May 13, 2001
Mother's Day
Fifth Day of Easter

No Perfect Mothers

"Love one another as I have loved you." A good message for a Mother's Day worship service. When we think of the word "mother," in its abstraction, the first thing that we think about is the word "Love." We could add more; nurture, caring, support, encouragement. But love is the first word that comes to mind. Mother's Day is not on the liturgical calendar. In fact, many congregations have tried to enlarge that celebration to talk about the Festival of the Christian Family. Still, motherhood is so important in our culture that churches over and over again across the country will gather together to celebrate Mother's Day. There is always a recognition that not everyone is a mother. Still we think that, like the flag and like apple pie, we should talk about what's good about being a mother. There are special recognitions, contests about oldest mother and most children and most grandchildren and great and great and great. There are also often special gifts, like the gifts that I forgot to ask the kids to pass out to you today. I expect that later this morning some children will be looking for you. If you are a mother, you can self-identify and you'll get a recognition today of your efforts as a mother.

Even though we believe motherhood is wonderful in the abstract, we know that our experiences of motherhood are not uniformly wonderful. Good and bad, and up and down, there are all kinds of mothers. Some of you would have wonderful things to say and some of you, perhaps, never even knew your mother. We gather this day to think about love and the call to "love one another." We can think specifically how that is played out in motherhood, but we know that all of us are called to "love one another" whether we are mothers or fathers or not parents at an. In the gospel story from Matthew, the stakes are raised even higher. Instead of just loving others, and allowing us to do that within our own comfort zone, Jesus calls us to a different level. He says, "It doesn't mean that much to love someone who loves you. Almost anyone can accomplish that. I want you to do something more. I want you to love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. I want you to share God's love with everyone." Those are challenging words for all of us. I think they are particularly challenging words for those who are called on to be mothers. Challenging because of the implications of the final phrase in that passage from Matthew. "You then shall be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect." We know that once upon a time, or at least we believe that once upon a time, there was a specific role for mothers and for fathers, for women and for men. We had some idea about what it was that we were supposed to be perfect about. As those roles were challenged and more and more women went to college or entered the work force, took on responsibilities in the everyday world, all of that began to get fuzzier. Twenty years ago the idea of a "super mom" began to develop. A super mom who could still be all the wonderful things that motherhood called for. Still be an attractive and loving wife. But, also be a darn good business woman. Taking care of all the different aspects of life. Smart, articulate, good cook, wonderful housekeeper, dynamic mother with sparkling children. That is quite a burden for anybody to carry. It is especially a difficult burden for women who are already asked to be perfect mothers. The bulletin cover announces my bias. There are no perfect mothers. I don't know whether you want to affirm that as the truth or debate with me, or just want to let out a sigh of relief. There are no perfect mothers. Not just because the job is so difficult, but because mothers are human and there are no perfect humans. There are no perfect ministers. I know about that. There are no perfect doctors. There are no perfect teachers. There are no perfect managers of the tire store. There are no perfect anything, because we are all human. If we were perfect then we wouldn't be human. All of us fight it. Even if we know that we cannot be perfect, we want to be perfect. Especially in our culture. Good old Americans don't like to be second place. We want to be the best. We want to be first. You can see when a team like the Mariners has a string of success, how excited people get to be cheering for the team that is the best in all of baseball. We don't get very many opportunities to be the best. When we can grab on to some claim to being at the top, we do that quickly and with enthusiasm.

When we struggle with our desire to be perfect, with our view of the way that things should be, we often cause damage, destruction. Ideals of perfection can cause trouble in a business. In a classroom. In a marriage. We fight with our own unhappiness with ourselves that we're not perfect. At the same time we are critical of someone else because he or she is not perfect. Their humanness reminds us of our own humanness. We don't like to look that in the face.

When we think about what it means to be people of faith, we are talking about our search for meaning. Our attempts deal with what it means to be human. What it means to be not perfect. What it means to want desperately to be perfect. Some people make religion into another winning team. If I join this church or that Guru, then I'll be number one. I'll have all the flaws removed. Then I will be guaranteed first place. Understandable, but an abuse of religion. The good news that we share, the good news that we find here in our church together, is that we don't have to be perfect. We can't be perfect. God loves us even though we aren't perfect. More importantly, God loves us because we are not perfect. If God can love us imperfect as we are, then why can't we love ourselves in the same way? Why can't we love other humans imperfect as they are?

It's Mother's Day. Good mothers. Absent mothers. Mediocre mothers. Bad mothers. Mothers of all kinds. My own mother was raised in some difficult circumstances. For the most part raised in a single parent family. Her father died when she was young. A step father somewhere along the line, but never a very close relationship. My grandmother, her mother, busy trying to put food on the table and keep a family of three children together. So my mother, searching for love, found some sense of belonging in the Salvation Army, with their worship services and activities. She also found a dream of perfection in the movie theatres, watching all of those romances on the big screen. She had an idea about what she hoped her life would become. She searched for love. Married far too soon. Pregnant with me at the age of 17, when she got married. Discovering soon after that her dream of a perfect marriage and perfect love wasn't going to be realized easily or quickly. Kids, however, did come quickly. Four of us in the first six years. During that time she decided that she was trapped. Trapped in a bad relationship. Certainly not an ideal relationship. Over the years there were a number of affairs with other men. Always searching. My parents somehow kept their marriage together. I'm not quit sure that I understand it yet. Her search for perfection damaged the family. When I was young I was very close to her. As I grew older I began to understand her in a different way. There was a picture of her when she was in high school that looked to me, at least from my age perspective, very much like the pictures that I had seen of Judy Garland. The Dorothy star of The Wizard of Oz. As I learned a little bit more about Judy Garland's difficult life and her struggles with addiction, I began to understand my mother as a tragic figure. Always searching for something that she was never able to find.

Early in my ministry, when I was yet a student minister, I wrote a story. It is *in the style of Shel Silverstein, a favorite children's author of mine. It's based roughly on my mother. Not all of the details are exactly what I experienced, or what she went through. This story was part of a sermon about Jesus' call for us to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. You see that word, "Perfect," doesn't mean what we understand it to mean. The Greek word talks about being "perfectly turned." It's a matter of repentance, of orientation, of mission, of priorities. So to be perfect doesn't mean escape from our humanness. To be perfect is not to be without flaw. To be perfect is to be perfectly turned to God. To be oriented towards something outside of ourselves. To find meaning in the love and the creativity of the Universe. I wrote this story about being perfect. I talked about those Better Homes and Gardens pictures of a house with nothing out of place, or the television commercials about the couple running down the beach with their dog. They never show scoops or plastic bags to take care of what the dog leaves behind. We have these pictures of what it means to be perfect. That perfection is somewhere off over the rainbow. But it influences our lives. So I wrote this story in 1978 and shared it as part of a sermon both in my student church and then in the first church that I served. The first week that I was here my mother died of a massive heart attack. She had just turned 61 a couple of months before. Understanding the dynamics of our family, I talked to my brothers and sisters and said, "I think that I need to be the one to officiate at her funeral service." The story became part of her funeral. (Story is attached)

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Perfect is not a Picture