Some of you may know that since we have an interim organist, yours truly has been selecting most of the music except for the choir anthems. As I was looking on the web for mother’s day church music, I noticed that someone suggested the song, Harper Valley PTA.
Instead we sang a familiar tune with strange new words about a fourth century saint who may be obscure to many of you. Monica, mother of three from North Africa, would probably not be remembered except that she was the mother of St. Augustine AND the mother of Perpetua. Perpetua you ask? Well, yes, Perpetua would be martyred as a young adult; literally fed to the lions in the coliseum in front of a crowd. So Monica, the obscure, North African mother would change the course of world history through her own powerful faith and her children.
Although raised by Christian parents, her pagan husband prevented the baptism of their three children. Their eldest son, Augustine, would eventually go to school in Carthage where he adopted the Manichean belief. Have you ever noticed how even children who are close to their parents will often adopt habits, beliefs, and lifestyles that are totally foreign or even offensive to their parents? Monica was dismayed at her son’s choice of this crazy, Manichean religion. After seventeen years, she would eventually follow him across the Mediterranean to Rome and then to Milan before he converted to Christianity.
One of my favorite children’s stories is “The Runaway Bunny,” a 1942 book by Margaret Wise Brown. The book is a dialogue between a young bunny and his/her mother. The child-bunny fantasizes about going to all these places, and each time the mother bunny says she will follow the little bunny or be with the little bunny. Here are some excerpts:
Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
For you are my little bunny.”
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”
”“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”
“If you become a tree,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a little sailboat,
and I will sail away from you.”
“If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,”
said his mother, “I will become the wind
and blow you where I want you to go.”
“Shucks,” said the bunny, “I might just as well
stay where I am and be your little bunny.”
And so he did.
“Have a carrot,” said the mother bunny.
Because of their religious differences, Augustine tried very hard to run away from his mother. He was in his twenties and took passage on a boat to Rome without saying good bye to her. Soon, she followed him to Rome only to discover he had already left for Milan. She followed him to Milan. Eventually the Bishop of that city would change Augustine’s heart. Augustine converted to Christianity and the world was changed as a result. Monica passed away six months after her son’s conversion. She died in a foreign land after spending several years following her son.
There is an old Spanish proverb that says “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.” I still haven’t figured out if that means that I equal about ten pounds of a mother, but I do know that we are both in the love business. Jesus tells us that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is what mothers do.
Like it or not, we develop our first understanding of God’s love from our mother. This may or may not be a good thing, but develop we do. Healthy mothers sacrifice themselves for their children by giving of their time, their money, and as in the case of Monica, even their choice of place to live.
Some of us may have had less-than-ideal mothers and childhoods. Even in these situations, you may find love like a rose on a thorny bush. In many respects, a healthy church community can fill in the gaps for people with less-than-ideal families of origin. When you walk in the door of a healthy faith community for the first time, some people will say they feel like they are finally “at home.” I think what they are experiencing is a lack of judgment, a sense of acceptance, a smile, a touch, – in short, love.
Yes, healthy mothers and healthy churches are in the love business and our job is very simple: spread the love. Mothers do this by sharing their love with their children and grandchildren. In our church community we provide a safe place for those who have been wounded by other churches and even their families. Unlike places that talk a lot about Jesus and the Bible, we don’t talk a lot about what Jesus says, we simply try to do what he does. We share the love, or in the words of Jesus, we “love one another.”