Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
May 12, 2013 - W1319

  We want to honor mothers today.  Now, I understand that this is not always the most universally happiest day of the year because sometimes we have moms that have passed away, others who were never able to be moms, or maybe some people that have had some strained relationships with mom.  But all of us have had a mom, unless you just appeared one day.  But I think most of us have moms.

Now, although we're going to focus on moms, I want us to remember that the Bible teaches us to honor and respect those that we are unable to repay, to honor and love those that we could never repay.  Because all of us are where we are today because of somebody's sacrifice, somebody's help, someone's teaching, someone's referral.  And even the gifts that we have to be entrepreneurial comes through genes or through some way that we were raised, but all of us have been given what we have.

 The Bible says, “What do you have that you did not receive?  And if you indeed have received it, why do you boast as if you did not?”

All of us have received whatever we have.

 All of us are guilty of presumption.  And you know what that is?  Taking people for granted.

There was an example in a Hallmark card I saw.  I took a look at it.  On the outside it says:  Forget the housework, Mom, forget the dishes.  Today is your day.  Besides ?? and you open it up ?? you can always catch up and do double duty tomorrow!!!

Mother’s Day was passed as an act of Congress in 1914 by Woodrow Wilson, our president then, to make the second Sunday of every May to be dedicated as Mother's Day, a national holiday, as a time for public expression of our love and reverence, public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.  And so we pause to say thank you, moms, for all that you have done, because everything we have we received.

I remember my mom.  She passed away when I was a sophomore in high school, and she was four, eleven, local Japanese lady that was first an opera singer, and then towards the end became a waitress at the Flamingo Restaurant here in Honolulu in order to support the four of us kids. 

Now, my mom was quite a disciplinarian.  She was short, but she was tough.  And she would reach for anything near her as a weapon against us.  It could have been a bat, a crow bar, a piece of glass, anything.  It didn't matter.  But I think her favorite weapon of all time was the rice paddle.  She'd always go for that. 

My mom was not an academic but she taught me a lot!

She would teach me about time travel.  She would yell at me.  She said, “If you don't straighten up, I'm going to slap you into next week!” 

She taught me about religion.  How often she'd say, I tol' you no play around with that juice.  You spilled that on the carpet.  You better pray that comes out of the carpet.  You better pray.  You better pray hard.  I learned to pray because of my mother. 

My mother taught me logic.  You keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.

One of my favorites, my mother taught me the science of osmosis.  Just shut your mouth and eat your food.  It has to be osmosis.

Another one, my mother taught me about how to be a contortionist.  She came to my back, she looked, she said, Will you look at the dirt on the back of your neck; it is filthy.

But my mom also taught me about the full circle of life.  She said, I brought you into this world.  I can take you out.  Full circle.

She taught me about giving and receiving.  When I get home, you goin' get what you goin' get.  I gonna give you what you got coming.

We owe much to our moms, don't we?  Mother's Day is sort of like the annual reminder of the great debt we owe to the woman who risked her life to bring us into the world.  From the very beginning when you and I were young, we were her chief occupation.  She carried us until we could walk.  She communicated with us before we could even talk.  We learned how to form words from watching her lips as she expressed her love for us.  And she carried us for nine months, and then she groaned through the birth process as she gave birth to us.  And they say the pain needle bounces off the charts at that moment, especially for my mom.  When I came out at 10 pounds 3 ounces, she told the doctor, “Don’t you dare slap that baby.  Bring him here – let me do it myself!”

You know, sometimes I think about God in the Old Testament, and you'll see in the burning bush it says, And God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.  He appeared to the Israelites in a flame of fire.  He appeared as an angel.  But when God himself came as the Messiah, he didn't appear.  He didn't descend.  He chose a mother through which he would enter the earth and into your life and mine.

The late Jimmy Dean said, “Mom, I sure hope you're listening.  Sweet lady, I owe you for so many things, a lot of services, like night watchman, for instance, lying awake nights listening for calls and crying and creaking floorboards and me coming into too late.  I owe you for services like short?order cook, chef, baker, for making sirloin out of hamburger and turkey out of tuna fish and big ol' scrappin' boys out of leftovers.  I owe you for cleaning services, the daily scrubbin' of face and ears, all work done by hand, and for washin' and ironin' that no laundry could ever do, for drying the tears of childhood and ironing out the problems of growing up.  And Lord knows I owe you for medical attention, for nursing me through measles, mumps, bruises, bumps, splinters, and spring fever.  And I owe you for entertainment, entertainment that kept the household going during some pretty rough times, and for making make believe come true.  And you did it all on such a limited budget.  And one thing, Mom, I'll never forget, when there were two pieces of pie and three hungry people, you were always the one that decided, well, I'm not really that hungry anyhow. 

