Easter 7 B + Treasure + 5.12.24

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Acts 1:15–17, 21–26; Ps. 1; 1 John 5:9–13; John 17:6–19)

 

On Wednesday we celebrated the feast of Julian of Norwich at the closing Eucharist of our clergy conference in Riverside, and, reflecting on Julian’s loving image of God, Bishop John Taylor described us a “people who by grace know that all creation is made in love, saved in love, and bathed in love.”[1]

Love. That is really what today is all about. I am sensitive to the fact that, while Mother’s Day can truly feel like a celebration of Mother-love, it doesn’t feel filled with love for all. Some did not have good mother figures, or have lost their mother or child, or feel somehow “less than” because they don’t fit the “biological mother” category. I relate! But I would like to gravitate towards the archetype of Mother-love, of nurture.
Saint Julian of Norwich saw Jesus as a type of mother, one who gives us nurture and spiritual nutrition. And surely the meal of the communion, in which he feeds us of himself, is a space of much nourishment for so many of us.

The word “Mother” also brings to mind the movie about “the Philadelphia Eleven[2]” that we watched with the clergy conference on Tuesday afternoon and which, if you wish, we can also screen here at church. It highlights some sacred “mothers” of the church, eleven brave women and four more who followed them, all white due to the demographics of those who were prepared at the time, but who were ordained in a historically African-American church in July 1974, and then the second group the next year in DC. The film feels like a martyrology. None of them were directly killed due to their actions, but all suffered. One was so traumatized that she left the church and lived off the grid for 25 years in a cabin with no running water or electricity! Some were biological mothers when ordained, and some weren’t, but all wished to mother the church. To lead it into a new day.

One priest stood up on Wednesday morning to share his story with his clergy colleagues. He was ordained in 1974 also and he was taught there was a correct way to do everything. The correct and only way to lead liturgy, hold the chalice, and so forth. Perfection was demanded. And then these women came in and messed everything up! Not to say many women clergy aren’t excellent liturgists, but we tend to be just a bit less strict and a bit more relational in our leadership. This attribute is not always contained in a certain gender package, and I want to acknowledge that I am embracing a cisgender model here that may need to be expanded a bit also to embrace motherliness in all gender expressions.
But needless to say, one of the benefits of expanding whom we ordain and consecrate as bishops has been a widening. An embracing not only of paternal and maternal leadership in the church, but also of connecting with the divine in a new way. How do we connect with the maternal aspects of God – Jesus as a mother hen gathering in her chicks? How do we feel the embrace of the mother who cannot fall short but just loves and welcomes?

Because we humans are imperfect, and the more we embrace imperfection as a gift, the more we seek the only perfection we can find in God. The love of God, even as we try to imperfectly express this love to each other. Jesus, praying for his disciples today, wishes to infuse his followers with love and peace. He wishes to protect them from a world which, still wracked with sin, will sometimes be hostile and strange, both within the church and outside of it. We are in the world, we love the world because God loved the world, but we are also a bit outside of the world, in that, ultimately, nothing we truly value can be found here.

When we remember that our treasure is with our Heavenly Mother, in the embrace of the kindest one, we instinctively know that nothing we can do can really separate us from the love of God. We are like trees planted by streams of living water. Our branches may try to wander but when we dig into our roots, we know who and whose we are. We feel the water of love gushing up into our roots, filling us from top to bottom.

But we also know a reality – we will still fail; as humans we fail over and over. In the reading from Acts today, we are reminded that Judas messed up. Thus, they needed to replace him, to complete the twelve. The twelve who represent a renewal of God’s promises to the twelve tribes of Israel. Some will rightly point out that Judas also fulfilled scripture and may have had a role in Jesus’ glory. But his failure, some have pointed out, was not just in betraying Jesus. It was in not trusting God to judge him kindly and therefore in taking the judgment upon himself. This is not to condemn suicides- I truly believe that God is so much more kind and loving than us, and if we can forgive our loved ones who choose to end their lives even for a minute, God can run to them and gather them into God’s loving maternal arms.
But to return to Judas, let us juxtapose him with Peter. Peter denies him. He does not betray Jesus but it is pretty darn close. So, what distinguishes them? In part because he sticks around. He must have been wracked with guilt and terrified when he saw Jesus again. I am going to hear it now; he must have thought. And instead, he finds love, forgiveness and an invitation to lead again, as long as he is willing to love and care for Jesus’ beloved sheep. He trusted God to give the testimony, and gained eternal life.

Still, we are human, and that means not one of us is going to get through this life without messing up. Will we do so as spectacularly as Judas or Peter? I don’t know. But we may still feel we have allowed ourselves to get distant from God. So, we must be willing to come to God and say “I messed up.”
One of the commentators I listened to this week said a great thing. Joy J Moore said that even as we know God will welcome us back, we must also be communities that model God’s grace, albeit in our imperfect human way. She said, we have to let folks come to us and say “I messed up,” and be able to respond “I messed up too, come home.”[3]

Come home. Isn’t that the call of our Mother God to us? How can we allow ourselves to be called home, and in turn call another beloved child of God home? Home to receive grace. Not home to act out or harm others, but home to repent and be renewed. We all want to be restored.

This week, I was wandering around the farmer’s market briefly and saw my buddy Noe, one of our unhoused neighbors. He had a dollar, asked for a bit more cash to buy an ear of corn and fortunately I had just enough. He gave me a hug and I realized that is the love of our Mother God right there- mutual care and just seeing each other as fellow siblings in God’s kingdom. The world has placed barriers between us, but we are free. We are loved.

In one scene in “The Philadelphia Eleven,” the women priests are lined up at an altar, saying that they will take communion last because the leader must be the servant, and that everyone will give communion to each other because that is how we must be, all spiritually feeding each other. We are not perfect. We will all mess up. But God is good and continually gives us all opportunities for renewal and for expanding ourselves beyond society’s boxes. We are free. We are loved. We are worthy even though imperfect. Thanks be to God, who is Mother, Father and transcends all labels! Amen.



[1] John Harvey Taylor, from sermon of 8 May 2024, posted on his personal Facebook page.

[3] Joy J. Moore, from “Sermon Brainwave” podcast for May 12, 2024: #964: Seventh Sunday of Easter – May 12, 2024 - Working Preacher from Luther Seminary.

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