The Spirit of Mothering
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
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For May 14, 2023:
The Spirit of Mothering
by Elena Delhagen
John 14:15-21
This Sunday, May 14th, we will celebrate Mother’s Day. It’s an interesting tradition that dates back to ancient times, when Greeks and Romans would hold festivals to honor their mother goddesses. Then, the Christian festival “Mothering Sunday” was born (no pun intended), when the faithful would attend their mother church for a special service.
These days, it’s a day in which we honor the sacrifices and servitude of mothers. We recognize that motherhood comes in all shapes and sizes — despite cruel remarks made by representative Marjorie Taylor Green suggesting she believes otherwise.
In the gospel reading, Jesus promises that he will send the Spirit to be with us forever. “Spirit” is a feminine noun here, suggesting that Jesus is promising to send us a mother — an advocate and comforter who will abide both in and with us.
In the Scriptures
For all you Greek readers out there, you’ll know that the word for Spirit is pneuma. The Greek language has masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns, the last of which carry no gender. In John 14, while the word is technically a neuter noun, which would literally be translated as “it,” yet I feel confident in my assertion it is used in a feminine context here. Why? First, because its Hebrew counterpart, ruah, is feminine. (So are the Syriac and Aramaic words for spirit.) Jesus, let us all remember, was a Jew, as were all his disciples. The earliest Christians (again, all Jews) spoke of the Holy Spirit as a feminine figure.
Pneuma, you see, is not just a spirit, but it is the spirit that gives life — a function that is, inherently, feminine. And before you ask, let me be clear: I am neither suggesting that all who give life are mothers, nor that those who do not give life are not mothers. What I am saying, however, is that there would be no human birth without a mother, and just as a mother is supposed to care for and nurture her children so, too, does the Holy Spirit our mother grant us spiritual birth. (The desert mothers and fathers of our faith through the ages would also agree.)
In the News
Mother’s Day is celebrated in the US on the second Sunday of May, though holidays honoring motherhood occur at different times all around the world. Its American origins date back to the 1800s, but it was made an official holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. “Born in the United States amid gunfire, civil war, the antislavery movement and the feminist fight for suffrage, Mother’s Day was meant to be more than it is today.” An early iteration of Mothers’ Day (note the collective possessive) was established in the 1870s by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe. Howe held the common first-wave feminist belief that (white) mothers could and should have a political voice to shape their world. Over time, the case for Mother’s Day (note that the apostrophe has now become singular possessive) was made by Anna Jarvis, who wanted to honor the wishes of her own mother, who wished to acknowledge individual mothers. When President Wilson signed it into law, he did so with an interesting twist — he linked it to women’s roles in home life, thereby rejecting suffragist visions of women as a political class with important political and social roles outside of the home. Today, still, women around the world face barriers and obstacles based on discrimination of their sex. A new policy, drafted by human rights organization Equality Now, has been introduced that calls on governments to repeal discriminatory laws against women.
In other news, Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene made headlines lately for continuing her controversial outbursts amid hearings for the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis. Head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, recently appeared before the committee and was questioned by Greene. Green pressed Weingarten about the decision Weingarten had made to close schools during the pandemic.
“Are you a medical doctor?” the Georgia Republican asked Ms. Weingarten.
“I am not.”
“Are you a mother?” Ms. Greene asked.
Ms. Weingarten replied, “I am a mother by marriage.” (Weingarten married her wife, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, in 2017 and became stepmother to Kleinbaum’s two children from a previous marriage.)
Greene continued with her argument that Weingarten was not qualified to have advised the CDC on medical guidelines because Weingarten was “just a political activist” and “not a teacher, not a mother, and not a medical doctor.”
In the Sermon
At our churches on this Mother’s Day, we need to honor the fact that motherhood comes in all different shapes and sizes, and they are all valid. Those who give birth biologically are not the only mothers in our world. There are adoptive mothers and foster mothers, trans and nonbinary mothers, stepmothers and spiritual mothers, and they all deserve to be celebrated for doing the hard work of mothering.
At the beginning and end of the gospel passage is love, the essential characteristic for any mother (or any parent, for that matter!). Love for God exists simultaneously with being loved by God; you can’t have one without the other.
Finally, if you are able to accept the Spirit as a feminine figure, then you might consider preaching on how Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit is his promise to send a mother, one who comforts and advocates on our behalf and will never, ever leave our side.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Getting Your Religion at the Mall
by Mary Austin
Acts 17:22-31
“I’m church shopping,” a guest at my church will often say. I appreciate the honesty.
They’re looking for a place where the music and the spoken words feel familiar enough, where the bathrooms are clean and the church doesn’t smell weird. Bonus points if the people hit the sweet spot of warmth — friendly enough without inviting them to be a deacon on their first Sunday.
Now people aren’t just church shopping — they’re searching for whole religious frameworks. We’re not so different from the world Paul encounters in the Athens, with all kinds of religious choices, including the unknown god. Paul praises the Athenians for their deep religious feeling, and then challenges them to find what they seek in Jesus. He observes the universal longing for the holy, saying that people are made, “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”
God is not far from us either, and people are seeking the holy in all kinds of ways. People have high levels of spiritual belief, and more places to search for something to believe in. TikTok is heavy on spiritual teachers, and younger people report spending up to three hours a day there. In lieu of church, they get weekly spiritual guidance comes from TikTok.
Writing for the Christian Century, Jessica Mesman notes that people are also finding meaning in tarot cards. “My social circle of lapsed Catholics, exvangelicals, and other “deconstructing” Christians may have lost the narrative threads we followed for much of our lives, but we can rattle off our rising signs, Enneagram numbers, and Myers-Briggs types like our Social Security numbers. In the absence of the ready-made life story I had in Catholicism, it sometimes feels like I’m begging whatever magic mirror I can find to please, tell me who I am! For many of those searching for new spiritual practices and meaning, reading tarot cards satisfies a yearning for a coherent personal story transmitted through a ritual. Tarot also encourages the development of private intuition, something that has too often been dismissed, belittled, or even vilified in patriarchal traditions. A 2021 survey showed that 51% of a sample population between the ages of 13 and 25 engage in tarot cards or fortune-telling.”
Christians are finding ways to blend tarot cards with more traditional faith. “Many Christians object to tarot because of its associations with divination and fortune-telling. But others are increasingly using the cards as a tool for self-directed spiritual contemplation. Gil Stafford, a retired Episcopal priest and spiritual director, incorporates tarot in his practice along with the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs. Brittany Muller, author of The Contemplative Tarot: A Christian Guide to the Cards, uses tarot cards in conjunction with the Book of Common Prayer to practice visio divina.”
Crystals are having a moment, and an expert on crystals says, young people are reaching out to her in droves. “They’re asking questions about the magical properties of crystals and herbs. This wave of young people was born with a higher consciousness. They’re more focused on the well-being of the planet and more sensitive to the earth’s vibrations,” she said.
