PAST SERMON 2009 #8
by Reverend Pat Blythe, delivered on Sunday May 10, 2009,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit. (Mothers Day)
God Bless All Mothers Today
What a wonderful time of year Spring is! Things all around us speak of new life:
The forsythia, and the magnolia, the fruit trees are all coming into bloom.
The tulips and daffodils and all sorts of little flowers are bursting with colour, and the grass is getting greener by the minute. And the kids: they’re everywhere! — riding bikes, playing ball hockey and basketball, trying to squeeze every minute out of each wonderful day. People are raking and cleaning up after the winter, washing their cars, cutting the grass again after a few months respite, preparing the gardens for a new season and, oh yes, the garage sales have started!
Yes, it is the season of resurrection and new life, and it’s wonderful just to be able to get out and enjoy the sunshine and the warm spring days — when it’s not hailing that is!
This is also the season of resurrection in the Church. We’re in the midst of our Easter Season which lasts fifty days. We’re still shouting our “Alleluias”! There’s a spirit of excitement and expectation in the air as we move towards the great Feast of Pentecost when the new Church was empowered for ministry with the breath of the Holy Spirit.
Our Scripture lessons have been about the spreading of the Good News that Christ is risen. Evangelism is the operative word, for the news that people in every generation have been desperate to hear. In today’s first Lesson we read the story of the Church spreading out past the Roman Empire, beyond Jerusalem into Africa, a piece of Christian history that is often overlooked. In it the Holy Spirit tells Philip to travel down the road between Jerusalem and Gaza where he sees the chariot of a treasurer from the court of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was a Greek work meaning ‘land of sun burnt faces.’ It had no precise boundaries in New Testament times but scholars say it encompassed much more than what we know of Ethiopia today. The Ethiopian empire was a powerful kingdom, rivaling Rome in military power and influence. And as a representative of the government of Ethiopia, the treasurer would have been a man of wealth and status.
The Ethiopian is also called a ‘eunuch’ In ancient times the word ‘eunuch’ was understood two ways: Eunuchs were castrated male servants who served as guards of royal harems. However, the Hebrew word for eunuch was also translated as ‘royal attendant’ or ‘official’. Given the important role that the Ethiopian held in the government, ‘official’ may be a more accurate translation.
In the story from Acts, the Ethiopian official was on his way home after worshipping at the temple in Jerusalem. In those days the world was full of people who were weary of the many gods and the loose morals of the nations. They came to Judaism and they found the one God and the austere moral standards which gave life meaning. The Ethiopian must have been one of those searchers.
That day as he was travelling, he was reading from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah about the suffering servant, and beginning from there, Philip showed him who Jesus was.
He must have been very impressed by what Philip had to say because when they came to some water, the Ethiopian asked Philip to baptize him, and tradition has it that this convert went home and evangelized Ethiopia. That was the beginning of the spread of the Gospel into Africa, and also out of the Roman Empire. It was an important step in the movement of Christianity out into the world.
There’s a story told about an Easterner who walked into a Western saloon and was amazed to see a dog sitting at a table playing poker with the men. He asked, “Can that dog really play cards?” One of the men answered, “Yeah, but he ain’t much of a player. Whenever he gets a good hand, he wags his tail.”
Whenever I think of Philip I think of his enthusiasm about the Gospel and his passion for sharing the Good News. He made himself available to God and God used him to bring others to Christ. He was one of the disciples, one of the team; part of the living organism that is the Church. Led by the Holy Spirit, Philip was used to evangelize, to bring others to Christ.
The theme of evangelism is continued in today’s Gospel with Jesus using the image of the vine to communicate his truth. He always used images drawn from familiar things in peoples’ lives because they could be easily understood. Israel is a land where grapes are grown and made into wine, and, they knew that image.
Jesus said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
”This passage tells of the relationship of Jesus and his disciples, and not just those first disciples, but us, too. In order for the vine to grow and bear fruit it must be pruned drastically. If it is not pruned it will not bear fruit, and if it does not bear fruit it is useless and is cut down and burned. But if it is pruned it does indeed bear fruit, much fruit.
I think the message of the scriptures today is two-fold: that evangelism is the primary task of those of us who are his disciples, and that involves much more than conversion, and that conversion is the beginning but pruning is also necessary. It is the ongoing process by which we bear fruit.
It’s not enough to say ‘we belong to Christ’
It’s not enough to say we were saved two thousand years ago at about three o’clock on a Friday afternoon.
It’s not enough to come to church or wear a cross around our necks.
It’s not enough!!
What God wants of us who have been baptized into ‘The Way’, into the Christian life, is our constant conversion, our opening ourselves to his pruning, to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to saying ‘yes’ many times after our first ‘yes’.
What does conversion and abiding in the vine and bearing fruit have to say to you in your life and in this parish?
What things get in the way of your bearing fruit?
What needs to be pruned in order for you to bear fruit that will last?
This is Mother’s Day: A day to celebrate and give thanks for our mothers. A day to think about those who gave us life and did the best they could to care for us, to teach us, to guide us and to set us an example of how to live and love.
Not everyone knows their mother; for some remembering is painful. Sometimes relationships are strained or broken. For these people, this day is difficult.
For most of us, however, our mothers are the ones who love us and are always there for us; the ones who guide us, support us, teach us about life and love and who emulate for us the love Christ has for each of us, his precious children. Our mothers were the ones who encouraged us to try our wings and then encouraged us again when we fell flat on our faces.
Anthony de Mello wrote this:
“A sheep found a hole in the fence and crept through it. He was so glad to get away. He wandered far and lost his way back. And then he realized that he was being followed by a wolf. He ran and ran, but the wolf kept chasing him, until the shepherd came and rescued him and carried him lovingly back to the fold. And in spite of everyone’s urgings to the contrary, the shepherd refused to nail up the hole in the fence. You see God loves us enough to let us make mistakes again and again.”
So do mothers!
Another story tells of a son who finally found a Mother’s Day card that expressed his feelings for his mother in real terms. It said: “Now that we have a mature, adult relationship, there’s something I’d like to tell you. You’re still the first person I think of when I fall down and go boom!”
I had the privilege of ministering in a country parish for nine years. I discovered as I went along, some of the many ‘country traditions’ that permeated the community. For instance, on Mother’s Day, people wore flowers to church on their lapels — coloured ones if their mother was alive and white ones if their mother was in the nearer presence of God. It was also a tradition for children to accompany their mothers to church on that day, even if they didn’t usually attend — because they knew that it would be appreciated. You could just see Mom’s beaming eyes as she knelt in prayer beside the child or children God had entrusted to her.
Many of us know that it is because of our mother, or those women who mothered us, that we are the people we are today. Many have found faith because their mother introduced them to Jesus. It strikes me that mothers are born evangelists!
Like Philip, it’s often Mom who creates the space for Christ in the home.
I often say to news parents that the greatest gift they give their children is life; and the next greatest gift is bringing them to baptism, to new life in Christ.
The last few verses in today’s Psalm sum up the evangelism we are called to share and the home environment that so many of our mothers provided for us:
“My soul shall live for him; my descendents shall serve him, they shall be known as the Lord’s forever. They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that he has done.”
Spring is a sign of new life and of resurrection. It’s also a time to thank our mothers for the life they gave us and the love of Christ they patterned through their lives.
God Bless all mothers today, both those on earth and those in heaven; and God bless us all as we try to be evangelists for Christ!
AMEN.