May 9, 2021
/The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5: 1-6; John 15: 9-17
The Rev. James M.L Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, happy Mother’s Day out there to every person who has been born. If you were a baby once, you get to celebrate Mother’s Day!
I would like to spend a few minutes this morning talking about our reading from 1 John today and would like to do so through a story. This is a story about something I experienced roughly two weeks ago.
A friend of mine reached out to me two weeks ago and asked if I would go over to her house and say a prayer with her. She is about my age, is a mother of several children and was getting ready to have major surgery. She was going to have a hysterectomy. As I walked into her home, I became aware of the irony of it being so close to Mother’s Day, and her having the apparatus of her motherhood removed from her body.
Her family members and I gathered around her, placing our hands on her shoulders, and prayed. The next day she had the surgery, she came through fine, and is healing now. We talked last week, and I wished her a happy Mother’s Day.
She expressed gratitude for the doctors, optimism, and hope, and I left the conversation with this feeling that despite what my friend had just gone through surgically, that she seemed stronger after the surgery than before. This sounds ridiculous – but she continues to give birth even after this surgery – creating hope and joy.
Birth against all odds is the story of scripture, filled as it is with stories of women barren since birth, who by a miracle discover life growing within them – an act of God.
There is a mysterious line in our scripture reading from 1 John today in which the author writes these words: “whatever is born of God conquers the world.” What does that mean? For me it means, what a person wiser than I once told me, which is that inside the will of God, there is no failure. Outside the will of God, there is no success.” Or to put it another way, God did not bring you this far to bring you this far.
There is still new life ahead. It does not matter if our bodies are biologically not up to giving birth anymore, all of us, no matter our age or ability have new life, new insights, new wisdom to share with the world.
When the author of 1 John writes those words “what is born of God conquers the world,” I do not believe that we are to assume that means we should forge our own paths and use God as a sledgehammer to knock down others and further our own agendas. What I believe the author means, is that it does not matter if you are a woman who has had a hysterectomy – it does not matter if you are man, it does not matter what your gender identification is – because we all have the same job – to join with God and get to work getting born.
If we trust God, what you and I create will have God’s blessing on it. If what you or I create is contrary to God, you better believe God will thwart our efforts, as God did with the builders of the Tower of Babel.
Whatever God brings into the world, will triumph against all odds. That is our job by the way – to be co-creators with God. To build something. And there is risk to that – there is risk of failure of course. At this church I have heard people share with me their fears of failure, which I completely identify with. We are all afraid of failing.
And while that fear of failure runs deep for many of us, I submit a fear greater than that is our fear of success. What if we really accomplish something? What then?
One final word on this verse. Anything that is born, even born of God, must one day be weaned. Whatever is born must become self-supporting. This weaning process is difficult for us, and many of us refuse it. No one likes to be weaned. But we cannot mature – we cannot grow – until we are weaned, until we are deprived of comfort and certainty. Once we are on our own, once we face our fears with courage, trusting God to go before us and clear our path, then we will conquer any adversity that comes before us.
Bob Dylan once said, “He who isn’t busy getting born is busy dyin.’” God is into living, not dying. God is birthing within you right now at this moment – something wonderful to give to the world. All you must do is figure out what it is, allow God to deliver it, and watch the world change. Happy Mother’s Day. AMEN.