Meditation – Fifth Sunday of Easter 2020
John writes,
“1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3).
Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms,” and who do you think is cleaning those rooms? Just look at the universe. The fallout from creation is scattered about the universe. Everywhere one looks in space there is cosmic dust, dirt, and debris all over the place, light years in every direction as far as the eye and telescope can see.
So, if this is how God leaves the universe after a little creative activity, what would the rooms look like which Jesus is preparing for his disciples? Judging from most of the rooms of most males whom I know, of whatever age, they are not going to be the most tidy of places. In houses or apartments where males live, even places which the involve “getting clean,” like bathrooms, often become hot spots for biological experiments in bacteria, molds, and other critters. When my parents would go away on holiday, I would leave the remaining coffee from the day of their departure in the coffee pot just to see how much mold would grow before their return. Sometimes, I would forget to clean the coffee pot before they got home. Oops! They were not as enthusiastic or as amused as I was about such potential for growth.
So, who is instrumental in making sure that we are cajoled and coerced into keeping our rooms and parts of the house tidy? It is our mothers, usually.
Today is Mother’s Day in the USA. In the UK, Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday was the fourth Sunday in Lent. Thus, in our house my wife has two Mother’s Days. Some mothers are tidy, some not. Some mothers are good cooks, others not. Mothers, like everyone else, have all manner of different abilities, attributes, attitudes, and aptitudes. Some mothers are excellent, and others have their children removed from them. Most fall into the psychoanalytic category of “good enough” mothers
Whatever our mothers are or are not, none of us would be here without them. Although God the Father created the whole universe in a rather explosive, untidy fashion, God the Son was born of a woman (Gal. 4:4). Through the conception of Jesus in Mary, God set all women apart and made their bearing of children a divine activity. Each birth reflects not only the miracle of creation but also the death-defying gift embodied in Jesus’ resurrection. Although we all are born “little devils,” fallen from our birth into sin and death, God sustains us, all of us, in ways which we often find completely incomprehensible, despite the forces of sin and death in and around us.
In the church, women are involved in seemingly countless and often thankless activities and tasks which either directly or indirectly help to bring about the birth and nurture of faith in each new generation. A faith needs to be continually fed, like a child, to grow and to remain healthy. The “little devil” in all of us quickly and easily gets up to all manner of mischief, and the rooms of our lives become a mess, experimental laboratories for all manner of mayhem. The gift of faith given to each new generation in a “good enough” way, is the gift of eternal life from the “word made flesh,” from the one who is “the Way and the Truth and the Life” himself (John 14:6).
So, today we thank all those “mothers” among us who give the gift of faith at St. Luke’s in so many ways. Please remember to pop around, or to send someone around, today between 10:45 – 11:15 am to collect a little gift from St. Luke’s on this Mother’s Day 2020 as an expression of our appreciation.
