May 12, 2019   Hearing the Voice of the Good Shepherd         

         Today is Mother’s day, and while I planned to speak on hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd today, I seem to have spent more time thinking about Mother’s Day, than Good Shepherd Sunday. So here goes,…

         My mother had five children, not a lot compared to others, but she was equal to the task. Some say that when you have two or even three children, you can have twelve. Anyway, she was quite busy taking care of us kids for about 13 years before she went back to working as a teacher, which is the degree she got in college.

         We had a traditional home, in the sense that my father went to work 40-50 hours a week, and mom did most of the raising of the kids. As a teacher, my mother, was always finding ways to engage us in learning. Aside from reading to us, she made play dough, and had plenty of songs and games for us to learn. As we grew, she had a list of chores for us each Saturday morning, many of which she had to follow along and complete if we didn’t get them done right, and she taught us lots of things, like sewing, crocheting, knitting, and embroidery.I had 4 sisters, so group activities were mostly directed towards my sisters.

My mother also took us to swim classes at the YMCA, piano and violin lessons, cheerleaders, choral groups at school, and girl scouts and cub scouts/webelos. Dad helped, but mostly it was mom doing the driving. The one thing she did for me specifically, was Khoury league baseball each spring and summer. She would drop me off and pick me up from practice, while running my sisters around, but when the games began, she would more often than not, bring her lawn chair and watch her son play. I think it was the one time during the week she ever just sat and rested. The rest of the time, I suppose her life was one long list of doctor’s appointments, school activities, church activities, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, and etc. And by the time I was five, if that wasn’t enough, she added substitute teaching to the list.

Did I mention church? My mother had to get 5 children ready for church each Sunday, get us off to Sunday school, and sit with us during worship. As a minister’s wife, she was always worried about our behavior, one Sunday, as I went flying down the center aisle with my arms wide, roaring like a jet plane, she almost lost it, by that I mean she raced forward, grabbed me by the arm, and sat me in the pew.  But I can say, my mother never beat me, though there were plenty of times when I probably deserved it. My mother had a mean scoul when we were misbehaving, she could yell at us if she was upset, and wasn’t afraid to tell us if our were being potty. One time, many years after it happened, my mother apologized to me for yelling at me when I mowed some flowers she had just planted under a tree – I thought they were weeds. I said, “Are you kidding me? You feel bad about that? Don’t worry about it.” Mom’s feel guilty about a lot of stuff, they worry, everything little thing with their kids is life and death. I’d like to tell the mothers out there that they worry to much, but they probably wouldn’t believe me.  

 At church she made sure we got to youth choir, church plays, and youth group, while she attended the couples group and the women’s fellowship as the minister’s wife, and in later years on the church mission board – missions were important to her. As a teacher, she worked on the Sunday school committee, and was a teacher for vacation bible school.

By the time I turned 16, with my sister’s all gone to college, my mother went back for her master’s degree in teaching, and also taught school. But this did not stop her from planting a garden. A garden which by the way, was 1/16 th of an acre. She got up every morning and went out before 7 am to put in an hour or two of weeding and cultivating her crop. The garden was where we got our fresh veggies. And my mother spent the last 20 years of her professional life, teaching behavior disorder and developmentally disabled students, which was her master’s degree.

Now the point of all this reminiscing, is not to make my mom out to be a superhero, nor is it to make other mom’s feel guilty. I look at mom’s today, and I see them having the same 6 am to 10 pm days that my mom had, running kids everywhere, teaching them, bringing them to church, and participating in family social functions, community activities, school activities as well. I bet if you were to write down all the things your mom did in her life for you and for her family, you would probably be amazed not only at all she has done, but that her head didn’t explode while she was doing it!

No the real point that I am making is this, my mother chose to be a servant of her family, and in our Christian tradition, we believe that it is the servant who creates life. Now the natural reaction of the world to the word servant, is to think doormat or slave, someone forced to do these labors for the benefit of another. But that’s not what mom’s are all about, they do these things not because they are forced to, but because they love their children and families. They lay down their lives for us, so that we might live, grow, and have as good or better than they had. They teach us how to love one another through devotion and hard work. Their deeds of kindness are their bright clothing, washed in their travails of loving us, that makes them shine before our eyes. Their presence brings peace to our lives, like a good shepherd watching over us, and their voice calls us to love our children and families, and even others, as we love ourselves. Oh, and for those of you who don’t have kids, you can have this same Spirit of life in yourself, if you love others as God has loved us in Jesus Christ.

Now all this stuff about mother’s, doesn’t mean that father’s don’t lay down their lives as well, but this is mother’s day, father’s will get their day in a few more weeks. But this spirit of servanthood, this spirit of love that gives life, is the Spirit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, so that we might live, and calls us, in the voice of the Good Shepherd to do so as well. For in following that voice, miracles happen, the miracles that make up our lives. Amen.