LOVE ON MOTHERS DAY
SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON SUNDAY MAY 10th 2009
John 14: 15 "If
you love me, you will keep my commandments".
Mothers Day. I wish all the mothers present many
blessings as you remember the joy - and the agony - of being a mother. If there
is one word we associate with mothers it is the word we have heard several
times in today’s Gospel - the word "love". In both the
Epistle and the Gospel today we have several mentions of the word
"love" - particularly the beginning of the gospel: "If you
love me, you will keep my commandments".
In reflecting on this, it is a bit like a mother
saying: "If you love me you will do what I say"!
In our household when I was growing up, my mother
usually said: "Wait until your father gets home"!!! In fact,
mothers usually provide compassion and love, and it's the father that usually
dispenses the discipline and the correction.
In today’s Gospel we see later (John 14:23) that Jesus
expands on this concept of love and commandment: "If anyone loves me,
he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and
make our home with him".
"Home", of course, is another word we
associate with mothers. They are the homemakers, usually there at home when the
children come. Often when the children have had an unfortunate day, injured
themselves or something, the mother is there to provide the comfort.
In my six years here in San Diego I have come to
admire military mothers, military wives - because when the husbands go on
deployment or tours of duty, often for months on end, it is the mothers who
provide the basis for the home in father's absence, and are really the parent who
both cares and hands out the discipline, as well as the encouragement. So I've
come to admire you military wives very much, as you
have a special job that is often not the lot of others.
As I was thinking about all of these things, I began
to think about who would be a suitable Patron Saint for mothers? Now we would all automatically say the
Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. But she can't be the patron saint
for mothers, for her Son was perfect. Now I know some mothers who may think
their son is perfect - but I don't know any mother who has a perfect son! Certainly not my mother J
Someone who is a good patron for mothers is Saint
Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
His mother, being a faithful Christian prayed daily
for his conversion to the Gospel. Eventually his mother Monica's prayers were
answered. He was converted and became a
bishop and a great theologian.
He is famous for two sayings, both of which reflect
his misspent youth:
Of course that's the whole point. If you love God
first, everything you do will be dependant not only on your love for God, but
how you live that love in your life.
Some people think it means you can do what you like as long as you have
some sort of love for God, however thin the connection is.
Both of these sayings seem to suggest an abandonment
of rules - that for a Christian it is more important to love God with all the
nice feelings it means, and forget about commandments. In fact, many voices
tell us that Christianity is about love and not about rules.
John 14:15, is a hard saying for many people: "If
you love me, you will keep my commandments". They don't like the idea
that if you love God there are some commandments as part of the bargain.
In fact it's not fashionable these days to have rules
and commandments. We live in a society in
which everyone should be able to do what they like, express what they like, and
think what they like. In the Church we don't hear so much about commandments
and the disciplines that the Church has given us - it's not very popular.
Some people say that the Gospel is only about love,
and commandments interfere with that. Obviously
Jesus doesn't agree with that and has a different idea! "If you love me, you will keep my
commandments",
John 14:15-21 contains a fascinating sequence of
verses, which at first might look slightly confusing. If you look at them, you
will see they are all interconnected. John 14 is part of what we call Jesus’ farewell
discourse to the apostles as he was preparing them for his Ascension into
heaven, and the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
In the verse immediately following this is a post
script, in which Jesus says that if we keep his word, he and the Father will
make their home with us.
Here we see the first outworking of the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity - that most hard and most difficult doctrine.
What Jesus is saying is that at the heart of the
Trinity is the mystery of love and mutual indwelling. And when you think about that, it makes the
whole thing sensible. What many people
see as a difficult thing to understand, the Holy Trinity, is actually quite
straight forward and relates to our relationship in daily life - the Trinity is
about love and mutual relationships.
Isn't that a great Gospel to have on Mothers' Day -
love and mutual relationship!
Now we can understand why the last day of Eastertide
is Pentecost. For the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that day is the
fulfillment of all that Jesus has been saying about his Resurrection and return
to the Father. And that is why the Sunday after Pentecost is celebrated as
Trinity Sunday - it is all related, and all made so clear in today's Gospel.
Pentecost is not a justification for speaking in tongues, or preaching powerfully - but rather a proclamation
that the Risen Christ continues to be present in his Church through the coming
of the Holy Spirit to the Christian community.
It is through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Risen Christ
not only continues to reign, but remains present in his Church and among his
people.
So now we move from a consideration and contemplation
of the Risen Christ appearing at various occasions since Easter Day to the
apostles, to a consideration of the ongoing presence of this same Risen and
exalted Christ in his Church.
Still there is this nagging thing..."If you
love me, you will keep my commandments?".
Firstly we know that for Jesus love involved
obedience. On the Cross, Jesus showed
his great love for world. There his love won for us the great gift of eternal
life and forgiveness of sins.
That could not be achieved unless Jesus was obedient,
not only to the Cross, but to his Father. Thus for Jesus, love and obedience
were intertwined, and cannot be separated. It is not just a matter of Jesus
doing what was required or what he knew had to be done. It is because at the
heart of love is both will and action.
If Jesus had not willingly offered himself as the
sacrifice for sin on the Cross, there would have been no meaningful
resurrection. If he had not done something, then his love would have
been pointless and shallow. It would have been words, and only words.
But Jesus did something. It was tough because real
love is tough. "Love is as
strong as death" as the Song of Songs says - another text for Mothers'
Day.
1 John 3:18, from today’s epistle, expresses
this in a very practical way. "Let
us not love in word or speech, but in deed and truth". In other words,
love is not just talk - it is action. The
Epistle reading concludes by saying the same thing that Jesus says in the
Gospel for today:
"All who keep his commandments abide in him, and
he in them. And by this we know that he
abides in us - by the Spirit which he has given us".
So we have come again full circle.
On this Mothers' Day perhaps we realise
that the greatest lesson we learnt from our mothers is that love and
commandments do go together.
They certainly do for the followers of Jesus!