We are going to take a departure from our series of sermons on the book of Revelation to accommodate Mother’s Day because I am interested in keeping my job. I have heard that some pastors pooh-pooh Mother’s Day as a secular holiday and ignore it from the pulpit, choosing instead to preach from the lectionary assigned texts for the day, although I do not know of any. My suspicion is that such dogmatic purity comes at the expense of social skills and such preachers do not tend to enjoy long tenures. That may be an arguable theory, but I am not inclined to test it.

I too preach the assigned texts from the lectionary on this day, but usually find that one of the four options given tends to speak more than the others to the virtues of motherhood, and in today’s case that would be the Gospel lesson from John. It should not surprise us that the virtues of motherhood are reflected in so many texts about God. For most, our first exposure to the creative power of God is through our mothers. Our exposure to the love of God is through our mothers. Our experience of God’s nurturing, protective and guiding hand is through our mothers. If a text speaks about God, it can often be illustrated by an appeal to good and godly mothers everywhere.

That is why, beyond wanting to keep my job, I am among those who lift up mothers on Mother’s Day. Indeed, it seems as if assigning only a single day to do so is not enough given the influence of mothers on our lives. Granted not every mother approaches the ideals of motherhood. Nor does every woman aspire to motherhood--nuns for instance. Some women cannot become biological mothers for medical reasons affecting either them or their spouses, although some of the most devoted mothers are not biological mothers.

But one thing we all have in common is that we all had mothers. If we were fortunate to have loving mothers, then among all the head starts every child of God deserves we had the first and foremost. For that we should be grateful on this and every day, and from that example we should learn what it means to be instruments of God’s love to his other children beginning with those he has entrusted to our special care. And so it is that we shall endeavor this day to emphasize one half of the great commandment read as our Old Testament Lesson: Honor your father and your mother….

The title of our message of our message is "To Love, Honor and Obey." Today we are going to honor our mothers by learning the connection between obedience and love. Most people would associate that title with wedding vows, especially if they are a bit older. Not so long ago wedding vows reflected the practice of regarding wives as the property of their husbands, who were themselves regarded as the head of the household. Therefore brides vowed to, among other things, obey their grooms.

In many cultures today wives are still regarded as the property of their husbands and must submit to the latter as the head of the family. However women in all times and places have often found ways to skirt that obligation. I am reminded of a line from the movie, "MY Big Fat Greek Wedding." The old school mother is instructing her daughter, who is a bride-to-be, about the time-honored roles of husbands and wives. "The man is the head," she says, "but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants."

Well, needless to say, in our time and place wedding vows have changed from "Love, honor and obey" to "Love, honor and cherish." But this is not a message about wives and their husbands. It is about mothers and their children. The need for children to love, honor and obey their mothers has not changed and will never change. And it will never change for the same reason that our need to love, honor and obey the Lord will never change. Let us turn to our text to find out why.

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me" (Verses 23-24). Jesus was about to return to his Father who had sent him into the world. Just after this discourse he would be arrested, tried and crucified. He had taught his disciples many things. Now he was telling them to obey his teachings if they loved him.

To understand the connection between obedience and love we must understand the relationship between parent and child, between creator and created, and between God and his people. God knows what is best for his people. God knows better than his people what is in their best interests just as surely as a mother knows better than a child what is in that child’s best interests. The child wants to eat all the candy in the Halloween sack all at once, but the mother says "no." The child says, "I want it! You’re mean! I don’t love you." Maybe the angry child even sneaks some candy and eats it when mom isn’t looking. "I’ll show her." And then child gets a tummy ache and who’s there to rub it? Dear old mom.

A mother wants the best for her children even more than she wants the best for herself. A mother will make untold personal sacrifices to provide the best for her children, and she will do it happily all the more she sees her children prosper. It pains a mother to see her children settle for less. As one saying puts it, "You are only as happy as your least miserable child." If you really want to pain your parents, settle for less until you are really miserable. Nothing hurts a parent more than that.

When we combine these two facts of motherhood: 1) that mom knows better than anyone what is in her child’s best interest, and 2) that it pains her to see a child settle for less than the best; we begin to understand why Jesus links obedience with love. How can we love someone and cause them pain and anguish at the same time? When we choose to hurt ourselves through self-destructive behaviors, when we squander our God-given gifts and talents, and when we refuse to obey what our mothers know will correct a big mistake in the making; we are not just hurting ourselves. Oh no, we are not just hurting ourselves.

A mother can really relate to what Jesus is saying in out text. "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching" and "he who does not love me will not obey my teaching." If you hate your mother you know how to hurt her: don’t honor her fondest wish for you and don’t obey her when she is more right than you. If you love her, then honor and obey her as you would the Lord, for more than anyone else she embodies the Lord’s love for you—and always will regardless of your age or station in life.

Nancy, Mary Beth and I just this past week watched a movie starring Denzel Washington. Nancy and Mary Beth, like most women I suspect, rather swoon over this leading man. Denzel talks of when he first became a movie star and walked into mother’s house feeling rather full of himself. He said, "Mother, did you ever think this was all going to happen?" She responded, "Oh please, go wash the windows for me. You have no idea how many people have been praying for you when you were a knucklehead."

As far as our mothers are concerned, some of us never reach adulthood. One stormy morning an obviously anxious mother called a school office to check if her son’s bus had arrived. "What’s your son’s name," the secretary asked, "and what grade is he in?" A giggle followed a pause. "Oh, he’s not a student," she said, "He’s the bus driver." It’s kind of reassuring to know that there will always be one person who will have your back so long as she has the breath of life in her—and even after the breath of life has left her.

In our text Jesus continues: "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (Verses 25-26). Remember that Jesus is speaking to his disciples just prior to his arrest and crucifixion. He is about to go away from their earthly presence, but the Holy Spirit is about to come and remind them of everything he said while he was still with them.

In last week’s message entitled "Beulah Land" I mentioned my Grandmother Beulah. She was a grand mother in every respect, not only to her children but to their children after them. All of us grandkids loved Grandma and could confide anything in her with complete confidence. Many of us grandkids lived with her at one time or another. She taught us how to bait a hook and she gave us one very good reason to so live as to make our people proud.

When we moved to a new church in Milwaukee, my prophetic Mom knew we would eventually move back, but she said, almost to herself, "Somebody’s not going to be here when you do." She was right about that. My Grandma Beulah died while we were in Milwaukee. We came back and I presided at her funeral, and I did a good job keeping my composure. But you know me; my grief comes home to roost when I am in the Lord’s House on the Lord’s Day.

It happens that way for you too. This is where we draw near to God to find comfort in our hour of grief. Up here I can see you weeping in the pews. The tears are streaming down and nobody around you can see them but me and maybe some folks in the choir loft. But when I fall apart up here, everyone can see it—and I’ve got work to do. So trust me, I never cry for a pretext and I always try to hold it in until a private moment arrives. But the more I try to hold it in the more the pressure builds to let it out, and I bet I make some pretty funny faces in that period between composure and a lack thereof.

When I returned from Grandma’s funeral to Sunday services at the church in Milwaukee, during the middle hymn the most exquisite grief began to shoot up from the depths of my soul. Like lava shooting up to erupt in an Icelandic volcano, like oil shooting up from an offshore blowout, this grief was not to be denied. Everybody was watching while I put my face in my hands and just began to convulse. The poor Senior Pastor did not know what to do. The Organist looked at the Choir Director who just shrugged as if the show must go on.

All of a sudden this image popped into my mind out of nowhere. It was my Grandma Beulah sitting back with her finger pointed at me and laughing. She was laughing because of this predicament I was in with all those tears on her account--and her laughter was contagious. It made me laugh to think about it and, just as suddenly as it had come, my grief passed before the last verse was finished and I had to read the offertory sentence.

But I remember thinking at that moment that in some ways Grandma was more immediately and intimately available to me than she ever had been before. And the last I remember of that image of her is that she was no longer laughing and pointing but nodding knowingly as if to say, "Yes, I am with you always." She used to sit in the pews of the first church I served in Columbus where we would sing "Beulah Land" with a wink and a nod toward her. And here she is still present in a Mother’s Day message after all these years.

I think Jesus may have had something like this in mind when he said that he had to go so that the Holy Spirit could come and he could be more immediately and intimately available not only to his disciples but to all who would believe in him through their spirit-empowered testimony. The Lord continues to call out, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. He will honor me with a life well-lived."

And the Lord continues to reach out to us through his chosen instruments, most intimately for most of us through our mothers, grandmothers and other maternal influences in our lives. He calls us to honor our mothers first and foremost with a life well-lived. That is an honor we can bestow not only while they are yet in this life, but even after their arrival in the life to come from where their love and care continues to reaches to us until we are gathered together with them—never to part again.