Mothers and Sons

Sermon given at Grace UMC 5/8/16

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Scripture Reading:

^NRS  John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." ⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. ⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." ¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Now I hope that you remembered that today is Mother’s Day and that you at the very least sent your mother a card. I read of a husband who was feeling guilty because he had not been very attentive to his wife. He decided to change. On his way home from work he bought a box of candy and some flowers to surprise his wife. He walks up to the door and rings the doorbell. She opens it, and there he stands candy in one hand, flowers in the other, singing, "Have I told you lately that I love you?" Instantly she starts crying, big old tears just gushing out of her eyes. She sobs, "Oh, Harry! Everything went wrong today. We had a leak in the plumbing. The kids were terrible. The house is a wreck. And now you come home drunk!" Apparently his behavior was so out of the norm she couldn’t accept that he would do such a thing.

Today is the day when we celebrate our mother’s. It is a time honored tradition that began in West Virginia. Mother's Day in its present form began with a special service in May 1907 at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia. The service was organized by a Methodist Laywoman; Anna Jarvis, to honor her mother who died on May 9, 1905. By 1908 Anna Jarvis was advocating that all mothers be honored on the 2^nd Sunday in May. She wore a white carnation to honor her mother and soon after the tradition of wearing a red carnation to honor a living mother and a white carnation to honor a mother that had died began. In 1910, West Virginia adopted a formal holiday honoring mothers. From 1911 to 1914, most states recognized Mother's Day and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed Mother's Day as a national holiday to be held the second Sunday of May. Anna died in 1948 at the age of 84. So we have English tradition and more importantly, Anna Jarvis for setting aside a day that we can gather to celebrate a special person in our lives

I think there is a special bond between a mother and her son. I know that for me, much of what I am is a result of what my mother instilled in me at an early age. Mom taught me how to read so well in fact that I got in trouble at school because the teacher did not believe that I had read a book beyond my age ability and made me do a book report just to prove that I had read it. In my teenage years mom decided that if I wanted to be in a cadet corps that required ironed shirts and pants and patches sewn on uniforms, that I could learn how to do all those things. By the time I graduated I could do laundry, iron and shine shoes better than most, but I never did learn how to do windows. She used to tell me that you can be anything you want to be if you work at it hard enough. I believe that tenacity that mom instilled in me is still being put to good use today.

Mother’s and sons have a very special relationship. Now I don’t want to intrude on those of you who have great mother daughter relationship but I can tell you, we men who had great mothers will tell you that we are what we are because of them. Ask many of the athletes we hold up high today about their mothers and they will tell you great things that their mothers taught them and that their mothers are why they have succeeded. Mother’s believe in their children and expect the best out of them. I remember growing up when I did something wrong, mom’s grimace or facial expression could bring the kind of guilt and shame within me that no one else could. In fact she used to say if you were doing something wrong frogs would tickle your throat. Still works today.

So we come to this story of Jesus and His mother. Now we glean pretty clearly that He was not ready to reveal Himself to the world yet. Yet, His mother asked Him to take care of a problem, a huge problem by the way. In the ancient world of Jesus, weddings would typically last for several days. To run out of wine would have been an insult to the guests and brought shame upon the family. What Mary was asking Jesus to do was to save the families honor and name. Jesus does what she asks of Him. But it goes deeper than that. Jesus changes bath water, which is what is meant when the scripture says ...the jugs were for the purification rites, into the best wines. But Jesus was not in the place or at the time when God had shared with Him to reveal Himself to the world. So what is a son to do when your mother asks of you something you are not ready to do, you do it anyway.

If we listen clearly we see that what we are hearing is that the Kingdom of God is a place where the ordinary, dirty, downtrodden and least can become the best. God can transform us into the deepest, richest and blest of the world. Jesus does not only change the water into wine, but the wine is of the best quality that wine can be. All of this to show the glory of God through Jesus and it tells us that the disciples believed in Him. Is that what it takes to believe? Must we see miracles performed to believe and have faith?

Today we celebrate the women who gave us life. In ancient times woman were revered because it was there that life came into the world. I often wonder if God gave them that ability in order that we could realize how important they are to our lives. Mother’s teach us most of what we define as values by the age of seven. Mother’s typically are the ones who were responsible for bringing us to church and allowing us to learn about Jesus and God. Mothers are the ones who shared with us when we had our first failures, our first successes and our first loves. My mother never was one to say you can’t do something; she would always push us to do better than we thought we were able of doing. I want to share this final thought with you this morning:

We share our life with the one who brought us into this world,

Have we shared our joy with her?

Have we taken the time to thank her for her unselfishness in our youth?

Have we given her time to reflect on what we have accomplished because of what she taught us?

Have we acknowledged the heartache we caused her?

If we had ten more minutes with our mothers, what would we say to her?

For some of us, we wish we had those ten minutes to share our love one more time.

For some of us, we have the opportunity to do that and so we need to take those moments while we have them.

Mothers are special and unique.

A familiar mother’s day poem written in the early 1900’s is:

M is for the Many things she gave me,
O means only that she's growing Old.
T is for the Tears she shed to save me,
H is for her Heart of purest gold.
E is for her Eyes with love light shining,
R means Right and Right she'll always be.

Put them all together, they spell MOTHER.