We’re longing for connection with the divine and also with each other, post-pandemic. A new study confirms high levels of loneliness, which impacts our physical and mental health. “There is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day…the physical consequences of poor connection can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.”
Church could be that place of connection and meaning, if we stop making ourselves unpalatable to people.
Paul adapts his message to the people he meets and to their needs; instead, the church wants people to adapt to us. Ironically, articles on this topic have titles like “Why Christians Don't Go to Church Anymore (and why they must)” instead of “How to Talk to People Like Paul Does” or “How to be As Interesting as TikTok.” Paul begins with praise for the faith people already have, and then promises more of what they already find meaningful. He speaks a word of inclusion, promising that everyone listening is “God’s offspring.” The word of hope and promise is for “all,” he’s careful to say. He offers insight and depth, building on what they’re already doing.
As Dr. Willie James Jennings writes in his commentary on Acts, "Paul here extends himself into a Gentile world to offer a way into God’s beautiful new world. Paul, formed in Torah sensibilities, is rightly greatly disturbed by the idolatry all around him, but now he will do something absolutely stunning and marvelously productive with his outrage. He will not turn away from the idolaters, but toward them. This is what the gospel demands.”
If we want people to come to church, to meet God there and to find sustenance in community, we are invited to be more like Paul. As Dr. Jennings puts it, “What do you say to those radically outside yourself, radically different from you? What do you say to those whose religions and rituals you have been trained to loathe?” Like Paul, we can find people in places that are meaningful to them, and extend what we know about God and community.
We can learn from Paul’s spiritual flexibility and his ability to see the power in what people are doing, instead of looking down on them, shaming them, or laughing at the places they seek meaning. Paul invites us toward a generous view of our fellow seekers.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer
John 14:15-21 — I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
Maggie’s Kids
Maggie Doyne graduated from high school at the age of 17 in 2004 and knew then, as she has known since she was a small child, that she wanted to change the world for the better.
So impatient was she to do so that she decided, that summer, to take a year off from school and, with her parents’ blessing, go to India and spend part of her “gap year” working for an organization that was helping refugees fleeing the thirteen-year-long internal strife in Nepal.
While working with that organization, she met a girl her age that had escaped from Nepal seven years earlier and had never been back. Together, the two girls decided to go to Nepal and see the state of the country first hand.
They travelled around Nepal and took stock of the poverty and the lack of opportunity that had been left in the wake of the civil war. They also discovered that the war had left the country with just under one million orphaned children who were dependent upon a largely ineffective government and the largess of charity organizations for their survival.
Maggie says that she was not able to just look at the problem and then leave. She felt compelled to help those orphans in some concrete, if small way. So she called her parents in New Jersey and asked them to send her all of the money that she had saved from babysitting and other odd jobs. The total amount, accumulated over the course of four years of high school, amounted to about $5,000.
With that money she purchased a piece of property and started a school for orphans in Nepal. She was eighteen years old.
Today, nearly 20 years later, the school as enrolled more than 230 children and has 24 full-time teachers. Maggie speaks fluent Nepalese and the children at her school all speak English. Maggie also has legal custody of 40 children for whom she has created a home and family environment at the Kopila Valley Children’s Home. They call her “Mum.” When her parents come to visit, they call them “Grandma and Grandpa.” She is also the founder of the Blink Now Foundation, which raises money and investments to help finance the school and home.
Asked by a reporter if Maggie, who is 38, had any advice for young people who want to make a difference, this is what she said: “Don’t wait until you are old enough to change the world. Don’t wait to retire, to have money or to have your masters’ degree. You can’t wait. You have to start right now. If I had waited, my kids wouldn’t have had a life as they do now.”
Maggie might have spent her gap year working in India, helping refugees and then returned to her comfortable life in New Jersey, but once she saw the suffering of over a million children in Nepal, she could not turn her back on them.
Someone, she realized, needed to speak for them, to be there for them, to be an advocate for them. She just could not leave them orphaned.
* * *
Bring Them Home
Nicole Winfield, writing for the Religion News Service, reports that Pope Francis on Sunday revealed that a secret peace “mission” in Russia’s war in Ukraine was under way and that the Vatican is willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war.
“I’m available to do anything,” Francis said during an airborne press conference in route home from Hungary. “There’s a mission that’s not public that’s underway; when it’s public I’ll talk about it.”
Deportations of Ukrainian children have been a concern since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Francis said the Holy See had already helped mediate some prisoner exchanges and would do “all that is humanly possible” to reunite families.
The International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s commissioner, accusing them of war crimes for abducting children from Ukraine. Russia has denied any wrongdoing, contending the children were moved for their safety.
Last week Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with Francis at the Vatican and asked him to help return Ukrainian children taken following the Russian invasion.
“I asked His Holiness to help us return home Ukrainians, Ukrainian children who are detained, arrested, and criminally deported to Russia,” Shmyhal told the Foreign Press Association after the audience.
* * *
Homes for Refugees
According to the Religion News Service, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan nearly two years ago, religious congregations across the country began extending an embrace to refugees.
Partnering with resettlement agencies, they helped families escaping war and political turmoil settle into homes, find jobs, learn English and acclimate to life in the US.
Now, in a corner of North Carolina, a group of Baptist churches has begun to deepen that support by retrofitting vacant church-owned buildings — often homes — for refugee housing.
Organized through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina but open to any religious congregation, a new initiative encourages churches to refurbish church-owned parsonages, office buildings, youth clubhouses or single-family homes and make them available to refugees or humanitarian parolees for a nominal fee.
“It’s increasingly difficult to find affordable housing for refugees,” said Marc Wyatt, a missionary who founded the Welcome House Community Network. “Churches have physical property and buildings that are underutilized. Rethinking the use of those buildings for housing is our vision.”
On April 29 the network held its first housing and hospitality summit with 210 congregational leaders — mostly from North Carolina — wanting to learn more about how to use vacant church properties to minister to refugees.
The conference made plain twin realities: A glut of underutilized church properties and a severe shortage of affordable housing for newly arrived refugees with few means.
So far, about a dozen churches in North Carolina’s Triangle region, anchored by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, have retrofitted ancillary buildings for use by refugees. In all, about 40, including churches in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas, have joined the Welcome House network.
* * *
Acts 17:22-31 — Cafeteria Worship & Theology
Why No More?
The web site BecauseMomSays.com offers these as some of the top 15 reasons people leave organized religion:
Greedy megachurches; Unnecessary showiness; Lack of gratitude; An attitude of entitlement; Fakey, judgmental, religious people; Abuse; Empty, cliched advice; Refusal to ask or answer questions; Apparent contradictions not explained; Misogyny.
* * *
How to Create Your Own Religion
When asked in a survey if they believe in God or a “higher power” most people say that they do. But, asked what church they attend, nearly as many say “None.” Noting this seeming disparity, writer John Howell offers a solution: Create your own religion.
Here is his plan in just six easy steps:
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From team member Chris Keating:
Mother’s Day
Navigating Mother’s Day as a transperson
As traditions change and our awareness of the world’s diversity broadens, some congregations will be faced with the challenges presented by Mother’s Day. For example, consider the experience of Denise Brogan-Kator, a trans woman who is also a parent and grandparent. She writes, “Each year, as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day approach, I channel my own mother’s need for acknowledgement from my offspring and approach the mailbox each day with some excitement — and some dread.” Brogan-Kator noted that the holiday speaks to the vital role being a parent plays in her life. But because her children were young when she first began transitioning, they have continued to call her “Dad,” or Daddy,” while her young grandbabies call her “Gram.” She believes her children acknowledging both her role and her gender is more important than falling into a particular stereotype promoted by the greeting card industry. As she noted in 2018:
I am proud to be my children’s parent. I am proud of them and their successes. Professionally, my three daughters grew up to be an engineer, a scientist, and a doctor of family relations. They are happy. What more could a parent want? In that, I suppose I do fit the parental stereotype.
* * *
Mother’s Day
Considering all families
As churches realize the breadth of diversity in families today, making adjustments to gender-specific celebrations becomes necessary. Kids raised by two fathers may not feel particularly welcome if the focus is exclusively on women who fulfill maternal roles. Members of the Family Equity Council suggest that we check our assumptions that every family consists of one mother and one father. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” notes Option B. “Transgender parents may not celebrate according to traditional gender norms. If you have an LGBTQ family in your life and you’re unsure about wishing them a happy Mother’s Day, ask if and how they celebrate instead of making assumptions.”
* * *
Acts 17:22-31
I see you are (or are not) religious in every way
Imagine Paul speaking to modern day crowds in New York City, Washington, DC, or even Greenville, SC, dubbed by the World Atlas as “America’s most religious city.” If Paul looked around at the objects of modern day worship, what would be his response?
Acts 17:22-31
Yearning to grow
More hopeful news, at least for churches and traditional religious organizations, comes from the Barna Group. In an October, 2022 survey, Barna found that three out of four persons say that they want to grow spiritually. Slightly more (77%) indicate that they believe “in a higher power,” with 44% reporting that they are more open to God after the pandemic than before. About 80% of Americans surveyed reported belief in a supernatural or spiritual power in the universe. According to Barna, some of the greatest signs of belief emerge from teenagers:
In a culture that has generally downgraded the reputation of Christians and relegated Sunday worship and other church-related activities to the sidelines of society, teens remain refreshingly open to Jesus as an influence in their lives… it seems that this coming generation still believes that there is a person who reminds us that there is a good and right way to live.
* * *
John 14:15-21
Forever families
This week, North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum signed the Indian Child Welfare act, designed to protect tribal cultures. The law gives Native American families preference in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native American children. Currently, A 1978 federal law known as the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is being challenged by white families who say the law is unconstitutional and puts the needs of tribal councils above children. Supporters of the law include tribal leaders who see it as essential to preserving Native American culture and identity.
* * *
John 14:15-21
The trauma of being abandoned
John 14’s emphasis on Christ’s promise to not leave the disciples without an advocate offers a timely connection to recognizing the roles foster families play in nurturing children. May is National Foster Care Awareness month, recognizing the needs of more than 391,000 youth and children in foster care. Up to 80% of children in foster care have mental health issues, compared to 18-22% of the regular population. Becoming aware of the needs of foster care families in your community is a wonderful way of forming connections with families engaged in providing hope and healing to children. At the Childwelfare.gov website, one young adult chronicles her experience as a foster child:
I was in fifth grade and it happened during class when I was brought to the principal’s office to be talked to by two cops who told me they needed to ask me questions, get me evaluated by the school nurse, and take me from school to talk to a nice lady. As an 11-year-old girl, I had no idea what any of this meant but I knew cops were scary and that we are supposed to listen to them. So, I did, and that led to me being taken and put in an empty room with my biological siblings who were crying and punching the walls screaming to get out. I sat in the corner of the room watching them. We were all separated and put in different cop cars, driving away in different directions to what would be our “new homes.” I don’t recall if I was ever asked, “Are you okay?” or “Do you know what is happening?” I just did what the scary cop told me to do.
Despite trying to “do her best,” and act “normal,” this young girl struggled with mental health issues prompted by the trauma she experienced as a child. While she still struggles with her mental health, practicing self-care and discovering encouraging resources helped provide stability. At 22, she is now a peer mentor and advocate for children in foster care, modeling health behaviors to children in foster care.
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From team member Katy Stenta:
Acts 17:22-31
Unknown God
I keep thinking about rainbows and AR-15s. It is hard not to think of the Republicans going into the Senate with gun pins on their lapels, and how they reject the image of the rainbow, an image created by God. Especially since the rainbow is, according to scripture, God’s bow. In the United Sates, we worship violence. Movie ratings are based on sexual content, not violence. More money is funneled into the military than any other part of the government. There is no doubt what the most valued thing in the United States is, no matter how much breath is spent on the Ten Commandments, gender and abortion. However, the rainbow, is always hung up. God hung it up perpetually. God hung God’s weapon up, forever, as an everlasting symbol of who God is, the God of peace.
When you want to love something, as Paul says, when you want to know the invisible God, the lovable God, the God who is beyond image, I recommend the rainbow, as it stands in sharp contrast to a God of weapons. Especially when I think that our all-knowing, omniscient God picked a symbol that, in the grand streaks of time, would come to mean, love is love. Because before we knew, God knew, what the rainbow would mean — it would mean every storm runs out of rain, it would mean all shades of people, it would mean love is love. And it would mean the unknown God knew, before we knew, and I find that truly comforting.
* * *
John 14:15-21
In a Little While
You can almost hear Jesus comforting the children, like a mother comforting her babies, in her soothing words here. Shh, shh, there, there. Though you cannot see me, I am still with you. Just as you cannot see God, God is still with you. There, there, hush child, all will be well. There, there, children. I will still mother, you. It is almost a lullaby. I am with you, and God is with you, and you are with me, and I am with you, there, there. Can you hear the mothering words of Jesus Christ? Jesus who compares herself to a mother, whenever she parents us. God is the father, and Jesus is always the mother, the hen with the wings, the one with the breasts. Jesus the Jewish mother who wants to feed everyone all the time. There, there everyone, there, there. In love, Jesus will reveal everything. Now, hush-a-bye. Jesus will never leave us orphaned. Mothers and fathers and earthly parents are imperfect and mortal, but Jesus is forever mothering us, comforting us, and sending herself as the Holy Spirit, beyond gender to comfort us, encourage us, and strengthen us. Can you hear the lullaby of Jesus Christ? What lullaby is she singing to you today, the mother Jesus Christ? In a little while we will hear it, that is the promise.
* * *
1 Peter 3:13-22
If you are worried about the invasion of AI today, which I’m sure many people are, there is something to be said about the difference between what being “alive in spirit” is verses being just a computer that computers does not have a God spark. Even as AI drives home the inequities that need to be addressed, the idea that suffering has to happen is just silly. Suffering for good is one thing — as is said here. Suffering is nothing to be ashamed of, but suffering is not necessary for Christianity, only baptism is. As the world turns and changes, let us take the opportunity to change and make the suffering for good, as Noah did.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of God’s praise be heard,
All: God has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
One: Let us come into God’s house with offerings and pay ourvows,
All: We come to tell all that God has done for us.
One: But truly God has listened and has given heed to our prayer.
All: Blessed be God who has not removed his steadfast love from us.
OR
One: As a mother hen, God calls us to come and find shelter.
All: We come at God’s call to gather in the shelter of God’s wings.
One: As a mother eagle, God teaches us to fly.
All: In God’s loving presence we will learn to soar.
One: Through all generations God cares for the children of the earth.
All: In God’s name we will care for God’s little ones.
Hymns and Songs
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
GTG: 643
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELW: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
God of Many Names
UMH: 105
CH: 13
W&P: 58
STLT: 198
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
God Will Take Care of You
UMH: 130
AAHH: 137
NNBH: 52
NCH: 460
AMEC: 437:
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
UMH: 133
GTG: 837
AAHH: 371
NNBH: 262
NCH: 471
CH: 560
ELW: 774
W&P: 496
AMEC: 525
Children of the Heavenly Father
UMH: 141
NCH: 487
LBW: 474
ELW: 781
W&P: 83
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
UMH: 334
AAHH: 326
NNBH: 127
NCH: 293
CH: 261
W&P: 134
AMEC: 196
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
There Is a Balm in Gilead
UMH: 375
H82: 676
PH: 394
GTG: 792
AAHH: 524
NNBH: 489
NCH: 553
CH: 501
ELW: 614
W&P: 631
AMEC: 425
Maker, in Whom We Live
(especially v.1)
UMH: 88
Learning to Lean
CCB: 74
God Is So Good
CCB: 75
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God in whom we live and move and have our being:
Grant us the faith to trust in your nurturing care
that holds us tenderly in your eternal love;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being. You hold us in your eternal love with tender care. Help us always to trust in your nurturing embrace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to care for others the way God has cared for us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have blessed us with your presence and you have guided us with your Spirit. You have not left us orphaned and yet we fail to act as you have acted. We have turned our backs on the most vulnerable among us. Children are left in broken systems that are underfunded and understaffed. We divert our resources to programs that enrich the richest among us while the poorest are left to fend for themself. We call ourselves disciples of Jesus but we ignore his humble beginnings and the poverty in which he lived. Call us back to our true nature as your children and fill us with compassion for your little ones. Renew your Spirit within us so that we may care for all your children. Amen.
One: Our loving parent God looks with mercy on all of us. God desires all to held in loving care. Receive God’s grace and share God’s love with all, especially the little ones.
Prayers of the People
We praise and glorify your name, O God, because you are like a Father and a Mother to us. You have given birth to us and you nurture us in you loving embrace.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have blessed us with your presence and you have guided us with your Spirit. You have not left us orphaned and yet we fail to act as you have acted. We have turned our backs on the most vulnerable among us. Children are left in broken systems that are underfunded and understaffed. We divert our resources to programs that enrich the richest among us while the poorest are left to fend for themself. We call ourselves disciples of Jesus but we ignore his humble beginnings and the poverty in which he lived. Call us back to our true nature as your children and fill us with compassion for your little ones. Renew your Spirit within us so that we may care for all your children.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you have shared you love with us. You have given us mothers and those who have acted as mothers towards us. You have shared your nurturing care with us through many people that you have sent into our lives. You have given us Jesus who has gathered us under the wing as a mother hen gathers her chicks. For all these expressions of your love, we give you thanks.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all you children, everywhere this day. We pray for those who have not had the physical presence of loving care-givers in their lives to reflect you love for them. We pray for the orphans and children who struggle to find a place for themselves where they are loved, nurtured, and cared for. We pray for all mothers and those who do the work of mothers caring for the children of this world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
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CHILDREN'S SERMON
Being an Advocate
by Tom Willadsen
John 14:15-21
Today’s gospel passage is part of Jesus’ long speech preparing His disciples for the days and weeks ahead. He is reassuring them, encouraging them, building them up. He ask God, His Father, for an “Advocate,” as the NRSV renders the Greek “Παρακλητον,” “Paracleton,” transliterated.
Ask the kids if they’ve ever heard of a paracleton. Have they ever seen one? Would they know one if they saw one? What color is it?
Maybe they know what an advocate is. Maybe not.
Tell them another word for advocate is helper. Show this picture, or one like it:
Maybe they’ve been a helper, at school, or at home, or even at church. There are probably a lot of helpers in church this morning.
There are all kinds of helpers all around us, every day. Show a picture or pictures of helpers in the community.
Another way to think of advocates, or helpers, is “someone who stands beside.” Have the kids stand side-by-side. They can be each others’ advocates or “paracletons.”
Finally, tell them that there’s still another way to think of that funny-sounding word. “Comforter.” Show this picture, or one like it:
Maybe they remember when they were little babies and loved curling up in a favorite comforter. I did!
Before Jesus went away, when his closest friends were really afraid of what was going to happen to him, and what was going to happen to them. Jesus told them that God was going to send them a helper and a comforter. Someone who would be beside them, even inside them! It’s also called The Holy Spirit. Jesus told his friends that the Holy Spirit would be with them, even when he was far away. This made them feel safe.
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The Immediate Word, May 14, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- The Spirit of Mothering by Elena Delhagen based on John 14:15-21.
- Second Thoughts: Getting Your Religion at the Mall by Mary Austin based on Acts 17:22-31.
- Sermon illustrations by Dean Feldmeyer, Chris Keating, and Katy Stenta.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Being an Advocate by Tom Willadsen based on John 14:15-21.
The Spirit of Mothering
by Elena Delhagen
John 14:15-21
This Sunday, May 14th, we will celebrate Mother’s Day. It’s an interesting tradition that dates back to ancient times, when Greeks and Romans would hold festivals to honor their mother goddesses. Then, the Christian festival “Mothering Sunday” was born (no pun intended), when the faithful would attend their mother church for a special service.
These days, it’s a day in which we honor the sacrifices and servitude of mothers. We recognize that motherhood comes in all shapes and sizes — despite cruel remarks made by representative Marjorie Taylor Green suggesting she believes otherwise.
In the gospel reading, Jesus promises that he will send the Spirit to be with us forever. “Spirit” is a feminine noun here, suggesting that Jesus is promising to send us a mother — an advocate and comforter who will abide both in and with us.
In the Scriptures
For all you Greek readers out there, you’ll know that the word for Spirit is pneuma. The Greek language has masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns, the last of which carry no gender. In John 14, while the word is technically a neuter noun, which would literally be translated as “it,” yet I feel confident in my assertion it is used in a feminine context here. Why? First, because its Hebrew counterpart, ruah, is feminine. (So are the Syriac and Aramaic words for spirit.) Jesus, let us all remember, was a Jew, as were all his disciples. The earliest Christians (again, all Jews) spoke of the Holy Spirit as a feminine figure.
Pneuma, you see, is not just a spirit, but it is the spirit that gives life — a function that is, inherently, feminine. And before you ask, let me be clear: I am neither suggesting that all who give life are mothers, nor that those who do not give life are not mothers. What I am saying, however, is that there would be no human birth without a mother, and just as a mother is supposed to care for and nurture her children so, too, does the Holy Spirit our mother grant us spiritual birth. (The desert mothers and fathers of our faith through the ages would also agree.)
In the News
Mother’s Day is celebrated in the US on the second Sunday of May, though holidays honoring motherhood occur at different times all around the world. Its American origins date back to the 1800s, but it was made an official holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. “Born in the United States amid gunfire, civil war, the antislavery movement and the feminist fight for suffrage, Mother’s Day was meant to be more than it is today.” An early iteration of Mothers’ Day (note the collective possessive) was established in the 1870s by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe. Howe held the common first-wave feminist belief that (white) mothers could and should have a political voice to shape their world. Over time, the case for Mother’s Day (note that the apostrophe has now become singular possessive) was made by Anna Jarvis, who wanted to honor the wishes of her own mother, who wished to acknowledge individual mothers. When President Wilson signed it into law, he did so with an interesting twist — he linked it to women’s roles in home life, thereby rejecting suffragist visions of women as a political class with important political and social roles outside of the home. Today, still, women around the world face barriers and obstacles based on discrimination of their sex. A new policy, drafted by human rights organization Equality Now, has been introduced that calls on governments to repeal discriminatory laws against women.
In other news, Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene made headlines lately for continuing her controversial outbursts amid hearings for the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Select Coronavirus Crisis. Head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, recently appeared before the committee and was questioned by Greene. Green pressed Weingarten about the decision Weingarten had made to close schools during the pandemic.
“Are you a medical doctor?” the Georgia Republican asked Ms. Weingarten.
“I am not.”
“Are you a mother?” Ms. Greene asked.
Ms. Weingarten replied, “I am a mother by marriage.” (Weingarten married her wife, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, in 2017 and became stepmother to Kleinbaum’s two children from a previous marriage.)
Greene continued with her argument that Weingarten was not qualified to have advised the CDC on medical guidelines because Weingarten was “just a political activist” and “not a teacher, not a mother, and not a medical doctor.”
In the Sermon
At our churches on this Mother’s Day, we need to honor the fact that motherhood comes in all different shapes and sizes, and they are all valid. Those who give birth biologically are not the only mothers in our world. There are adoptive mothers and foster mothers, trans and nonbinary mothers, stepmothers and spiritual mothers, and they all deserve to be celebrated for doing the hard work of mothering.
At the beginning and end of the gospel passage is love, the essential characteristic for any mother (or any parent, for that matter!). Love for God exists simultaneously with being loved by God; you can’t have one without the other.
Finally, if you are able to accept the Spirit as a feminine figure, then you might consider preaching on how Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit is his promise to send a mother, one who comforts and advocates on our behalf and will never, ever leave our side.
SECOND THOUGHTSGetting Your Religion at the Mall
by Mary Austin
Acts 17:22-31
“I’m church shopping,” a guest at my church will often say. I appreciate the honesty.
They’re looking for a place where the music and the spoken words feel familiar enough, where the bathrooms are clean and the church doesn’t smell weird. Bonus points if the people hit the sweet spot of warmth — friendly enough without inviting them to be a deacon on their first Sunday.
Now people aren’t just church shopping — they’re searching for whole religious frameworks. We’re not so different from the world Paul encounters in the Athens, with all kinds of religious choices, including the unknown god. Paul praises the Athenians for their deep religious feeling, and then challenges them to find what they seek in Jesus. He observes the universal longing for the holy, saying that people are made, “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”
God is not far from us either, and people are seeking the holy in all kinds of ways. People have high levels of spiritual belief, and more places to search for something to believe in. TikTok is heavy on spiritual teachers, and younger people report spending up to three hours a day there. In lieu of church, they get weekly spiritual guidance comes from TikTok.
Writing for the Christian Century, Jessica Mesman notes that people are also finding meaning in tarot cards. “My social circle of lapsed Catholics, exvangelicals, and other “deconstructing” Christians may have lost the narrative threads we followed for much of our lives, but we can rattle off our rising signs, Enneagram numbers, and Myers-Briggs types like our Social Security numbers. In the absence of the ready-made life story I had in Catholicism, it sometimes feels like I’m begging whatever magic mirror I can find to please, tell me who I am! For many of those searching for new spiritual practices and meaning, reading tarot cards satisfies a yearning for a coherent personal story transmitted through a ritual. Tarot also encourages the development of private intuition, something that has too often been dismissed, belittled, or even vilified in patriarchal traditions. A 2021 survey showed that 51% of a sample population between the ages of 13 and 25 engage in tarot cards or fortune-telling.”
Christians are finding ways to blend tarot cards with more traditional faith. “Many Christians object to tarot because of its associations with divination and fortune-telling. But others are increasingly using the cards as a tool for self-directed spiritual contemplation. Gil Stafford, a retired Episcopal priest and spiritual director, incorporates tarot in his practice along with the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs. Brittany Muller, author of The Contemplative Tarot: A Christian Guide to the Cards, uses tarot cards in conjunction with the Book of Common Prayer to practice visio divina.”
Crystals are having a moment, and an expert on crystals says, young people are reaching out to her in droves. “They’re asking questions about the magical properties of crystals and herbs. This wave of young people was born with a higher consciousness. They’re more focused on the well-being of the planet and more sensitive to the earth’s vibrations,” she said.
We’re longing for connection with the divine and also with each other, post-pandemic. A new study confirms high levels of loneliness, which impacts our physical and mental health. “There is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day…the physical consequences of poor connection can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.”
Church could be that place of connection and meaning, if we stop making ourselves unpalatable to people.
Paul adapts his message to the people he meets and to their needs; instead, the church wants people to adapt to us. Ironically, articles on this topic have titles like “Why Christians Don't Go to Church Anymore (and why they must)” instead of “How to Talk to People Like Paul Does” or “How to be As Interesting as TikTok.” Paul begins with praise for the faith people already have, and then promises more of what they already find meaningful. He speaks a word of inclusion, promising that everyone listening is “God’s offspring.” The word of hope and promise is for “all,” he’s careful to say. He offers insight and depth, building on what they’re already doing.
As Dr. Willie James Jennings writes in his commentary on Acts, "Paul here extends himself into a Gentile world to offer a way into God’s beautiful new world. Paul, formed in Torah sensibilities, is rightly greatly disturbed by the idolatry all around him, but now he will do something absolutely stunning and marvelously productive with his outrage. He will not turn away from the idolaters, but toward them. This is what the gospel demands.”
If we want people to come to church, to meet God there and to find sustenance in community, we are invited to be more like Paul. As Dr. Jennings puts it, “What do you say to those radically outside yourself, radically different from you? What do you say to those whose religions and rituals you have been trained to loathe?” Like Paul, we can find people in places that are meaningful to them, and extend what we know about God and community.
We can learn from Paul’s spiritual flexibility and his ability to see the power in what people are doing, instead of looking down on them, shaming them, or laughing at the places they seek meaning. Paul invites us toward a generous view of our fellow seekers.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean FeldmeyerJohn 14:15-21 — I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
Maggie’s Kids
Maggie Doyne graduated from high school at the age of 17 in 2004 and knew then, as she has known since she was a small child, that she wanted to change the world for the better.
So impatient was she to do so that she decided, that summer, to take a year off from school and, with her parents’ blessing, go to India and spend part of her “gap year” working for an organization that was helping refugees fleeing the thirteen-year-long internal strife in Nepal.
While working with that organization, she met a girl her age that had escaped from Nepal seven years earlier and had never been back. Together, the two girls decided to go to Nepal and see the state of the country first hand.
They travelled around Nepal and took stock of the poverty and the lack of opportunity that had been left in the wake of the civil war. They also discovered that the war had left the country with just under one million orphaned children who were dependent upon a largely ineffective government and the largess of charity organizations for their survival.
Maggie says that she was not able to just look at the problem and then leave. She felt compelled to help those orphans in some concrete, if small way. So she called her parents in New Jersey and asked them to send her all of the money that she had saved from babysitting and other odd jobs. The total amount, accumulated over the course of four years of high school, amounted to about $5,000.
With that money she purchased a piece of property and started a school for orphans in Nepal. She was eighteen years old.
Today, nearly 20 years later, the school as enrolled more than 230 children and has 24 full-time teachers. Maggie speaks fluent Nepalese and the children at her school all speak English. Maggie also has legal custody of 40 children for whom she has created a home and family environment at the Kopila Valley Children’s Home. They call her “Mum.” When her parents come to visit, they call them “Grandma and Grandpa.” She is also the founder of the Blink Now Foundation, which raises money and investments to help finance the school and home.
Asked by a reporter if Maggie, who is 38, had any advice for young people who want to make a difference, this is what she said: “Don’t wait until you are old enough to change the world. Don’t wait to retire, to have money or to have your masters’ degree. You can’t wait. You have to start right now. If I had waited, my kids wouldn’t have had a life as they do now.”
Maggie might have spent her gap year working in India, helping refugees and then returned to her comfortable life in New Jersey, but once she saw the suffering of over a million children in Nepal, she could not turn her back on them.
Someone, she realized, needed to speak for them, to be there for them, to be an advocate for them. She just could not leave them orphaned.
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Bring Them Home
Nicole Winfield, writing for the Religion News Service, reports that Pope Francis on Sunday revealed that a secret peace “mission” in Russia’s war in Ukraine was under way and that the Vatican is willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war.
“I’m available to do anything,” Francis said during an airborne press conference in route home from Hungary. “There’s a mission that’s not public that’s underway; when it’s public I’ll talk about it.”
Deportations of Ukrainian children have been a concern since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Francis said the Holy See had already helped mediate some prisoner exchanges and would do “all that is humanly possible” to reunite families.
The International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s commissioner, accusing them of war crimes for abducting children from Ukraine. Russia has denied any wrongdoing, contending the children were moved for their safety.
Last week Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with Francis at the Vatican and asked him to help return Ukrainian children taken following the Russian invasion.
“I asked His Holiness to help us return home Ukrainians, Ukrainian children who are detained, arrested, and criminally deported to Russia,” Shmyhal told the Foreign Press Association after the audience.
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Homes for Refugees
According to the Religion News Service, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan nearly two years ago, religious congregations across the country began extending an embrace to refugees.
Partnering with resettlement agencies, they helped families escaping war and political turmoil settle into homes, find jobs, learn English and acclimate to life in the US.
Now, in a corner of North Carolina, a group of Baptist churches has begun to deepen that support by retrofitting vacant church-owned buildings — often homes — for refugee housing.
Organized through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina but open to any religious congregation, a new initiative encourages churches to refurbish church-owned parsonages, office buildings, youth clubhouses or single-family homes and make them available to refugees or humanitarian parolees for a nominal fee.
“It’s increasingly difficult to find affordable housing for refugees,” said Marc Wyatt, a missionary who founded the Welcome House Community Network. “Churches have physical property and buildings that are underutilized. Rethinking the use of those buildings for housing is our vision.”
On April 29 the network held its first housing and hospitality summit with 210 congregational leaders — mostly from North Carolina — wanting to learn more about how to use vacant church properties to minister to refugees.
The conference made plain twin realities: A glut of underutilized church properties and a severe shortage of affordable housing for newly arrived refugees with few means.
So far, about a dozen churches in North Carolina’s Triangle region, anchored by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, have retrofitted ancillary buildings for use by refugees. In all, about 40, including churches in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas, have joined the Welcome House network.
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Acts 17:22-31 — Cafeteria Worship & Theology
Why No More?
The web site BecauseMomSays.com offers these as some of the top 15 reasons people leave organized religion:
Greedy megachurches; Unnecessary showiness; Lack of gratitude; An attitude of entitlement; Fakey, judgmental, religious people; Abuse; Empty, cliched advice; Refusal to ask or answer questions; Apparent contradictions not explained; Misogyny.
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How to Create Your Own Religion
When asked in a survey if they believe in God or a “higher power” most people say that they do. But, asked what church they attend, nearly as many say “None.” Noting this seeming disparity, writer John Howell offers a solution: Create your own religion.
Here is his plan in just six easy steps:
- Create Your Own Scripture — Most people already have a personal Bible, he explains. They just don’t have it organized and written down in one volume. “Make a list of all the quotes, passages, entire books, songs, poems, whatever, that have the weight of ultimate truth for you. Once you have finished you will have your own personal Bible.” See? Simple.
- Rituals — A set of sacred rituals is the structure of religion. You can create your own rituals, but you can also look at your life and observe what rituals you already follow without realizing it, that have an empowering, transformative effect. Howell suggests going to the art museum every year on Easter Sunday.
- Make Little Things Big — Christianity uses bread, wine, and water — three simple, easily available things and lifts them to divine significance. “Pay attention to what moves you,” says Howell. “Venerate it. Incorporate it into your rituals. Canonize it into your personal scripture.”
- Identify Your God — You need a higher power and it can be the old, traditional one minus all the human garbage we’ve attached over the years, or you can make up on of your own: Love, truth, collective humanity, the cosmic mystery. The only rule is that it can’t be you. If it is you, that’s not religion, that’s psychosis.
- Borrow Liberally — All religions borrow from ones that went before. Look around. See something you like in another religion? Go ahead and borrow from it for yours. Is there something you like in the Bible, the Koran, Native American spirituality, New Age mumbo jumbo, the Kama Sutra, it’s OK to include those in your new personal religion.
- Make Some Holidays — What’s the use of having a religion if you can’t have some religious holidays, right? So go ahead and declare some holidays. Howell suggests that at least one holiday should be your birthday. The others you can just make up. Just don’t overdo it.
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From team member Chris Keating:Mother’s Day
Navigating Mother’s Day as a transperson
As traditions change and our awareness of the world’s diversity broadens, some congregations will be faced with the challenges presented by Mother’s Day. For example, consider the experience of Denise Brogan-Kator, a trans woman who is also a parent and grandparent. She writes, “Each year, as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day approach, I channel my own mother’s need for acknowledgement from my offspring and approach the mailbox each day with some excitement — and some dread.” Brogan-Kator noted that the holiday speaks to the vital role being a parent plays in her life. But because her children were young when she first began transitioning, they have continued to call her “Dad,” or Daddy,” while her young grandbabies call her “Gram.” She believes her children acknowledging both her role and her gender is more important than falling into a particular stereotype promoted by the greeting card industry. As she noted in 2018:
I am proud to be my children’s parent. I am proud of them and their successes. Professionally, my three daughters grew up to be an engineer, a scientist, and a doctor of family relations. They are happy. What more could a parent want? In that, I suppose I do fit the parental stereotype.
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Mother’s Day
Considering all families
As churches realize the breadth of diversity in families today, making adjustments to gender-specific celebrations becomes necessary. Kids raised by two fathers may not feel particularly welcome if the focus is exclusively on women who fulfill maternal roles. Members of the Family Equity Council suggest that we check our assumptions that every family consists of one mother and one father. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” notes Option B. “Transgender parents may not celebrate according to traditional gender norms. If you have an LGBTQ family in your life and you’re unsure about wishing them a happy Mother’s Day, ask if and how they celebrate instead of making assumptions.”
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Acts 17:22-31
I see you are (or are not) religious in every way
Imagine Paul speaking to modern day crowds in New York City, Washington, DC, or even Greenville, SC, dubbed by the World Atlas as “America’s most religious city.” If Paul looked around at the objects of modern day worship, what would be his response?
- In Greenville, it would be predominantly Protestant, and largely Baptist. Of its 70,000 residents, about 25% all Baptist, and just 13% claim no religious identity at all.
- Across the country in Portland, OR, Paul would likely have his work cut out for him. Many polls place Portland as the least religiously affiliated city in America, with about 42% of its metropolitan residents calling themselves unaffiliated. Close runner ups are Seattle and San Francisco.
- Nationwide, the number of people marking no religious affiliation continues to grow, at least according to the Pew Research Center’s 2022 research. The folks at Pew have developed several hypothetical projections suggesting that the number of Americans will continue declining in the years to come, with one model projecting that Christians in America may only be about one third of the population by 2070. The American Survey center suggests that “Without robust religious experiences to draw on, Americans feel less connected to the traditions and beliefs of their parents’ faith.”
- But wait: Another survey of more than 10,000 young Americans age 13-25 revealed that large numbers of persons in this age group consider themselves either religious (68%) or spiritual (77%). That does not necessarily mean you’ll find them filling up pews on Sunday mornings. But it does mean that younger generations rely on religion or spiritual resources in moments of difficulty. Springtide Research also noted that youth turned toward religion to find meaning in their lives during the pandemic, and that those who are more religious more frequently report that they are “flourishing in their mental health.”
Acts 17:22-31
Yearning to grow
More hopeful news, at least for churches and traditional religious organizations, comes from the Barna Group. In an October, 2022 survey, Barna found that three out of four persons say that they want to grow spiritually. Slightly more (77%) indicate that they believe “in a higher power,” with 44% reporting that they are more open to God after the pandemic than before. About 80% of Americans surveyed reported belief in a supernatural or spiritual power in the universe. According to Barna, some of the greatest signs of belief emerge from teenagers:
In a culture that has generally downgraded the reputation of Christians and relegated Sunday worship and other church-related activities to the sidelines of society, teens remain refreshingly open to Jesus as an influence in their lives… it seems that this coming generation still believes that there is a person who reminds us that there is a good and right way to live.
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John 14:15-21
Forever families
This week, North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum signed the Indian Child Welfare act, designed to protect tribal cultures. The law gives Native American families preference in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native American children. Currently, A 1978 federal law known as the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is being challenged by white families who say the law is unconstitutional and puts the needs of tribal councils above children. Supporters of the law include tribal leaders who see it as essential to preserving Native American culture and identity.
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John 14:15-21
The trauma of being abandoned
John 14’s emphasis on Christ’s promise to not leave the disciples without an advocate offers a timely connection to recognizing the roles foster families play in nurturing children. May is National Foster Care Awareness month, recognizing the needs of more than 391,000 youth and children in foster care. Up to 80% of children in foster care have mental health issues, compared to 18-22% of the regular population. Becoming aware of the needs of foster care families in your community is a wonderful way of forming connections with families engaged in providing hope and healing to children. At the Childwelfare.gov website, one young adult chronicles her experience as a foster child:
I was in fifth grade and it happened during class when I was brought to the principal’s office to be talked to by two cops who told me they needed to ask me questions, get me evaluated by the school nurse, and take me from school to talk to a nice lady. As an 11-year-old girl, I had no idea what any of this meant but I knew cops were scary and that we are supposed to listen to them. So, I did, and that led to me being taken and put in an empty room with my biological siblings who were crying and punching the walls screaming to get out. I sat in the corner of the room watching them. We were all separated and put in different cop cars, driving away in different directions to what would be our “new homes.” I don’t recall if I was ever asked, “Are you okay?” or “Do you know what is happening?” I just did what the scary cop told me to do.
Despite trying to “do her best,” and act “normal,” this young girl struggled with mental health issues prompted by the trauma she experienced as a child. While she still struggles with her mental health, practicing self-care and discovering encouraging resources helped provide stability. At 22, she is now a peer mentor and advocate for children in foster care, modeling health behaviors to children in foster care.
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From team member Katy Stenta:Acts 17:22-31
Unknown God
I keep thinking about rainbows and AR-15s. It is hard not to think of the Republicans going into the Senate with gun pins on their lapels, and how they reject the image of the rainbow, an image created by God. Especially since the rainbow is, according to scripture, God’s bow. In the United Sates, we worship violence. Movie ratings are based on sexual content, not violence. More money is funneled into the military than any other part of the government. There is no doubt what the most valued thing in the United States is, no matter how much breath is spent on the Ten Commandments, gender and abortion. However, the rainbow, is always hung up. God hung it up perpetually. God hung God’s weapon up, forever, as an everlasting symbol of who God is, the God of peace.
When you want to love something, as Paul says, when you want to know the invisible God, the lovable God, the God who is beyond image, I recommend the rainbow, as it stands in sharp contrast to a God of weapons. Especially when I think that our all-knowing, omniscient God picked a symbol that, in the grand streaks of time, would come to mean, love is love. Because before we knew, God knew, what the rainbow would mean — it would mean every storm runs out of rain, it would mean all shades of people, it would mean love is love. And it would mean the unknown God knew, before we knew, and I find that truly comforting.
