1 Samuel 1:21- 2:2
Turning from Hannah’s prayer, we hear Jesus’ final time of teaching with his disciples. For four chapters Jesus shares his parting wisdoms like “If you love me, you will follow my commandments” and “Abide in me and I in you” (John 14:15, 15:4) In this last chapter before Gethsemane, Jesus moves from teaching to praying. Let me ask you, which would you rather have, Jesus talking to you or Jesus praying for you? Listen now for God’s word to you. READ
“The fruit does not fall too far from the tree.” I first heard this saying while living in Tennessee. I have to admit it felt kinda strange. It expresses how one honestly came by a family trait, sort of like saying like father, like son. It would not apply to family members both having piercing blue eyes. No it is more about behavior and action, hence the falling. It might be said about generations of NASCAR lovers, father and daughter with great singing abilities, a mother known for her hospitality and grace and her daughter inheriting the same trait. Some of these can come from nature meaning it is passed along in DNA and other might be nurture coming from environment. Many of us would certainly say that much of who we are today is shaped by a parent, through both nature and nurture.
At a recent holiday celebration with several families and lots of friends we played a trivia game; the kids against the more mature folks. When Parker gets up to play and does a fantastic job, I said something like how did you get so smart, and his now infamous response was, “You made me!” Whether that is just “The fruit does not fall too far from the tree” or the forces of nature and nurture, I have had the privilege of mothering my two sons. Something I treasure more than anything. Today we heard Hannah’s prayer of celebration after God blessed her with a son. Her heart’s desire was to become a mom. To feel life grown inside her, to hold her baby, nurse, sing and love a child into being. Motherhood was a gift initially denied her; a painful place for any woman to be. One she struggled with for years and took to God in prayer. When God answered her prayer she fulfilled her promise to dedicate Samuel to the Lord. After giving her son, the fruit of her tree, to the Lord she prayed and praised God, “My heart exults in the Lord!”
As Mothers we pray to God all the time, pray for our children’s safety, our patience and need for wisdom and certainly for God’s help. We pray when they miss curfew, go off to college, start their own family, or face painful hardships. Today a young mother’s prayer might sound like this:
Dear Lord, it’s such a hectic day
With little time to stop and pray
For life’s been anything but calm
Since You called on me to be a mom
Running errands, matching socks
Building dreams with building blocks
Cooking, cleaning, and finding shoes
And other stuff that children lose
Fitting lids on bottled bugs
Wiping tears and giving hugs
A stack of last week’s mail to read
So where’s the quiet time I need?
Yet when I steal a minute, Lord
Just at the sink or ironing board
To ask the blessings of Your grace
I see then, in my small one’s face
That you have blessed me
All the while
And I stop to kiss
That precious smile
Mothers pray to God for their children just like Jesus prayed to his father for us, God’s children. Jesus prayed for unity and love. Unity we see as Jesus prays, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us” (v. 21). Let’s break that down. Jesus and the Father are one, united in spirit, truth and being; they share a divine unity. We know who God is because Jesus shared God’s divine reality with us. Every time Jesus said, “You sent me,” or “I am in you” which he does a lot in John, it is another way of saying of Jesus and God, “The fruit did not fall too far from the tree.” Jesus and the Father are one. The “DNA” between God and Jesus that makes this unity happen is not double helix but rather love. Love is the very nature of who God is, the abiding truth of Jesus and the way we are called into a divine relationship with Christ. “Five times in 6 verses Jesus names love as the key descriptor of divine relationships (23, 24, 26).
- Love is the bond within the Godhead (23-24);
- Love is the divine gift to the disciples (23).
- Love is the magnetic grace through which God seeks to attract the world (25-26).
- Love is the ingredient that the Lord prays will be within his followers (26).” (Feasting on the Word, C2, pg. 545) Jesus prays we have love, true deep abiding love from God, and we show that to the world like we did with the Mother’s Day Cards – funding women in need. The hope here of course is that someone might say of us in relation to Christ, “You have not fallen too far from the tree.” Christ’s love is seen in you to such a degree that you are known as a child of God. Your love bears fruit in God’s world. Discipleship calls for that kind of love.
On this Mother’s Day, I want to say thank you to all the mothers who show a rich, deep, sacrificial love to their children. A love awfully close to the kind of love God asks of us as disciples. A mother’s love is a love that puts the other first, that will feed before being fed, that will protect even when bone tired, that celebrates every victory, and comforts every loss. Many of us are the people we are today because of our mother’s love. We then give the loved we first received from Mom to the people in our lives. That is exactly what Jesus prays. “So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (26). Jesus knows God’s love completely, and we know that love through Christ. We share that love with each other and the world.
Jesus prayed for unity and love, Hannah prayed a mother’s prayer, soon we will hear an offertory of a mother’s prayer. And yet many of us honor this day knowing that our mother’s are in God’s care after having cared so completely for us. Abraham Lincoln expressed his appreciation for his mother this way, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Here is a prayer for all of our angel mothers, in heaven.
If Roses grow in Heaven,
Lord please pick a bunch for me,
Place them in my Mother’s arms
and tell her they’re from me.
Tell her I love her and miss her,
and when she turns to smile,
place a kiss upon her cheek
and hold her for awhile.
Because remembering her is easy,
I do it every day,
but there’s an ache within my heart
that will never go away.
God, thank you for the love that reaches to heaven and back. For the love God gave first to Christ and then to us. For the love of mothers for their children and children for their moms.
Amen.
