Psalm 139:7-18
Ruthie Tippin, Indianapolis First Friends Meeting
Friends, this morning I had three different messages in my mind and one of them comes from my heart, so that is the one I am going to share with you today. The music that you’ve received this morning is a gift to you. A gift to our Mothers on Mother’s Day, but a gift to us all from our handbells, and from Eric and the Choir. This is the last time they will be sharing their ministry to us this school year, and I just want to add my thanks to yours, to all of the musicians for their kindness, their work, and their ministry to the Meeting. It’s been a very powerful year, under the direction of Shawn and then Eric for the Choir and Lynda for the Bells; it’s been an incredible experience, and I want to thank each one of them for bringing ministry to us in ways that sometimes speak to those who are gathered, in ways that nothing else can. I am very thankful for that.
Yesterday I was privileged to serve in ministry for the wedding of Tom Heusel and Lori Marshall as they gathered into union. After the wedding I was sitting in the hallway, and a little girl was there. I complimented her on her really pretty necklace, and I said, “I have a necklace, too.” I showed her my heart - this locket. Before you know it, she pulled out of her little purse a locket - she didn’t have it on a chain – I was just the heart. I opened mine up and said, “Look what I have inside… these are my two boys. Here’s Matt and here’s Seth. They gave me this locket a long time ago.” She opened up her locket, and she didn’t have any pictures in there. She said, “I’m going to put a picture of my daddy and me in my locket.”
I’m going to ask you today to allow yourselves to put God and you in your ‘locket’ and allow God to be your mother today. Allow God to be your mother today. Some of us are blessed, some of us are so blessed, to have had mothers who knew God, who knew how to nurture, who knew how to love us, and we are so thankful today. We bring God praise and thanksgiving for the gift of mothering that we received.
But Mother’s Day is kind of “tricky,” because not everyone has had that kind of experience. There are some children who never knew their mothers, and they are very curious about what ‘mothering’ is really like. Some children were adopted, and if you think in those terms, you actually have two mothers. I’m asking you to allow God to be your mother, and to be thankful for the mother who gave you birth and then gave you away, releasing you to your adoptive mother, who raised you, and then to God, who mothered over and through all of that.
Some of us have mothers who did not know how to nurture, and perhaps were even abusive. That’s very difficult, when you are celebrating Mother’s Day and it’s a ‘Hallmark Card’ kind of day - and you don’t have a Hallmark card kind of feeling. “When you care enough to send the very best.” Really, God? Was that the very best? So here is what I want you to think. Mother God… She was with you. She was with you, and you lived through it. You survived because of God’s strength in you. Now, allow God, in God’s love, to be your true Mother and love you through all of that. And understand that that person, your mother had choices, and perhaps her choices were informed by her mother’s choices. Allow God to mother her as well.
Some of us, are fathers who are mothers, and that’s a real challenge, but God knows what that’s all about! Scripture tells us that God knows how to gather…. God is like a mother hen gathering the chicks under her wings. God knows what it’s like to be a Mother. And we thank God for our fathers who raised us as mothers. God is loving us as mothers do.
As you move through Mother’s Day, allow God to be your mother. As you move through your life, and you see all the changes in your life, in the way God anticipates love, allow God to anticipate the love that you need. Allow God to be the love that you need. Allow God to bring you to that beautiful place of mothering, and open yourself to be free to accept the mothering of God with thanksgiving, with blessing. For those of you, who like me, have lost your mother to death, remember that nothing is lost to God. Remember that no-one is lost. None of your loving experiences are lost in God.
Now I’m going to ask you to do something today. I’m going to ask you to cup your hands together, and put yourself in the middle of your hands. And then I’m going to ask you to imagine God looking down on you as God does all the time, holding you. Now put one hand on top of the other, forming a hollow nest. This is Mother God, one hand over the other, protecting you. And then I want you to open your hands, and make them fly, knowing that God is freeing you, in God’s love to move on, to move on in love, knowing that God always loves. Allow God to love you in those ways, and allow God to love through you.
Some of you have wanted to be a mother. Some of you have wanted to be a mother and that has not come. Allow God to mother through you and see that God, Mother God, is already doing that work. You cannot imagine how many of God’s children are being loved through your love. Come and find the quiet center in yourself and allow God to speak into that center, whether it’s the center of your heart, the center of your womb, the center of your mind, the center of your being. Allow God to center you, in mother love.
Let us sing together, ‘Come and Find the Quiet Center’… ‘find the room for hope to enter’, as we begin our time of open worship.
Amen.