Dear Friends,
There are two events that I’d like to share with you today. The first is in anticipation of Mother’s Day this coming Sunday. This is often seen as something of a commercial holiday, but its roots are deeply Christian; we can find them in the Bible and in our own history. And there are powerful movements of mothers that affect our nation and actions for justice in our contemporary world. The second event is the National Day of Prayer, which is celebrated today.
Mother’s Day is celebrated annually as a day to honor mothers, motherhood, and the influence of mothers on society. It’s observed in various months (usually in March and May), in over forty countries throughout the world. Anna Maria Jarvis (1864-1948) of West Virginia is most often credited with the founding of Mother's Day here in the United States. Quite an accomplished woman, she was encouraged and supported by her visionary and much beloved mother. With her mother’s support, she attended college at the Augusta Female Seminary in Staunton, Virginia, today’s Mary Baldwin University, and created a professional life for herself. She worked as a teacher in Virginia and as a bank teller in Tennessee before moving to Pennsylvania, where she became the first female literary and advertising editor at an insurance company. She remained close to her mother throughout all these moves and welcomed her to her home in Pennsylvania when her mother’s health began to fail. Her mother died in 1905. In 1908, Anna Jarvis held a memorial service at her church to honor her and all mothers; that was the first official observance of Mother’s Day. In 1912, she created the Mother’s Day International Association, and two years later, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson formally designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day in the U.S.
As a people of faith, we remember faithful women and beloved mothers from the scriptures. In Genesis 15-18, we read of Sarah, old, childless, and despairing of ever having a family with her husband. As part of God’s covenant of faith with Abraham, she gave birth to Isaac. Her faith remained despite her surprise at her own unlikely pregnancy.
And we remember the first mother, Eve, the mother of Cain and Abel, in the opening chapters of Genesis, and Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who gave birth late in life after promising God that she would raise her child to serve God, as recorded in the First Book of Samuel.
We remember the story in Exodus 1-2 of the courage of the unnamed mother of Moses, who defied the Egyptian king’s orders to kill her own son and instead hid him in the reeds of the Nile. This ruthless king of Egypt had ordered the midwives – mother-figures all – to kill all newborn Hebrew male infants at birth, but they secretly and bravely defied him. In a genocidal rage, he then commanded that the people themselves kill their sons by throwing them into the Nile. And we remember the daughter of Pharaoh, who found the infant Moses and raised him as her own son in the very court of the one who had decreed his death. One gave up her son that he might have life, and the other took him in despite the risks to him and her own power.
We remember Ruth and Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. Naomi loved Ruth so much that, after the death of Ruth’s husband, her son, she urged her daughter-in-law to leave her and return to her homeland, where she was likely to find food, security, familiar relatives, and comfort. But Ruth chose the less secure path, staying with her vulnerable, also widowed mother-in-law and journeyed with her to Bethlehem, a place she did not know. The love between these two women transcended all boundaries of geography, culture, and society.
From the New Testament, we remember Elizabeth and Mary, cousins who gave birth in strange and unexpected, but faith-filled, circumstances, to sons. One, John the Baptist, was destined to inaugurate and proclaim a radical new movement of faith, and the other, Jesus, would save the world with a message of peace, justice, and love. Both mothers lost their sons to violent deaths, when both sons gave their lives as young adults to the proclamation and creation of what would become our faith.
In the early history of our church, we remember Monica, who raised her son, Augustine, in a faith that was neither supported by her husband nor yet widely recognized by the Roman culture. And that son became Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine, whose writings are an essential part of the development of western Christianity.
Women through the centuries have modeled their work for the church and society on the nurturing, sustaining love of mothers. We remember ministries in churches that are often created, led, and supported by women in a life-giving response to God’s love for us – food pantries; feeding programs; Christian education programs (which were almost always led only by women until very recently); Vacation Bible School programs; and in missionary programs, where they teach, serve in medical roles, and proclaim and represent the depth of their faith throughout the world. I suspect you can think of others.
We remember those mothers who, having lost their children to violence and injustice, witness daily to their children’s too-short lives. We remember the fearless mothers of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), who for forty years have made our communities safer after their children had been killed by drunk drivers, and Mothers of the Movement, a group of women whose African American children have been unjustly killed by misguided police officers or gun violence.
We remember our own mothers and the many women of our communities who have helped to mother us into the people we are today. That the word “mother” can be so easily and understandably used as a verb says it all! For all those who cared and continue to care, we give thanks to God, and to them.
I pray that my list may be our list, and yet I know I have left far too many mothers out. Remember them now and on Sunday.
As you may recall, on March 15, we observed a national day of prayer that was specifically related to the current pandemic. Prayer has unique and lasting effects on our national psyche, providing hope and solace in a time of great sadness and anxiety. The power of prayer is further evidenced by the fact that as a nation for nearly seventy years, we’ve designated an annual National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday in May. The National Day of Prayer is meant to serve as something of a bookend with Thanksgiving, which is about six months from now, on the fourth Thursday in November. Its origins stretch back to colonial days, when American colonists proclaimed days of prayer and fasting to protest British laws and actions. Virginia led many such events, protesting, for example, the British Port Act in 1774 with a time of fasting and prayer. Thomas Jefferson summed up that event with great admiration. “The effect of the day through the whole colony,” he wrote, “was like a shock of electricity.” Such is the power of prayer that shortly thereafter, Virginia moved to choose delegates for the purpose of establishing self-rule. There were many national days of prayer throughout our history, and in 1952, the first Thursday in May was formalized into law as the National Day of Prayer by the United States Congress and signed by President Truman. The law asks us “to turn to God in prayer and meditation.” Every year since then, the president has signed a proclamation encouraging Americans to pray on this day.
On this National Day of Prayer, the United Church of Christ, a partner denomination of the Presbyterian Church USA, is offering prayers every hour, that this day might be an International Day of Prayer. You may find all the prayers at UCC.org/IDOP. I have chosen one of the prayers for us to share together. It was written by the Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak, a Dutch Reformed Church cleric from Cape Town, South Africa. He is an author, public theologian, politician, anti-apartheid activist, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate.
As the sun sets here in Virginia, let us join in prayer with people of faith from around the world:
Oh God of endless grace, refuge of steadfast, boundless love, thank you that we are among the living today. In our bewilderment, helplessness and confusion, hear us. Death and destruction surround us in ways we have not ever imagined, cannot follow, cannot fully understand, and have no power to overcome. It is through your mercies that we are not consumed, because your compassions never fail. We are afraid of what we hear, yet like moths drawn to a deadly flame we turn daily to news that drowns us in fear and hopelessness. There is no comfort or safety in numbers now; it is in solitude that a way to life now lies. Help us not to resent our isolation, but to embrace the stillness, so we can hear your voice. Speak to us now of your mercies that are new every morning. Assure us once again that our lives are precious in your sight. Help us overcome our many fears, for you are our light and our salvation. Like Jesus in the wilderness, help us to discern and resist the temptations that in our anxiousness we call survival skills: of selfishness and mindless self-preservation that make us instant hoarders of what all must share; of desires to in our panic claim you for ourselves as if you are not the God of all; of securing our own security even at the cost of that of others. Teach us to pray for others, especially those who are our first defenders now. Help us to keep the love for your other children in our eyes for love’s own sake, even as we have to hide half our face behind the mask we wear for safety’s sake. Let our enforced isolation never become a substitute for lasting solidarity. We have to keep our distance. Do not be distant from us. Help us hear the breathing of your Holy Spirit as she whispers to us of a new tomorrow. Amen.