原文英文，孫志硯漢譯。 經文：JOHN 15:9-17, RR 21 (Ps100), SS 66(Eng. 64), 275, 507

Happy Mother’s Day!

I have to tell you honestly, it is hard to preach on holidays. Mostly because there is always a theme for the holiday and that’s basically what you refer to and preach about. So when you have to preach year after year, it becomes a challenge because I don’t want to say the same thing over and over again, year after year, but how much variation can I really bring to my sermons?

Mother’s Day, of course, is about our gratitude toward our mothers. The sacrifices that they gave us, the love, the direction and guidance. And, unfortunately, I generally follow the lectionary, which does NOT actually refer to passage about mothers. So when we look at today’s passage, it says nothing about mothers. Instead, Jesus is talking about God, His father, and the love of God.

I really like this passage. Jesus is pointing to a growing relationship between God and people. Love is an important aspect of God’s relationship with us. It has always been. We know that first God love us so we can go out and love others. When we think about how to love and what love is, we first think about how God is with us to understand this love. Then we look to those around us who love us to know and live in this love. God is sometimes in the abstract, but the love of our mothers—the first person in the world to love us—is not. It is very real and very personal and very earthly. Moreover, it is experienced before we were even born. In our mother’s wombs, we are loved. We are nourished by our mothers. Even though our fathers are around, it is not the same thing.

I’m at the age where many of my friends are having babies. I work with a mother who described how hard she worked when she was pregnant to eat and live healthy so that her baby will BE healthy. Most mothers I know will start to give up things—a huge list of things, from the obvious: alcohol and fish to the not so obvious: lunch meats and coffee. Motherhood is a huge change in the lives of women. It is very weird to me to see my friends become mothers because I still don’t feel old enough to be friends with moms. The world does not stand still. With every coming day, we get older. Life doesn’t stand still to wait for us to decide what we want to do. We’re always in a constant state of growing. Even our relationship with God does not stand still. In this passage, Jesus speaks to exactly that.

We used to be mere servants to God. Yes, God loved us, but God was hidden to us. We did not know what God’s agenda was for us. With the birth, life, and death of Jesus, that all changed. God’s relationship with human beings now had changed from the beginning of time, when God used punishment to make new covenant with people. The sacrifice of Jesus changed everything for us. God stopped holding us personally responsible for our weaknesses. With Jesus, we are no longer servants to God, but friends. This means that we have an equal relationship with God—a reciprocal relationship instead of one of inequality.

Of course, I’m not saying that we are the same as God. God is so much more than what we can comprehend. However, God has allowed us to have a special relationship where we know we have worth and value. Unlike a servant, who has no identity, God created us as individuals. We serve as a way to love and honor God, not because we are forced to. This is friendship: we love and serve our friends, because we love them, not because they force us to. I think it’s actually very difficult to get to the friend stage of a familial relationship. Our parents, especially our mothers, who carried us in her womb, raised us, taught us to think, to share, pushed and molded us to be better people. Our parental relationship is not friendship. Friends are people you choose to have in your life; people who do not have responsibility for you. Because of the lack of responsibility, it can be easier to be close to friends. Being with friends is less stressful. They are not personally invested in your success. Of course, they want you to be happy, but when you are not happy, it doesn’t hurt them like it hurts someone who loves you. Throughout the Bible, we see God continuously reaching out to us, to call us back, to fight for us, eventually sending Jesus to die for us so that we can live knowing that God loves us and is always there for us.

Jesus made us friends, rather than servants. In this way, we are equal to God because we are no longer obligated to God. We don’t have to do anything to serve God. We don’t have to do anything to earn a place in heaven. By calling us friends, Jesus invites us to serve and invites us to live the everlasting life in heaven. For no reason except that God loves us. This is a major change in our relationship with God.

Recently, I feel that I have grown in my own relationship with my mother so that she isn’t just my mom. She is my mom, and she will always be… but, she is also my friend. Yes, she is always someone I can lean on, someone I can talk to, and someone I can get wisdom from. But, as we grow together, we become each other’s confidants, supporters, and cheerleaders. The relationship we have now is more mutual. I know that in Taiwanese culture, this is hard to do. It is hard to give up some of that power that you hold as an authority, as a parent. It is hard to become vulnerable to your child, to let them know that you need them too.

Yet, God did this because God loved us and trusted that who we are is GOOD. And I’m grateful that my mother has chosen to also be my friend instead of just my mother because we are now much closer than we were. Instead of being fearfully obedient, I am gratefully transformed to being the person she raised. We are better able to love each other when we choose to love each other as friends. We are empowered as people when we have freedom to choose. God understood this and in God’s amazing love, God gave us the ability to choose God, even though we know and God knows that God created us and loved us first.

On Mother’s Day, we remember the great gift that God gives us: a friendship that empowers us. Our faith gives us strength to know that we are VALUABLE. This is what my mother has done. Even though sometimes I think she’s crazy, I have always known that she thought I was valuable. This hasn’t been without hardship or difficulty, and it is not always easy and goo, but I can truly say that my mother is my friend. And that has made all the difference in our relationship. Not only is she there for me, but I am there for her. May you all celebrate your friendships with your mothers, remembering that she has given up part of who she is to love us as who we are and that she is only human and needs us to love and care for her as well.