Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother. The first said, “I built a big house for our mother.” The second said,” I sent her a Mercedes with a driver.” The third smiled and said, “I’ve got you both beat. You know how Mom enjoys the Bible, and you know she can’t see very well. I sent her a brown parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 monks in a monastery 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000.00 a year for 10 years, but it was worth it. Mom just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it.” Soon thereafter, Mom sent out her letters of thanks: “Milton,” she wrote the first son, “The house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house.” “Marvin,” she wrote to another, “I am too old to travel. I stay home all the time, so I never use the Mercedes. And the driver is so rude!” “Dearest Melvin,” she wrote to her third son, “You were the only son to have the good sense to know what your mother likes. That chicken you sent was delicious.”
Mothers’ day is not really a joke but something very serious. On Mothers’ Day we are given a great opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the commandment of Jesus: “Love one another.” Love is what mothers teach us. We know what it means to love, and particularly what it means to talk of God’s love, when we see a mother love her child. Now a child doesn’t ask to be born so the parents have to love the child first. Even when the little baby doesn’t know enough to love back, the momma loves that baby. Even when junior won’t eat his strained peas, momma loves that child. That’s the way God loves us — first, before we do anything. As the epistle put it, “Love consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.” We don’t have to do anything to get God to love us. God loves us already. And nothing we can do can change God’s mind about us. We will always be loved by God. Do you remember the way Alice Walker puts it in The Color Purple? “People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see God always trying to please us back.” God loves us and nothing can stop God from loving us.
Because God loves us as a mother does we are, by definition lovable. Do you remember the fairy tale about Rapunzel? A witch had imprisoned Rapunzel at the top of a tower with no doors and only one window. When the witch wanted to get in she would say, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair.” And Rapunzel would unwrap her braids – she must have had dreads – let them down, and the witch would climb up on the hair. Well, one day Prince Charming comes by and sees this happening. After the witch leaves he tries the same trick. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair.” Sure enough the braid came down and the prince climbed up. When he got into the tower and looked at Rapunzel they fell in love. She said, “The witch allowed no mirrors. I didn’t know that I was beautiful until I saw my reflection in your loving eyes.” That’s how it is with God’s love. When we find that God loves us just as we are, we discover that we are lovable, that we are beautifully, wonderfully made. Peter points that out in the first reading. “I begin to see how true it is that God shows no partiality.” God isn’t partial to the rich people, or the smart people, or the church-going people. God isn’t even partial to the good people. God loves us all and thus makes us lovable. Our eyes reflect the love of God. Each one of us, just as we are, are the ones whom God loves.
As great as the love of a mother is at reflecting the love of God, the gospel reminds us that there is another kind of love which reflects the love God has for us – the love of friends. After all, your mother kind of has to love you. But your friends choose to love you and that is part of God’s love too. “It was not you who chose me, but I chose you.” Since God has chosen to be our friend we can be with God as a friend. You love your friends because they laugh at your jokes. You love your friends because they know what you mean even when you can’t say it. You love your friends because if you’re cut, they bleed. You love your friends because you can say anything to them. The amazing thing is that God’s love is like that too. Jesus says, “I call you friends since I have made know to you all that I heard.” Even though God seems so much bigger or better or far away from us, we can love God as a friend. Maybe you can’t find the right words when you pray. You can just sit in silence with God who is your friend. Maybe you’ve really blown it big time. Since God is your friend you know you can go to God and find acceptance. Maybe you feel the load is just too heavy, you can’t go one more step. Your friend God promises to be there to help. The gospel tells us we are the friends of God, God loves us hand in hand, arm in arm. What a friend we have. So God loves us as a mother loves us. God loves us as a friend loves us. Now all we have to do is pay it forward by following the commandment of Jesus: love one another as I love you.
