Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, May 09, 2010
Sixth Sunday of Easter

GOSPEL: John 14:23-29

23Jesus answered [Judas (not Iscariot),] "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.  25"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe."

The "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

Today, the proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition. A singing quartet called the Righteous Mothers released a recording of the Proclamation as part of their 25th anniversary CD in 2006.

Mother's Day Proclamation

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.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Jesus of Nazareth and Julia Ward Howe

Visions of Peace ... not Dreams of Hate

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

[Every now and then there comes a sermon whose title is the best thing about it.  Such is this attempt at putting together the Johannine understanding of Jesus and the fact that this day was Mother’s Day … and that the first Mother’s Day was the result of Julia Ward Howe’s “Proclamation” of 1870.  It seems to me that “peace” is the connecting point between the two texts. 

Would that there had been a better preaching of all this, but again, sometimes the best thing about a sermon is its title.  There are some gospel-moments however within what follows, especially the statement that when our Mother’s give birth to us, they birth into us the gift of peace … and that the gift of peace is the entire meaning of the Fourth Gospel.]

In the year 1870 a number of things were going on in the world.

• Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City were completed.
• The 15^th amendment was entered into the United States Constitution giving African Americans the right to vote.
• Christmas was declared a Federal Holiday.
• Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets which in those days cost $13.50 per dozen.
• General Mackenzie and US Army Troops sacked the Cheyenne village at the Powder River, destroying all the winter food supply and killing all the ponies … this in retaliation for the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
• The phonograph was patented by Thomas Edison and his first practical light bulb was tested.
• John D. Rockefeller and four others formed the Standard Oil Company, gaining control of 95% of the oil refining industry in the US.
• The first Woolworth 5 & 10 cent store opened in Utica, New York.
• Across the Atlantic, Charles Dickens died; and the Franco-Prussian War broke out at the instigation of Prussian minister Bismarck who believed the war would help unify Germany.
• And, back on this side of the Atlantic, Julia Ward Howe, prominent American abolitionist, social activist, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and poet … became the first to proclaim “Mother’s Day” with her Mother’s Day Proclamation as a reaction to the death and destruction and carnage of the American Civil War ended not 5 years before, and the Franco-Prussian War that had just begun.

+++

Toward the end of the 1^st Century of the Common Era a few things were going on in the Mediterranean and Middle East.

• The 11^th Roman Emperor, Titus Flavius Domitianus (known to us as Domitian) was heavily into his “reign of terror” … expanding the tax upon Jews and the fledgling movement within Judaism who called themselves Christians … his position was that anyone who refused to accept the pantheon of Roman deities was an atheist.
• In Judaism, the rabbinic movement comes into being, a development out of the movement of the Pharisees.
• Among the Christians, persecution becomes more and more a reality … and at the same time the early church structure begins to take shape giving us bishops, presbyters (priests), and deacons.
• And sometime in the last 10 years of that Century, in perhaps two or three stages, and by most likely more than one author, a story came into being that put forth an image of Jesus of Nazareth who had died under the hands of earlier Romans, nearly 70 years before … we call that story The Gospel According to John.

+++

The image, the picture of Jesus of Nazareth put forth by this end-of-the-Century writing is most certainly based upon the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke … surely the authors had access to those stories; but the spin put upon this Jesus is something quite remarkable … and we as a church today in reading parts of this Gospel in our season of Easter have been involved in the significance of that spin or emphasis.

Jesus becomes, in this Gospel, not only the eternal presence of God, the eternal word of God, the eternal spoken-ness of God … he is the true Servant, whose whole existence is lived to show others not only the path to God, but the path to one’s neighbor.

The Fourth Gospel is a Gospel of Love, pure and simple.  Love of God, love of each other.

And that love, when it takes place, becomes a relationship where the loving itself finds a divine presence and home.  The Johannine Gospel Writers put it this way, as we read this morning, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

That is remarkable.

Just so then, the loving that comes into being in this relationship is something that rises above all worldly tragedy … like the persecution of Jews and Christians at the end of the 1^st Century … like the daily angst of living … like the sorrow and sadness of death …

… remember that in this particular portion of the Gospel According to John these words come in the long discourse of things Jesus says to his immediate followers … before his own death … they are words of assurance not only about personal things, but also about world events.

And so the Jesus of John’s Gospel explains that they will never be left alone, but always will be in the presence the Holy One, what John calls the παράκλητος …

… the Advocate (lit. “the one who is called next to someone and speaks to and for that someone”).

And then come the words which we all know by heart … what is the gift … the gift that Jesus gives?

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

Peace.

Not “as the world gives” … because the world so often gives anything but … no, the gift, the gift is peace … the calming of hearts, the restoring of relationships, the un-troubling of hearts, the ending of wars, the healing of the world and all its creatures … that is the gift of Jesus of Nazareth of the Gospel According to John.

It is something that turns the Gospel from just a nice story about a man from Nazareth, into a powerful message of social action … both in the 1^st Century and down through ages into our own time.

For you see, we … we here and present … we who are the church are the ones called to bring that gift into our relationships, into our communities, into our nation, into our world, into our time.

+++

We might say that in the Gospel According to Julia Ward Howe, this gift comes to life in the Mother’s Day Proclamation she penned.  Think of the horror of war, the Civil War she had lived through … more deaths than in any other war for our nation … 620,000 … some estimate closer to 700,000 … and in the Franco-Prussian War just begun in that year she thought Mother’s should arise in peace … some 200,000 … not including civilians who would die from starvation and the results of battles in their lands.

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

It is something that turns Mother’s Day from being just a time to give cards and flowers into a powerful message of social action … both in the 19^th Century and down through the years into our own time.

It is the gift of peace that is so precious a gift … the gift that comes in the birth of every child from every Mother … the gift that we, born of our Mothers, should and must make come alive in our relationships, in our communities, in our nation, in our world, and in our time.

Let us pray.
Almighty and merciful God, you are the only source of health and healing; you alone can bring calmness and peace. Grant to us, your children, a consciousness of your presence and a strong confidence in you. In our pain, our weariness, and our anxiety, surround us with your care, protect us by your loving might, and permit us once more to enjoy health and strength and peace; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

Deo Gratias (+)

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM