Mother's Day
Worship
Special Days For Celebration
Worship Resources For Eighteen Occasions Throughout The Year
Order of Worship
PRELUDE Songs My Mother Taught Me - Dvorak
HYMN SING OR MEDLEY Mother's Favorite Hymn or Gospel Song
CALL TO WORSHIP
God is high above all nations,
AND GOD'S GLORY ABOVE THE HEAVENS.
Who is like our Sovereign God, who sits enthroned on high,
BUT STOOPS TO BEHOLD THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH?
Who takes up the weak out of the dust
AND LIFTS UP THE POOR FROM THE ASHES ...
Who makes the woman of a childless house
TO BE A JOYFUL MOTHER OF CHILDREN.
INVOCATION Fatherly, Brotherly, Motherly God, be present to us as we are gathered to worship you and to give thanks for our mothers, grandmothers, and all who have been like parents to us and brought us in your providence to this day and hour. Receive our praise and thanksgiving in the name of Mary's Son and yours, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
HYMN Now thank we all our God ... Who from our mother's arms has blessed us on our way ...
FIRST LESSON Proverbs 31:25-31
(This lesson could be printed in the bulletin and read by all fathers and children whose mothers remain seated.)
WHAT OUR MOTHERS TAUGHT US Index cards and pencils may be handed out as people enter the service with the instruction that they write down the proverb or saying or teaching. They could be read by the persons having written them or collected and read by a person or persons appointed so that all can hear.
PSALM 128 (Paraphrased)
Happy are all who revere God,
AND WHO FOLLOW IN GOD'S WAYS!
You shall eat the fruit of your labor;
HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY SHALL BE YOURS.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house.
YOUR CHILDREN LIKE OLIVE SHOOTS ROUNDABOUT YOUR TABLE.
The Parent who reveres God shall thus indeed be blessed.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU FROM HEAVEN
And may you see the prosperity of your city all the days of your life.
MAY YOU LIVE TO SEE YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN; MAY PEACE BE UPON OUR NATION.
GLORIA PATRI
SECOND LESSON 2 Timothy 1:1-7
GOSPEL John 19:25-27
PRAYER OF THE DAY Divine Parent, grant us our Savior's ready sensitivity to the widow and the orphan that we may adopt the lonely and make links where family ties have been broken, so that the church may be a larger family embracing all who need both human and divine love, in the Spirit of Christ. Amen
CHILDREN'S SERMON "Pinch Hitters or Designated Hitters"
SOLO OR ANTHEM
This is the text of an appropriate solo, based on the visit of Mary to Elizabeth:
"The Visit"
Words and Music by Sister Miriam Therese Winter, copyright by Medical Mission Sister, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1. She walked in the summer through the heat on the hill.
She hurried as one who went with a will.
She danced in the sunlight when the day was done.
Her heart knew no evening who carried the sun.
2. Fresh as a flower at the first ray of dawn,
She came to her cousin whose morning was gone.
There leaped a little child in the ancient womb
And there leaped a little hope in ev'ry ancient tomb.
3. Hail, little sister, who heralds the spring,
Hail, brave mother, who carries the King.
Hail, to the moment beneath your breast,
May all generations call you blessed.
4. When you walk in the summer through the heat on the hill,
When you're wound with the wind and one with his will,
Be brave with the burden you are blessed to bear.
For it's Christ that you carry ev'rywhere, ev'rywhere, ev'rywhere.
SERMON "Designated Mother"
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION
Eternal One, who in creating us male and female created us in your own likeness, becoming our First Parent as you created our first parents, we rejoice today in all of our ancestors who have passed to us the chain of life, but especially for those who are our natural mothers and our adoptive mothers, those who have nursed us when we were sick, those who have cared for us in the absence of our own mothers and all who have nourished us spiritually with their wisdom and faith.
We rejoice with all families in the ties that bind us in the family of the church whether near or far, in this locality or across the country. We are grateful for the chain that links us to the church of the apostles and the people of Israel.
Grant that your church may be strong in both paternal and maternal virtues however we may define them. Who can completely explain how you have made us in your image and how you are going about restoring that image through the saving Christ and the healing Spirit?
Draw together all the earth's family in worship and unity that your quarreling children may be at peace, that crime may decrease, and bloodshed end, that war may be learned no more, and no mother be called upon to give her children to die for their country.
Bless all in authority over us that they may exercise it with the guidance they seek from you and the honesty to acknowledge their limitations.
Hasten the day when all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of the Christ and to your Holy Name we will ascribe all glory and praise with all the saints in heaven and all the church on earth. Amen
HYMN
POSTLUDE
Children's Message
"Pinch Hitters or Designated Hitters"
John 19:26, 27 "... He said to his mother, 'he is your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'she is your mother.' From that time the disciple took her to live in his home."
Object: a bat or bats, plastic as young children might use, and/or regulation bats.
Do you like to play baseball? (Swing a regular bat if you have room.) Or are you practicing to play softball? (If a child has brought the practice plastic bat, have them show their batting style.)
When your grandfathers were ball players there may have been pinch hitters but not designated hitters. I am not sure of the rules so I am not going to go into detail. In our sandlot games, a pinch hitter was someone to go to bat when another player was injured. Sometimes one of our friends was going by and we called him (or her) to come and bat for us "in a pinch," perhaps getting a hit for us when we really needed it.
Nowadays baseball teams have players who are designated hitters, who are sent in when a hit is badly needed, with players on base or some other reason the coach has in mind.
Have you ever had a "mother-in-a-pinch"? Even a babysitter can be a mother or father in a pinch when your parents need to be away and you need someone to take care of you. On more serious occasions, if your mother happens to be sick or in the hospital to have a baby, your grandmother, an aunt, or someone else comes to be "mother-in-a-crisis."
Honoring your mother and father also includes honoring your pinch-hitter-mother who has come to take care of you. Obeying them is like obeying your mother or father because they have been designated by your parent or parents to supervise you.
Some of you may have a foster mother or stepmother, who is more like a designated hitter, who has care and custody of you for a longer time by the decision of your father or by a court. An adoptive mother, a foster mother, a stepmother, as well as a natural mother all deserve your respect and love for the care they take of us when we are young children.
Preaching Resources
"Designated Mother"
Introduction: Mary and Elizabeth were designated mothers in more remarkable ways than most.
1. Marriage is not designated for all, as Jesus taught. (See his remarks about celibacy in Matthew 19:11-12, which particularly deals with men but may be extended to women also. See also The Wedded Unmother, Kaye Halverson with Karen M. Hess, Augsburg Publishing House, 1980.)
2. Motherhood, like marriage, should be both designated and vocational and not by accident or compulsion.
a. Because you had a mother does not mean you are required to be a mother.
b. Family planning should be as deliberate as any choice of career.
c. Motherhood is still an honorable vocation among callings available to women.
Motherhood: When Edwin Holt Hughes was ordained an elder by his father, who was a bishop, his mother said, "I have felt that the home was the sanctuary wherein my main service was to be given: and that God's will for me had made the cradle of my children, the altar of my work."
I Was Made A Minister, Edwin Holt Hughes, copyright Whitmore and Stone, 1953, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press
3. The future of mothering must always be considered sacred as is all human life.
a. A mother's grief is one of the most poignant of human feelings.
Mother's Kissprint on a Coffer
We do not come to much at last
A cookie tin is big enough
To hold our ashes.
We gathered round the grave
An arm's length deep,
The parson and the family
of five remaining.
In words like these the parson
Called the ground holy
Sanctified by love,
God's, parents', brothers'
Sisters', the Church's.
But the most holy sign
Of love was made
Before the mother
Took the coffer
And kissing the cover
Left a kissprint on it,
As she lowered her daughter's
Ashes into the grave.
A handful at a time
We covered the simple coffer
With the good earth
Watered by a few tears.
The April Day was cool
Inviting the warmth
of a communal hug.
Only the parson
had ever done a "jelly roll."
But Father took up
The youngest in his arms
While mother took his arm
And the hand of her eldest son
Who held brother's hand
Which brother took the parson's
who began to wind around
Pulling tight the hug,
Until the little one
Father and mother
And brothers and church
Were tight
And head to head.
"How many hugs is this?"
the parson asked.
"A thousand," said the father,
smiling at the baby in his arms.
"Multiplied by the hug of God,"
said the parson,
"That's about right."
What I saw clear today
I never saw before:
A mother's kissprint
on a coffer.
(BDH 4/6/88)
b. We may honor mothers but not deify them as a mother has written from her own experience:
Had I been Joseph's mother
I'd have prayed
protection from his brothers:
"God keep him safe;
he is so young,
so different from the others."
Mercifully
she never knew
there would be slavery
and prison, too.
Had I been Moses' mother
I'd have wept
to keep my little son;
praying she might forget
the babe drawn from the water
of the Nile,
had I not kept
him for her
nursing him the while?
Was he not mine
and she
but Pharaoh's daughter?
Had I been Daniel's mother
I should have pled
"Give victory!
This Babylonian horde -
godless and cruel -
don't let them take him captive
- better dead,
Almighty Lord!"
Had I been Mary -
Oh, had I been she,
I would have cried
as never mother cried,
"... Anything, O God,
anything ...
but crucified!"
With such prayers
importunate
my finite wisdom
would assail
Infinite Wisdom;
God, how fortunate
Infinite Wisdom
should prevail!
Ruth Bell Graham,
Beside My Laughing Fire,
Word Publishers
c. Honoring mothers does not preclude making decisions and provisions for aging mothers who are no longer able to make such decisions for themselves.
Conclusion:
Any day and every day is a day to honor mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
We honor as well all who have mothered us - whether they have held the title or not. It is always appropriate to thank those who have nurtured and comforted us at whatever age. It is always reprehensible not to express our appreciation for such love and care.
If there is someone who mothered you at a particular time, and who comes to your mind today, get on the phone or send them a telegram or sit down this afternoon and write a letter of appreciation on this day for mothers.
PRELUDE Songs My Mother Taught Me - Dvorak
HYMN SING OR MEDLEY Mother's Favorite Hymn or Gospel Song
CALL TO WORSHIP
God is high above all nations,
AND GOD'S GLORY ABOVE THE HEAVENS.
Who is like our Sovereign God, who sits enthroned on high,
BUT STOOPS TO BEHOLD THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH?
Who takes up the weak out of the dust
AND LIFTS UP THE POOR FROM THE ASHES ...
Who makes the woman of a childless house
TO BE A JOYFUL MOTHER OF CHILDREN.
INVOCATION Fatherly, Brotherly, Motherly God, be present to us as we are gathered to worship you and to give thanks for our mothers, grandmothers, and all who have been like parents to us and brought us in your providence to this day and hour. Receive our praise and thanksgiving in the name of Mary's Son and yours, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
HYMN Now thank we all our God ... Who from our mother's arms has blessed us on our way ...
FIRST LESSON Proverbs 31:25-31
(This lesson could be printed in the bulletin and read by all fathers and children whose mothers remain seated.)
WHAT OUR MOTHERS TAUGHT US Index cards and pencils may be handed out as people enter the service with the instruction that they write down the proverb or saying or teaching. They could be read by the persons having written them or collected and read by a person or persons appointed so that all can hear.
PSALM 128 (Paraphrased)
Happy are all who revere God,
AND WHO FOLLOW IN GOD'S WAYS!
You shall eat the fruit of your labor;
HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY SHALL BE YOURS.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house.
YOUR CHILDREN LIKE OLIVE SHOOTS ROUNDABOUT YOUR TABLE.
The Parent who reveres God shall thus indeed be blessed.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU FROM HEAVEN
And may you see the prosperity of your city all the days of your life.
MAY YOU LIVE TO SEE YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN; MAY PEACE BE UPON OUR NATION.
GLORIA PATRI
SECOND LESSON 2 Timothy 1:1-7
GOSPEL John 19:25-27
PRAYER OF THE DAY Divine Parent, grant us our Savior's ready sensitivity to the widow and the orphan that we may adopt the lonely and make links where family ties have been broken, so that the church may be a larger family embracing all who need both human and divine love, in the Spirit of Christ. Amen
CHILDREN'S SERMON "Pinch Hitters or Designated Hitters"
SOLO OR ANTHEM
This is the text of an appropriate solo, based on the visit of Mary to Elizabeth:
"The Visit"
Words and Music by Sister Miriam Therese Winter, copyright by Medical Mission Sister, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1. She walked in the summer through the heat on the hill.
She hurried as one who went with a will.
She danced in the sunlight when the day was done.
Her heart knew no evening who carried the sun.
2. Fresh as a flower at the first ray of dawn,
She came to her cousin whose morning was gone.
There leaped a little child in the ancient womb
And there leaped a little hope in ev'ry ancient tomb.
3. Hail, little sister, who heralds the spring,
Hail, brave mother, who carries the King.
Hail, to the moment beneath your breast,
May all generations call you blessed.
4. When you walk in the summer through the heat on the hill,
When you're wound with the wind and one with his will,
Be brave with the burden you are blessed to bear.
For it's Christ that you carry ev'rywhere, ev'rywhere, ev'rywhere.
SERMON "Designated Mother"
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION
Eternal One, who in creating us male and female created us in your own likeness, becoming our First Parent as you created our first parents, we rejoice today in all of our ancestors who have passed to us the chain of life, but especially for those who are our natural mothers and our adoptive mothers, those who have nursed us when we were sick, those who have cared for us in the absence of our own mothers and all who have nourished us spiritually with their wisdom and faith.
We rejoice with all families in the ties that bind us in the family of the church whether near or far, in this locality or across the country. We are grateful for the chain that links us to the church of the apostles and the people of Israel.
Grant that your church may be strong in both paternal and maternal virtues however we may define them. Who can completely explain how you have made us in your image and how you are going about restoring that image through the saving Christ and the healing Spirit?
Draw together all the earth's family in worship and unity that your quarreling children may be at peace, that crime may decrease, and bloodshed end, that war may be learned no more, and no mother be called upon to give her children to die for their country.
Bless all in authority over us that they may exercise it with the guidance they seek from you and the honesty to acknowledge their limitations.
Hasten the day when all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of the Christ and to your Holy Name we will ascribe all glory and praise with all the saints in heaven and all the church on earth. Amen
HYMN
POSTLUDE
Children's Message
"Pinch Hitters or Designated Hitters"
John 19:26, 27 "... He said to his mother, 'he is your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'she is your mother.' From that time the disciple took her to live in his home."
Object: a bat or bats, plastic as young children might use, and/or regulation bats.
Do you like to play baseball? (Swing a regular bat if you have room.) Or are you practicing to play softball? (If a child has brought the practice plastic bat, have them show their batting style.)
When your grandfathers were ball players there may have been pinch hitters but not designated hitters. I am not sure of the rules so I am not going to go into detail. In our sandlot games, a pinch hitter was someone to go to bat when another player was injured. Sometimes one of our friends was going by and we called him (or her) to come and bat for us "in a pinch," perhaps getting a hit for us when we really needed it.
Nowadays baseball teams have players who are designated hitters, who are sent in when a hit is badly needed, with players on base or some other reason the coach has in mind.
Have you ever had a "mother-in-a-pinch"? Even a babysitter can be a mother or father in a pinch when your parents need to be away and you need someone to take care of you. On more serious occasions, if your mother happens to be sick or in the hospital to have a baby, your grandmother, an aunt, or someone else comes to be "mother-in-a-crisis."
Honoring your mother and father also includes honoring your pinch-hitter-mother who has come to take care of you. Obeying them is like obeying your mother or father because they have been designated by your parent or parents to supervise you.