These are just a few of the things for which payment is long overdue.  The person that I owe 'em to worked very, very cheap.  She managed by simply doing without a whole lot of things that she needed herself.  My I owe yous add up to more than I could ever hope to repay, but you know the nicest thing about it all that I know, that she'd mark the entire bill paid in full for just one kiss and four little words, mom, I love you.”

To love and honor those that we could never repay:  The Bible says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves has fulfilled the law.”

The Bible says we can't pay back certain things.  So how do we do that?  By love.  Because if you love, you fulfill the law.

There are four simple ways to love your mom:

1.   Love her verbally.

Now, men, especially men, you're going to have to practice that because it's not easy to say.  The best thing each of us can do for our kids is to love their mom.

2.   Love her physically.

Hug her and others without them having to ask for it. Your mom was the first one to touch you.

3.   Love her patiently.

Motherhood is an incredible job with no pay. Sometimes we get impatient with her for stuff we get for free from her. Here's the point.  For all she does for us, in spite of all of that, we are often very impatient with her.  We get so used to, presumption, so used to, taking it for granted, so used to her doing things for us, we come to expect it, and if it's not there, we get outraged. 

Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family reads a letter from an 80?year?old woman on her birthday.  Let me read this for you.  She writes:

To all my children, I suppose my upcoming birthday started my thoughts along these lines, so this I guess is a good time as any to tell you that what I truly want are the things I could never ever get enough of, and yet, they are free.  Absolutely free. 

For example, I would like for you to come and just sit with me and for you to be relaxed and listen.  And I need your patience.  I need your patience when I don't hear what you say the first time.  And I know it's tiresome to always be repeating, but sometimes I just must ask you to repeat.  I need your patience.  When I think too much about the past with my slowness and my set ways, please be tolerant with what the years have done to me physically.  I spill things.  I lose things.  I can't remember what time to take my medication or if I took them at all.  I know I take too many naps.  Sometimes sleep I guess just helps to pass the day. 

Well, there you have it.  Patience and understanding, those are priceless gifts, and those are the only gifts that I really want. 

And then I think about it.  It's such a wonderful feeling to know that his eye is on the sparrow, and I know that he cares for me.  So your greatest gift is just reminding me from time to time that he really still cares for me.  Love, mom.

Love her verbally, love her physically, and love her patiently, and then finally, love her honorably.

4.   Love her honorably.

The Bible says in Exodus 20 in verse 14, “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you.”

You see, there's only one promise ?? one commandment in ten commandments that holds a promise, and this promise is binding as long as she lives.  See, if the father is the head of the house, then it's sort of like mother is the heart of the home.  And we don't want to break the heart of our home, so honor her.  And the word "honor" just simply means give weight to.  To give weight to her words, give weight to what she says.

One woman for whom we will always have an unpaid I owe you we honor today with our love.

Let me conclude with this story.  It's a fictitious story, but it holds a truism.  It goes like this.  When the Lord created mothers, he was well into his sixth day of overtime.  When an angel appeared and said, Whew, you're doing a lot of fiddling around with this one, the Lord replied, Well, have you seen the specs on this order?  She has to be completely washable, unbreakable, but not made of plastic.  She has to have hundreds of moving parts, all replaceable.  She has to run on black coffee and leftovers and have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken leg to a disappointing love affair.  And she has to have six pairs of hands. 

The angel shook his head slowly.  Six pairs of hands?  No way. 

Oh, it's not the hands that's causing me problems, says the Lord.  It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have, one pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, What are you kids doing in there, when she already knows; the other on the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she needs to know; and of course the ones in front that look at a child when he goofs up and says ?? she says, I understand, and I love you still. 

The Lord smiled, and he said, But I'm getting close to finishing her.  This has to be my most amazing creation yet.  Already she's almost to the place where I have someone who actually heals herself when she is sick.  She can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger.  She can get a four?year?old to stand under the shower.  And even though she knows the truth, she is unendingly forgiving.  She is strong, but she is soft.  She never stops even though she is weary.  She's experienced all the pains, but she remembers only the joys.  This, he said, will be my crowning jewel of creation.

Finally the angel bent over and ran his finger across the cheek of this mother.  Oops, he said, oops, there's a leak.  I told you, said the angel, you're trying to put way too much into this model.  It's starting to leak. 

Oh, said the Lord, that's not a leak.  He paused.  It's called a tear. 

A tear, said the angel?  What's that for?

The Lord said, It's for joy.  It's for sadness.  It's for disappointment, and it's for pain.  It's for loneliness, and it's for when she's proud of something.

Why, you're a genius, shouted the angel.  You even put in tears. 

And with a somber look on his face, the Lord said, No, I didn't put it there. 

The angel said, Then who did?

The Lord slowly replied, she did it herself.  Those kinds only come from deep within when a mother truly becomes a mother.

So today we want to say happy Mother's Day to the crowning jewel of God's creation, our mothers.  Happy Mother's Day to all of you.