The Second Sunday after Pentecost - Memorial Day Weekend
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Isaiah 49:8-15, Psalm 131, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, Matthew 6: 24-34
All of my close relatives - parents, uncles, aunts - served in the British Armed Forces during World War II. And all four of my grandfathers served in World War I.
Of all my relatives who served during war time only two didn't make it back - both killed in action.
I suppose you could say therefore, that I come from a military family - military by necessity, rather than by choice.
There is an English equivalent to Memorial Day: Remembrance Sunday - remembering, initially, the end of the First World War - chosen because at the time everyone believed it was the "War to end all Wars" - the eleventh minute, of the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month: November 11, 1918.
On that day, as on Memorial Day, those who served, and those who gave their lives in the defense of freedom and liberty are remembered with solemn procession, wreath-laying, and a minute's silence - a minute I ask you to repeat at the end of this sermon.
All of this, however, makes today a challenging one for me.
It's challenging because there's a deep irony to the juxtaposition of Memorial Day with today's readings - the former, after all, is, at least in part, connected with state-sanctioned violence (even if, in some cases, it is appropriate state-sanctioned violence), while the latter contains two references to God as a nursing mother - one from our perspective, the other about God.
Violence, and a nursing mother - they just don't go together very well, do they?
I think it is possible to see a link. Whatever the political justifications for war, Soldiers, Sailors, Aviators, fight for a future vision of a distant field of peace where will shake our heads in wonderment because we will no longer be able to conceive of how the death and destruction were possible.
They fight so that mothers can nurse, and children can grow to adulthood. And, in the end, they fight because they have become family to each other, and not to fight would be unthinkable.
There is, in other words, a vision that is worth fighting for.
Today's readings offer a vision of relatedness that, at the very least, invites us to reflect on an biblical understanding of God that challenges the world-view created by the more traditional vision of God as exclusively male, as an often distant, frequently stern parent.
Yes, the implications of this vision of God as our Mother are profound.
Psalm 131:2 says, in one contemporary translation "My soul is like a baby content in its mother's arms."
Not a crying or fussing baby, in other words, but one that is calm, satisfied, trusting.
So the first image is about us as children of the creator, the creator who is mother of us all. We're invited to understand that relationship in tender, intimate terms - no stern or angry father, but rather the archetypical mother who cares for each one of us.
This vision is closely tied to Matthew's Jesus, speaking about anxiety. With different metaphors, Jesus makes the same point - God cares for us in profoundly intimate, compassionate, and gentle ways. If we can but embrace that vision then the anxieties that plague us day and night will slip away.
The second vision of God as mother is in Isaiah: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?" Isaiah quotes God as saying. "Even [though earthly mothers]..may forget" God continues, "I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).
Not everyone can say, of their mothers, "She was the best I could have ever hoped for". Some of us, in all honesty, would have to say that our mothers were out of their depth as mothers, others that they were downright difficult to live with.
But, Isaiah reminds us, we can never say this of God our Mother.
Merging these two visions of God-as-Mother provides us with an invitation - a invitation to let go of the complexities of living and trust in God; to let go of trying to control our environment, or others, or life, and trust in God; to let go and to trust.
This vision is one that, in the end, invites a profound thankfulness from all of us.
And perhaps that's where the two stories of today - of Memorial Day, and of God-our-Mother - come back together again - in thanksgiving: thanksgiving for the gifts we have been given, thanksgiving for the gifts others have given us, including, ultimately, their lives.
So let us enter into the rest of this day and this Holy-Day Holiday with that sense of thanksgiving, for in so doing we honor the gifts, and the sacrifices of all those who have gone before, who have sacrificed in so many different ways that we might now enjoy the fruits of freedom so abundantly bestowed upon us.
And let us stand and observe a minutes' silence in memory of all those who have given their lives in the service of us all, and grow into that future of peace where we will no longer need to have a day like tomorrow, but, rather can celebrate the central virtue of motherhood, and the trusting response of children, just as we celebrate the motherhood of God. Amen
|