Some of you may have a foster mother or stepmother, who is more like a designated hitter, who has care and custody of you for a longer time by the decision of your father or by a court. An adoptive mother, a foster mother, a stepmother, as well as a natural mother all deserve your respect and love for the care they take of us when we are young children.
Preaching Resources
"Designated Mother"
Introduction: Mary and Elizabeth were designated mothers in more remarkable ways than most.
1. Marriage is not designated for all, as Jesus taught. (See his remarks about celibacy in Matthew 19:11-12, which particularly deals with men but may be extended to women also. See also The Wedded Unmother, Kaye Halverson with Karen M. Hess, Augsburg Publishing House, 1980.)
2. Motherhood, like marriage, should be both designated and vocational and not by accident or compulsion.
a. Because you had a mother does not mean you are required to be a mother.
b. Family planning should be as deliberate as any choice of career.
c. Motherhood is still an honorable vocation among callings available to women.
Motherhood: When Edwin Holt Hughes was ordained an elder by his father, who was a bishop, his mother said, "I have felt that the home was the sanctuary wherein my main service was to be given: and that God's will for me had made the cradle of my children, the altar of my work."
I Was Made A Minister, Edwin Holt Hughes, copyright Whitmore and Stone, 1953, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press
3. The future of mothering must always be considered sacred as is all human life.
a. A mother's grief is one of the most poignant of human feelings.
Mother's Kissprint on a Coffer
We do not come to much at last
A cookie tin is big enough
To hold our ashes.
We gathered round the grave
An arm's length deep,
The parson and the family
of five remaining.
In words like these the parson
Called the ground holy
Sanctified by love,
God's, parents', brothers'
Sisters', the Church's.
But the most holy sign
Of love was made
Before the mother
Took the coffer
And kissing the cover
Left a kissprint on it,
As she lowered her daughter's
Ashes into the grave.
A handful at a time
We covered the simple coffer
With the good earth
Watered by a few tears.
The April Day was cool
Inviting the warmth
of a communal hug.
Only the parson
had ever done a "jelly roll."
But Father took up
The youngest in his arms
While mother took his arm
And the hand of her eldest son
Who held brother's hand
Which brother took the parson's
who began to wind around
Pulling tight the hug,
Until the little one
Father and mother
And brothers and church
Were tight
And head to head.
"How many hugs is this?"
the parson asked.
"A thousand," said the father,
smiling at the baby in his arms.
"Multiplied by the hug of God,"
said the parson,
"That's about right."
What I saw clear today
I never saw before:
A mother's kissprint
on a coffer.
(BDH 4/6/88)
b. We may honor mothers but not deify them as a mother has written from her own experience:
Had I been Joseph's mother
I'd have prayed
protection from his brothers:
"God keep him safe;
he is so young,
so different from the others."
Mercifully
she never knew
there would be slavery
and prison, too.
Had I been Moses' mother
I'd have wept
to keep my little son;
praying she might forget
the babe drawn from the water
of the Nile,
had I not kept
him for her
nursing him the while?
Was he not mine
and she
but Pharaoh's daughter?
Had I been Daniel's mother
I should have pled
"Give victory!
This Babylonian horde -
godless and cruel -
don't let them take him captive
- better dead,
Almighty Lord!"
Had I been Mary -
Oh, had I been she,
I would have cried
as never mother cried,
"... Anything, O God,
anything ...
but crucified!"
With such prayers
importunate
my finite wisdom
would assail
Infinite Wisdom;
God, how fortunate
Infinite Wisdom
should prevail!
Ruth Bell Graham,
Beside My Laughing Fire,
Word Publishers
c. Honoring mothers does not preclude making decisions and provisions for aging mothers who are no longer able to make such decisions for themselves.
Conclusion:
Any day and every day is a day to honor mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
We honor as well all who have mothered us - whether they have held the title or not. It is always appropriate to thank those who have nurtured and comforted us at whatever age. It is always reprehensible not to express our appreciation for such love and care.
If there is someone who mothered you at a particular time, and who comes to your mind today, get on the phone or send them a telegram or sit down this afternoon and write a letter of appreciation on this day for mothers.
