May 8 -- 3rd Sunday of Easter/Mother's Day

Grace to you and peace this day from our risen Christ – risen in the midst of celebration, risen in the midst of devastation, risen in the midst of violence, risen in the midst of sorrow – grace to you and peace this day from our risen Christ. AMEN.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, I am feeling a bit like a juggler this morning, with three flaming torches in the air, all very important in my mind: 1) Today is Mother’s Day, and while it is not a liturgical celebration, I think it needs to be celebrated, remembered historically, and honored in our churches: Torch #1. Torch #2: Today comes at the end of an historical week, and if we are people “not of the world, but in the world”, then we must throw into the mix a torch of recent events, namely the killing of Osama bin Laden and the subsequent, developing stories. Reinhold Neibuhr, talked about Christians always approaching the world with a newspaper in one hand and a bible in the other. Nowadays you can cram that all on your smartphone, but the image is still poignant. We have to reflect theologically on events in our world in our church. Torch #2. And finally, speaking of Bible-in-one-hand we must, as a people who gather around word and Sacrament each week reflect upon this beautiful Gospel story, the Road to Emmaus. This is how Luke ends his Gospel. The last time I read that in this space was when we read the entire Gospel of Luke together and I was reading this final chapter, from the center isle, struggling to get through it without my voice getting shaky. This beautiful story at the end of a long journey, Christ is revealed. How we need to hear that again. Perhaps instead of this text being a third torch, to juggle perhaps we might imagine this text rather as grounding, as a stage upon which to stand this unique Mother’s Day.

Call your attention to the pre-written but helpful introduction for the day – on p. 3.

Today's gospel begins with two disciples walking to Emmaus, overcome with sadness, loss, and disappointment. They had hoped Jesus, who was crucified, would be the one to redeem Israel! Yet the risen Christ walks with them, and then opens their eyes in the breaking of the bread. Each Sunday our hearts burn within us as the scriptures are proclaimed and Christ appears to us as bread is broken and wine is poured. The story of Emmaus becomes the pattern of our worship each Lord's day.

I find this to be quite fitting for our day, even though there’s no mention of Mother’s Day or news headlines. How we can be like those 2 disciples walking away. How we can “hope” for Jesus to make all our dreams come true, all our prayers answered, the one to redeem Israel – that is righting all the wrongs in our world.

I wonder if we’re experiencing a sort of anti-climactic moment now that we’re a couple days past the killing of Osama bin Laden. “We had hoped.” If we could just get Osama, if we could just isolate evil, single it out, and then kill it, the world would be a better and safer place. There were celebrations in the streets across our country a week ago tonight. But now, just days later, perhaps we’re not feeling all that much safer…or less safe. Kind of feels the same. Kind of makes you wonder--maybe we didn’t get all the evil in the world killed, and it’s tempting to want to look for more. This is a somber time for we are being reminded again that evil can’t be encapsulated in one person and then exterminated. We’re being reminded again that we have evil within ourselves too.

We had hoped, that Jesus would be the one to “redeem Israel,” but instead he’s just on the road with us, just walking alongside, revealing himself to us in ordinary ways, not it in fire-works displays or marching bands or helicopter strikes or street parties, but in a little bread and wine on a quiet corner of Avocado Blvd. and Fury Lane.

As I’ve been juggling in preparation this week, I’ve been drawn back to this question in our text, “Were not our hearts burning within us as he opened the Scriptures to us?” Has your heart ever burned within you as the Holy Spirit moves in your midst? I don’t mean “heartburn” or acid reflux, I mean has God ever put something in your heart or in your mind that burns? [pause]

I’ve been reflecting on this experience of our hearts burning within us – as not always a joyous experience but always a passionate one. [pause] Romantic passion can certainly be one example of that: heart burning with excitement or anticipation – that’s certainly a joyful heart burning within. But our hearts burn with passion in other ways too: when we see something that’s just so wrong – we could get political here, but I think a universal experience (political stances) is seeing a child starving or suffering in some way. Our hearts pound a little bit harder.

And this is where I have to bring up Mother’s Day. This is a day that began in the U.S. by two mothers whose hearts burned for peace – “for peace in the world, for peace in our hearts, for peace in our homes” as we sang. I think Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe, two of the American founders of Mother’s Day, would like singing our Kyrie…for they were passionate about peace and wanted to set a day aside to say “blessed are the peacemakers” – mothers and all women of peace.

Anna Javis, who petitioned for years President Wilson to recognize Mother’s Day as a holiday…later opposed the day because it had become so much more about commercializing and much less about thanksgiving for and reflection upon peace-making.

I’d like to share Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation, which is often outshined/understated:

"Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God."

This week I visited with our sister in the faith Madeline Botz at her lovely home down the hill. I was struggling with the text, what to make of current events, Mother’s Day, and I asked her about what she thought of things she was seeing in the news. And this mother of 5, grandmother of 11, great grandmother of (__? ), says to me, “Well, I just think about all those empty chairs at the dinner tables – the empty chairs in the homes of our declared enemies, who are away fighting or have been killed, the empty chairs in the homes of our troops, who are away fighting or have been killed. So many empty chairs.”

From the bosom of our devastated earth a voice goes up…

Christ is with us, as we walk along, or even walk away. Christ is stays with us as we practice hospitality. The disciples invited Jesus even when they didn’t know who he was. Christ is with us as we practice hospitality, perhaps entertaining angels unaware. And Christ is with us during these days of empty chairs – in our dining spaces at home, in this dining space at church, Christ is with us, not as conqueror, but as bread: as the bread of peace, as the word of life. AMEN.