Mothers Day / Easter 5

May 13 & 14, 2006

Chips Off the Old Block

Nothing is as simple as it looks, and it may not even BE what it looks like. All of us kids of all ages who were here last Wednesday night learned that from watching illusionist David Horsager. It's easy to be fooled by what you see.

Leading up to Wednesday I thought (and I said to several of you) that, well, he calls himself an "illusionist" because "magician" is not politically correct these days. Turns out I was wrong, mostly. He IS an illusionist. He uses card tricks, disappearing dollar bills - uses illusions - to teach us not to be fooled by the illusions surrounding us... on TV and in our magazines, for example. He showed us how easy it is to be deceived, say, when something bad is called good for you. It was a good show. You coulda heard a Kleenex fall on this carpet - a couple of hundred kids in this room and a lot of adults - absolutely quiet when he told about his struggle in the swimming pool at Lutzen. Look for the light, he said. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

But so many things aren't as simple as that or as trustworthy and reliable as we'd like them to be. Not even Mothers Day, really. This weekend often raises issues. You've maybe heard the old hymn, Faith of Our Fathers; number 500 in the green hymnal. We don't use that song very much partly because of the problem with its language; fathers aren't the only Christian parents. So maybe we should try what one church in rural North Carolina does. I guess, every year on this weekend they sing it as "Faith of our mothers..." and everyone loves it, even the Republicans! The report, however, didn't say anything about how they'd feel with "Our Mother who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..." [1]

This is the peak day of the year for long distance phone calls. It's the second highest gift-giving holiday after Christmas. Mothers Day is the busiest day of the year for many restaurants [2] It's also an emotionally-complicated day. A lot of what we get about Mothers Day - from magazine writers, columnists and commentators, the internet, Mothers Day cards, cultural assumptions that we all buy into- we end up with Mother on a Pedestal, an idealized image with a capital M. How could any woman live up to that? Mothers are very human beings. Even the finest mothers make mistakes - and the rest of our lives we're working on forgiving and forgetting J!

It's complicated, Mothers Day... Other experiences (like adoption and placing for adoption), and complications of life like infertility, abortion, miscarriage emotional issues or physical conditions in personal life or family life, parenting without benefit of spouse, even marriage itself and partnership. It's no wonder that some people stay away from church on Mothers Day or spend the weekend along, or gag on all the sentimentality that's in the air today.

Still, though, there's nothing wrong with Mothers Day itself, if, knowing that some things about it, too, are illusions, we keep our eyes on Jesus. This could be the weekend to talk about Christian families (parents and kids as disciples), or selfless sacrifice, or Mary, the mother of Jesus (or, dare I go there with that movie coming soon... [The DaVinci Code]? Mary Magdalene) as a model of faith... could talk about the role of women, or, if you're a particularly daring liberal in a precinct of religious fundamentalists, could discuss the female attributes and masculine names of God. Achh! We've done most of that here. Let us do something different.

My theme is this: Chips Off the Old Block. That's my Mothers Day theme, even if it sounds masculine. Chips Off the Old Block - it can be a feminine thing, too. Some characteristics of my face, which I passed on to my son Matthew, are also visible in his great-grandmother's face on my mother's side. Matt and I are chips off the old maternal block. When you're in-between two generations, like most of us are, as parents, you think about genetics - what you inherited from your mom and dad and what you're passing on, pro and con - not merely good looks and uncommon talents, of course, but predispositions to certain disease, body type, psychology, or my favorite with every confirmation class: Can you curl your tongue like this?

Genetics. What about nurture, though, not nature? Titus, adopted and therefore my son equally and by my initiative, of course - he shares traits of personality, voice inflection, and a habit of busyness with our family - and so does his niece, his brother's girl Abigail, and she was born in China! It's not just nature.

Think about God's parentage and our inheritance as the children of God. "I am the vine," said Jesus; "you are the branches." There's an organic, intimate connection, and the inheritance is all good. God's genetics are faultless; God's nurture is impeccable. Chips off the old block are something like the block itself. Not everything; we are not God, but we are children of God, and therefore we share some of God's DNA. A capacity for love and affection, for example. A willingness to sacrifice for those we love. A sense of right and wrong and good and evil. The ability to invent, create, and make things happen that result in greater good. We have traits and attributes that are like the One who raised us

There are complications that arise - as with Mothers Day. The problem is, we get confused or even deceived by everyone and everything that lays claim to us. Moms do that; families can. "Ideals" we see on TV and movie screens try to claim our hearts. Jobs try to. What's promoted in the culture, trade journals, People magazine ("This is what success looks like...") Coaches, faculty advisors, self-help books, career counselors, even pastors tell us we should do... the contents expected to be visible when the garage doors are open in our neighborhood... the cliques that control our self-esteem and loyalty in classroom, corridor, and cafeteria... Power and influence may in fact BE illusions but even knowing that it's still easy to be deceived.

I call you back to this: We are branches of Christ that live off an inexhaustible source of life in God himself. God is the vineyard master, and despite how difficult it is to bear good fruit - all the diseases and bad weather and growing conditions in our own "vineyard" - our home and family (in other words), school room, workplace... By genetics and by nurture, God is going to be sure something good happens. We are fed with what we need, every day given a chance to bloom where we are planted, rooted here in the fertilized soul of God's garden, we can't help but bear at least some good fruit. And I think that sometimes even God is surprised by the good results he gets.

Fritz Kreisler was a great European concert violinist early in the 1900s, but when he was growing up his father wanted him to be a doctor. (This is a pretty common plot in family stories, I know. I could have taken this story, renamed the artist, maybe called him "Prince." You'd pay attention but you'd be skeptical 'cause everyone in Minnesota knows that Mr. Nelson wasn't a doctor!) Well, the "artist formerly known as" Fritz Kreisler was a famous classical musician, but his father, the old man, tried to prune the Kreisler vineyard in a certain way because he was a doctor himself.

But he loved the violin and he taught his boy Fritz to play. The whole time, though, he was pushing Fritz toward medical school. Nature and nurture both, I guess. It was a profound disappointment when Fritz rejected his father's plans for him, turned his back on medicine, and went off to study music.

On the night Fritz Kreisler debuted in Vienna, his first significant triumph on the concert stage, his father was in the audience. Afterward his dad went home and took out his own violin. He drew the bow across the strings and thought, "Listen to that tone!" His eyes welled up with tears and he said, "That marvelous tone. Maybe I taught him that." And ever after he was his son's greatest fan. [3] And the internet can tell us, tone is one of Fritz Kreisler's historic accomplishments.

As Mother and Father both, God plants and parents us, cultivates and raises us, and God has certain hopes and dreams for us - which sometimes we don't fulfill. Some of our directions turn out to be mistakes and need to be identified and fixed. Some of our assumptions, decisions, and objectives are based on illusions that need to be uncovered as untrue.

But I wonder if it's not like Fritz and Old Man Kreisler, nature and nurture both. If he is the Vine and we are branches, something good is going to come of it. We take certain turns in life but the family resemblance, the image of God, and the recollection of what we learned from him are there regardless. Even if it's not what God had thought for us originally, I think our heavenly Father's eyes get teary when he sees us doing our best, and he says, "Look at that! Listen to that tone! Maybe I taught them that." Maybe so! He is the vine; we are her children.

Nathan Castens
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] probably from Mark Trotter; no date and no supporting evidence.
[2] Jone Johnson Lewis, Women'shistory.com
[3] I don't know; maybe Mart Trotter and from my sermon 5/9/93