* * *
John 14:15-21
In a Little While
You can almost hear Jesus comforting the children, like a mother comforting her babies, in her soothing words here. Shh, shh, there, there. Though you cannot see me, I am still with you. Just as you cannot see God, God is still with you. There, there, hush child, all will be well. There, there, children. I will still mother, you. It is almost a lullaby. I am with you, and God is with you, and you are with me, and I am with you, there, there. Can you hear the mothering words of Jesus Christ? Jesus who compares herself to a mother, whenever she parents us. God is the father, and Jesus is always the mother, the hen with the wings, the one with the breasts. Jesus the Jewish mother who wants to feed everyone all the time. There, there everyone, there, there. In love, Jesus will reveal everything. Now, hush-a-bye. Jesus will never leave us orphaned. Mothers and fathers and earthly parents are imperfect and mortal, but Jesus is forever mothering us, comforting us, and sending herself as the Holy Spirit, beyond gender to comfort us, encourage us, and strengthen us. Can you hear the lullaby of Jesus Christ? What lullaby is she singing to you today, the mother Jesus Christ? In a little while we will hear it, that is the promise.
* * *
1 Peter 3:13-22
If you are worried about the invasion of AI today, which I’m sure many people are, there is something to be said about the difference between what being “alive in spirit” is verses being just a computer that computers does not have a God spark. Even as AI drives home the inequities that need to be addressed, the idea that suffering has to happen is just silly. Suffering for good is one thing — as is said here. Suffering is nothing to be ashamed of, but suffering is not necessary for Christianity, only baptism is. As the world turns and changes, let us take the opportunity to change and make the suffering for good, as Noah did.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of God’s praise be heard,
All: God has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
One: Let us come into God’s house with offerings and pay ourvows,
All: We come to tell all that God has done for us.
One: But truly God has listened and has given heed to our prayer.
All: Blessed be God who has not removed his steadfast love from us.
OR
One: As a mother hen, God calls us to come and find shelter.
All: We come at God’s call to gather in the shelter of God’s wings.
One: As a mother eagle, God teaches us to fly.
All: In God’s loving presence we will learn to soar.
One: Through all generations God cares for the children of the earth.
All: In God’s name we will care for God’s little ones.
Hymns and Songs
Now Thank We All Our God
UMH: 102
H82: 396/397
PH: 555
GTG: 643
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533/534
ELW: 839/840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
God of Many Names
UMH: 105
CH: 13
W&P: 58
STLT: 198
There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
UMH: 121
H82: 469/470
PH: 298
GTG: 435
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELW: 587/588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
God Will Take Care of You
UMH: 130
AAHH: 137
NNBH: 52
NCH: 460
AMEC: 437:
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
UMH: 133
GTG: 837
AAHH: 371
NNBH: 262
NCH: 471
CH: 560
ELW: 774
W&P: 496
AMEC: 525
Children of the Heavenly Father
UMH: 141
NCH: 487
LBW: 474
ELW: 781
W&P: 83
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
UMH: 334
AAHH: 326
NNBH: 127
NCH: 293
CH: 261
W&P: 134
AMEC: 196
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
GTG: 822
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
There Is a Balm in Gilead
UMH: 375
H82: 676
PH: 394
GTG: 792
AAHH: 524
NNBH: 489
NCH: 553
CH: 501
ELW: 614
W&P: 631
AMEC: 425
Maker, in Whom We Live
(especially v.1)
UMH: 88
Learning to Lean
CCB: 74
God Is So Good
CCB: 75
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God in whom we live and move and have our being:
Grant us the faith to trust in your nurturing care
that holds us tenderly in your eternal love;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being. You hold us in your eternal love with tender care. Help us always to trust in your nurturing embrace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to care for others the way God has cared for us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have blessed us with your presence and you have guided us with your Spirit. You have not left us orphaned and yet we fail to act as you have acted. We have turned our backs on the most vulnerable among us. Children are left in broken systems that are underfunded and understaffed. We divert our resources to programs that enrich the richest among us while the poorest are left to fend for themself. We call ourselves disciples of Jesus but we ignore his humble beginnings and the poverty in which he lived. Call us back to our true nature as your children and fill us with compassion for your little ones. Renew your Spirit within us so that we may care for all your children. Amen.
One: Our loving parent God looks with mercy on all of us. God desires all to held in loving care. Receive God’s grace and share God’s love with all, especially the little ones.
Prayers of the People
We praise and glorify your name, O God, because you are like a Father and a Mother to us. You have given birth to us and you nurture us in you loving embrace.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have blessed us with your presence and you have guided us with your Spirit. You have not left us orphaned and yet we fail to act as you have acted. We have turned our backs on the most vulnerable among us. Children are left in broken systems that are underfunded and understaffed. We divert our resources to programs that enrich the richest among us while the poorest are left to fend for themself. We call ourselves disciples of Jesus but we ignore his humble beginnings and the poverty in which he lived. Call us back to our true nature as your children and fill us with compassion for your little ones. Renew your Spirit within us so that we may care for all your children.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you have shared you love with us. You have given us mothers and those who have acted as mothers towards us. You have shared your nurturing care with us through many people that you have sent into our lives. You have given us Jesus who has gathered us under the wing as a mother hen gathers her chicks. For all these expressions of your love, we give you thanks.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all you children, everywhere this day. We pray for those who have not had the physical presence of loving care-givers in their lives to reflect you love for them. We pray for the orphans and children who struggle to find a place for themselves where they are loved, nurtured, and cared for. We pray for all mothers and those who do the work of mothers caring for the children of this world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONBeing an Advocate
by Tom Willadsen
John 14:15-21
Today’s gospel passage is part of Jesus’ long speech preparing His disciples for the days and weeks ahead. He is reassuring them, encouraging them, building them up. He ask God, His Father, for an “Advocate,” as the NRSV renders the Greek “Παρακλητον,” “Paracleton,” transliterated.
Ask the kids if they’ve ever heard of a paracleton. Have they ever seen one? Would they know one if they saw one? What color is it?
Maybe they know what an advocate is. Maybe not.
Tell them another word for advocate is helper. Show this picture, or one like it:
Maybe they’ve been a helper, at school, or at home, or even at church. There are probably a lot of helpers in church this morning.
There are all kinds of helpers all around us, every day. Show a picture or pictures of helpers in the community.
Another way to think of advocates, or helpers, is “someone who stands beside.” Have the kids stand side-by-side. They can be each others’ advocates or “paracletons.”
Finally, tell them that there’s still another way to think of that funny-sounding word. “Comforter.” Show this picture, or one like it:
Maybe they remember when they were little babies and loved curling up in a favorite comforter. I did!
Before Jesus went away, when his closest friends were really afraid of what was going to happen to him, and what was going to happen to them. Jesus told them that God was going to send them a helper and a comforter. Someone who would be beside them, even inside them! It’s also called The Holy Spirit. Jesus told his friends that the Holy Spirit would be with them, even when he was far away. This made them feel safe.
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The Immediate Word, May 14, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
