in action. The advocates of this special day eventually succeeded, right? Well, the answer, I suppose, is complicated. Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis – the one whose efforts had finally proven successful -- herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become.[i]

Whatever else one might observe in all that history is the clear and forceful press of initiative. Threaded throughout those years are the efforts of three women who looked at the gap between the way the world is and the way it ought to be and determined to bridge at least a portion of it – which might be the best kind of gift a child can offer a mother. All the while that plenty of kids are pulling the sheets back over their heads saying, “leave it to Mom; she’ll take care of it,” here are three who assumed responsibility for what needed to be done and took initiative.

I think of all that by way of contrast to events surrounding the Pool of Bethesda. By the way, “Bethesda,” or “Bethzatha” or “Bethsaida”: you are likely to hear this word translated any which way. But since Bethesda might be the form with which we are most familiar, let’s call it that.

I want to acknowledge right at the beginning that tiptoeing around this story is dangerous. I haven’t a clue, after all, what actually ailed the man with whom Jesus paused to talk. It could well be that he was legitimately trapped in a desperate situation from which he was powerless to extricate himself. People who wake up each morning and go to sleep each night enduring physical disabilities don’t need people like me adding moral pain to their physical misery.

That said, the story’s particular angle of vision seems to be on Jesus not the paralytic – neither his particular condition nor his faith. We are told nothing about the man’s spiritual health. And given the fact that when he was later questioned by others about what had happened he couldn’t even tell them Jesus’ name, it’s hard to presume in him much spirit of discipleship. The fact is that John doesn’t seem interested in why Jesus chose this particular man to heal; only that he did.

That said – and here I will venture some risk – some things just don’t smell very good about this situation. For one thing, it’s kind of a wimpy healing story. I mean, Jesus just doesn’t put on much of a show. There is no incantation, there are no mesmerizing gestures, no mud smeared on the useless legs, no jarring smack on the head. In fact, Jesus doesn’t even touch the man. After asking what strikes me to be the most unnecessary question of all time – “Do you want to be healed?” – Jesus just instructs him to get up and go on his way. I’ve got to tell you: Jesus would never make it on TV. Where’s the drama? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the flash and fizz?

But maybe the question isn’t so unnecessary after all. John is unclear about how long the man has been laying there, except to say that it has been a long time – it could in fact have been as long as the 38 years of the man’s affliction. Waiting; waiting for some fabled and miraculous cure the odds of which were about as good as hitting the $40 million Powerball jackpot.

It could be that the man’s problem had less to do with legs and his inability to get into the pool on time, and more to do with a paralyzing recognition of how much change would be required – in his self-image, in his relationships with family and others, in his livelihood – if he were actually healed. It takes courage, after all, to face the implications of getting well. Sometimes it’s easier just to stay sick.

“Do you want to be healed?”

Or are you just leaving it to Mom – or whomever else might come along and take some purposeful initiative? It’s an ugly sort of question, I’ll admit; but maybe you have noticed along with me how easy it is to become paralyzed by presumptions of helplessness – like “I could never do that!” Or “It will take a miracle to change that.” When the truth might be that we’re not nearly as helpless as we had led ourselves to believe.

Wasn’t it the naïve initiative of a single boy with a rather limited picnic basket that led to the feeding of 5000 people one evening? Wasn’t it the persistent refusal to be ignored by a Greek woman in need that turned even Jesus in a new, more compassionate and more inclusive direction? And aren’t we here talking about our mothers on the second Sunday in May because of a few tenacious voices that wouldn’t take “no” for an answer?

“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked the man. “If so, then get up, pick up your bed, and walk.” No hocus pocus. No proof of prior faith. No fire from the sky or spiritual acrobatics. And here is the thing: he did.

Just imagine what you could do and where you could go if Jesus convinced you that you could.