May 8, 2005

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:6-14

John 17:1-11

“Preserving the Family Name”

     Once a parent, always a parent.  A member of one of the churches I served used to talk about his rebellious daughters and the worry they caused him, how they were disrespectful and didn’t listen to what he said.  Of course, teenagers can be that way, but this particular parent was 97 years old and his daughters were in their 70’s!  Once a parent, always a parent.

     My mother still likes to tell me I need a good shave even though I’ve had this beard for 30 years.  You’d think she’d be used to it by now!  And she likes to add her little comments about decisions I’ve made or should make.  I can see she tries really hard to exercise some restraint, to allow me to be an adult, but the “Mom factor” cannot be completely controlled.  It’s one of those uncontrollable forces of nature like earthquakes or the movement of tectonic plates.  I’ve seen green pastures and still waters with Mom, but there have been a couple volcanoes, too!   Well, even if it can be a little annoying for a 49 year-old, I’m glad she still cares enough to give me a hard time every once in a while.  As she likes to remind me, she IS still my mother!

     I’d like to think that the grown children Kay and I raised now consider us the kind of parents who respect them as the adults they are.  After all, they’re off on their own now and have careers and lives of their own.  But to tell the truth, Kay and I occasionally find ourselves uncontrollably slipping back into some earlier phase of parenting when the kids were about 10 years old.  Of course they don’t let us get away with it for long, sighing, rolling their eyes or saying something like, “Mom, Dad, I’m not 10 years-old!”  I guess in some ways we wish they still were.  Once a parent, always a parent.

     We know so little about Jesus’ family, but in today’s reading from the Book of Acts, where the story of Christ’s ascension to heaven is told, we get a small glimpse.  There, in the background, we hear that his mother and his brothers were there.  And that’s pretty much where his immediate family is in the story of his life and ministry – in the background.  We know that he had a brother named James, but we don’t know the names of his other brothers or sisters.  We know that Joseph disappears from the story at some point, but don’t know what happened to him.  Mary certainly has a role in his final days and was in Jerusalem when he was arrested and crucified.  She was there to watch her son die.

     I still remember the “Pieta”, Michelangelo’s white marble sculpture of Mary and her dead son.  It was on display at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City.  I was only 8 years old, but it left a permanent impression on me.  It was as beautiful and peaceful as it was tragic and heartbreaking.  And as I’ve grown older I have come to more fully appreciate that that’s what parenting is, a mixture of both.  To love someone so deeply as a child must be loved means that we’ll sit up and worry when they don’t make it home for their 10:00 curfew or when their temperature rises above 100 degrees.  It means being so happy for them at times we are brought to tears and so unhappy at times the same  tears flow. 

     The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple a priest named Simeon broke into a hymn of praise upon seeing the child: “O Master, my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have

prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel!”  How surprised and pleased and blessed Jesus’ parents must have been!  But even as Simeon blessed them, he said to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

     Times of joyous light and hope and praise and times of worried darkness and sadness that pierces the soul, these are all part of being in a family, part of loving others deeply.  But through it all, what matters most is that we stick together in all the ups and downs.  I still remember one of the tense and difficult moments of my teenage years and my father saying that no matter how far off track I got, I was still a member of the family.  It’s one of the most important things he ever said to me. I think it’s the sort of thing we need to say to each other, especially in the difficult times.

     It’s what Jesus says to us, you know – no matter how far off track we get, we are still in the family.  His words come to us from the Gospel of John, making just this point:

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

     “Heavenly Parent, keep the family together, keep them one as we are one.  They go off into the big world now and have to stand on their own feet – protect them.  And through all the inevitable ups and downs, let them know they will always have their family name, will always be children of God.”

     There’s an old hymn entitled, “Blessed Assurance”.  This is what we have through faith in Christ, the blessed assurance that we’ll always be in the family come thick or thin.  We can come before God and confess our sins, be honest about the ways we have fallen short of God’s expectations, hopes and dreams for us, knowing that we will not be rejected, but forgiven and saved.  Consequently, new beginnings are always possible and we can go forward in this big world without fear because of the blessed assurance that we always remain in the Heavenly Parent’s love.

     This is a blessed assurance we can and must take into our own families, to be faithful to one another, to be there for each other when the chips are down, to let one another know our love can be trusted, no matter what.

     As we now consider expanding our church family a bit, growing into a new expression of faith with our friends of Second Congregational Church, we revisit the question of what it means to be Christ’s family, to be children of God.  In what ways can our collaboration express our unity, our sense of family to the communities we serve?  Do we have an opportunity here to share hope and wholeness with a broken world?  In these days when so many families struggle to keep it together, can we offer a place of rest and reassurance and healing?

     One of the most important things God has said to us in Christ is that we are always in the family, no matter what.  If we will say this to one another and to the people Christ has called us to serve, won’t we bless the heart of God?