Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

John 19:25-27, 24:14-15

Preached by Joanne Roberts
=================================================

What a wonderful day this is! A day to honor our mothers. Do you realize what a wonderful gift from God a mother is? Not one of us can be on this earth unless a mother has given birth to us. Not everyone can be raised by their birth mother due to many unforseen circumstances but then another loving mother chooses you to love and to cherish as her own. A mother shows every emotion, happiness, sadness, fear, jealousy, love, hate, anger, helplessness, excitement, joy and sorrow. All the while she is hoping and praying that you will only know the good feelings in life. As it says in 1st Corinthians 13:13, So faith hope, love abide but the greatest of these is love. A mother's love is like no other. It is patient and forgiving, endless and unselfish and cannot be destroyed. She always hopes for your success in life and her faith never falters as she prays for you.

When I started thinking about speaking today, I started looking for mothers in the bible. I wasn't having much success but as I continued many bible stories came to mind that I learned in Sunday school and Bible school. Of course the first mother on earth was Eve and through her has come literally millions of descendants to populate this wonderful earth. Also john the Baptist whose mother Elizabeth and father Zachariah were very old when God blessed them with a son John who grew up to be known as John the Baptist, even baptizing Jesus.

Moses whose mother saved his life when the king of Egypt ordered all baby boys born to Hebrew parents be killed at birth. She hid him for 3 months and when she could no longer keep him a secret, she took a basket woven of bull rushes, covered it with tar and placed him in it. She took it down to the river and hid it in the tall grasses along the river. The king's daughter found the baby and adopted him and named him Moses because she saved him from the water. Moses own mother gave him up to save his life.

Remember Naomi and Ruth? When Naomi's 2 sons died, her loving daughter in law Ruth followed her to the new land, leaving behind her family and friends and her homeland because Ruth loved her so much.

There are many others but I will just remind you of our most beloved mother, Mary the mother of Jesus. Although she was very young, she accepted this wonderful gift from God and raised him up to be our Savior and watched him die on the cross to save us from our sins. Some of Jesus last words before he died as he looked down at his mother standing beside one of his most beloved disciples said,"Women behold your son and to the disciple, behold your mother." His dying wish was for his mother to be taken care of and the disciples took her into his home and cared for her.

I would like to tell you a bit about my own mother as a tribute to her. Mom's life wasn't easy, she had her 1st child in 1931 and her 5th child in 1940. Times were tough back then. Our country was just coming out of the Great Depression but I never heard her complain. She lived by her faith in God. We were in church and Sunday school every Sunday. We didn't have a car until about 1947 but my grandparents picked us up every Sunday in their old touring car. It was a bit crowded with 9 people but most of us were small and everyone in their lap. Mom was a loving mother with a strong Christian faith. She taught Sunday school class and was active in the Ladies Aid which was a group like our Servers Fellowship. Her and dad were leaders in starting an adult bible study. I believe they met once or twice a month for Bible study and socializing. They named this class "The Bound to Win Class" Mother was so kind I don't believe she ever spanked one of her children. When we were in church mom and dad sang in the choir which faced the congregation. We knew if we fidgeted too much we would get the LOOK from mom, but since we were sitting with our grandparents we knew also that grandma would not hesitate to casually put her arm across the back of the pew and give the short hair a little pull. We did behave! Mom didn't preach or talk religion a lot but she taught her faith by example. I remember the plaque on the wall in the kitchen which said "As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord." She always said if you give the Lord his 10% he will make sure that the rest is enough. She even served on the Church Council a few years even though back then it was almost unheard of. She didn't really approve of being there but she would never refuse to do something for her church. They always depended on her to bake dinner rolls for any dinners at the church. I never inherited her talent with yeast dough but I do bake cookies that she was famous for. In her neighborhood she was called the "Cookie Grandma" because every little child knew if they knocked on her door she would give then a cookie. Even at 85 when she was diagnosed with colon cancer and had surgery, she recovered and still baked cookies for little friends. As she grew more frail and had very little hearing she no longer went to church. By this time I tried to spend at least 1 week a month with her to give my sister a break. I soon learned that she did have church on Sunday morning. She was sleeping in her living room and always insisted that I go upstairs and get a good night sleep. After I was sure she was asleep, I would sneak back down and sleep on the sofa in the dinning room in case she needed me. Well on Sunday morning she would get up by 6:30 sit in her chair and turn on her tv full volume to hear Dr. Stanley. Believe me when that tv came on I think I sat straight up but I never let on that she woke me. We enjoyed our early service together and sometimes a couple services.

Of course the time came when she was nearly 87 that God called her home. For the last couple years she made it quite clear to us what she would like when this time came. Her greatest wish was to be taken to the church for her funeral because the chapel at the funeral home was to small to hold her family which now was 107 people plus aunts, uncles and cousins, friends and church family. She also would prefer to have it on a Saturday at 1:oo because many of the family had to travel a long distance. God granted her every wish. She died on a Wednesday night, her wake was Friday and service Saturday night. What a glorious day it was, Now this is February 26, usually blizzard time. It did not snow from Wednesday night until the following Monday when all of her beloved family were home safe. It was a beautiful sunny day and the temperature was 70 We have a picture of 23 of the 24 grandchildren standing on the front steps of the church most of them in their shirt sleeves. What a wonderful celebration of her life this was. We probably squeezed 150 people into that little country church and about 90 of them were her family. God did really bless his faithful follower Martha!

Amen.