A few years ago, theologian Parker Palmer was visiting his mother.  Palmer is a well-thought of speaker and lecturer, but his mother didn’t quite understand what he did for a living.  Palmer explained that he visits churches and universities to give lectures. “I see,” she said. “You talk to people and they pay you for it.” “That’s right, Mother.  I talk and they pay me.” “Well,” she said, “Parker, I like it when you come visit and spend time talking with me, but I certainly wouldn’t pay you for it.”

Mothers have a way of putting things into perspective for us, of making things real.  Mothers also have a way of helping us understand the real meaning of God’s love. 

 Let us pray.  Gracious and loving God.  We give you thanks for all our mothers and for all people whose lives reveal your steadfast love.  Amen.

Psalm 136 is part of the fifth and final section of the Book of Psalms and acts as a kind of benediction to a series called the Psalms of Ascent.  Psalms 120-134 were likely sung by Israelite pilgrims ascending up the road to Jerusalem for important festival days after they had returned home from exile.  Psalms 135 and 136 cap the trip as worshipful Psalms which praise God.  Psalm 136 is punctuated with our refrain, “God’s steadfast love endures forever,” repeated 26 times; a Biblical number that was known to stand for Yahweh.

In its first 24 verses, Psalm 136 connects Israel’s history to the enduring, steadfast love of God.  From creation to the exodus, to the wilderness journey, to Israel’s coming into the Promised Land, to the freeing of God’s people from their lowly estate in exile, God’s steadfast love was present, and made every key moment possible.  God had been faithful to Israel, even when Israel was not faithful to God.  The Psalmist likely borrowed the key phrase of steadfast love from the prophet Hosea who three hundred years earlier, used it to compare God’s relationship with Israel to a marital relationship.

To me, the key to Psalm 136 is verse 25 in that all the Psalmist’s discussion of the past and use of the past tense, builds to the present tense statement that God “gives food to all flesh.”  This verse culminates with a type of birth narrative for the exiled pilgrims of Israel.  All of God’s faithfulness to Israel throughout history leads to the rebirth of Israel in Jerusalem after Babylon.  Psalm 136 was sung on the way to God’s delivery of God’s people into the sacred city.  God went through the birth pains of Israel’s agony and at the completion of God’s faithfulness to Israel, like a new mother, God now “gives food to all flesh.”

The early and closing verses of Psalm 136 refer to Yahweh as the God of the heavens, the God who created light and the stars and the earth.  But verse 25 explains that Yahweh is also a God of intimacy, who is concerned that God’s people get enough to eat.  The deity who is high in the heavens is the God who gives food to all flesh.  The God who art in Heaven also gives us this day our daily bread.  God’s steadfast love endures forever.

Too often in the life of the church we take a narrow view of the attributes of God, attributes of God that might be described as mostly masculine.  Traditional visions of God, often attributed to the Old Treatment, describe God as distant, judgmental, and even mean.  Many times we view the God of the New Testament as generous, peaceful and loving because of Christ.  The irony is that the Greeks in whose language the New Testament was written actually had a more stoic, serious, and firm depiction of God than did the Old Testament Hebrews.  The God Jesus reveals at Easter is in some ways more similar to the God in the Hebrew Bible than to the deities of Greek culture. The cultural depiction of the almighty we get through Greek deities was more rigid, much like their language, than the Hebrew Bible discussion of God, which tended to be more flexible, involved and in many ways caring.  When the phrase “steadfast love” is used numerous times in the Psalms, Ezra, Chronicles, and the Old Testament prophets, it reveals attributes of God which are much more motherly than we often give God credit for.

Mothers are often described as showing “steadfast love.”  The Hebrew word for “steadfast love” is “hesed.”  The New Testament often translates “hesed” as “grace.”   Martin Luther saw this connection and used the same German word to describe both steadfast love and grace.

The root of the Hebrew for “steadfast love” has the same root as the Hebrew word for womb.  The hesed that was present when God met with Moses on the mountain reveals God to be “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  The God Jesus reveals at Easter is a God who loves us like a mother loves her child.  The love we celebrate during the Easter season is the most compassionate and nurturing love there is.  It is the love of a God who has promised to love God’s children always.  Whose love is never ending and steadfast.   It is no coincidence that Bradley Hills was founded by a group of women who met in what they called the Steadfast Prayer Circle.  These mothers started a Sunday school to care for and teach their children which became our church.  Today, the Steadfast Prayer Circle continues here and shares experiences and love.

How do we repay the God who supported our ancestors, who births, feeds and nurtures us and who will be there for us always?

The Psalmist would say it’s through praise and thanksgiving.  The Psalmist concludes Psalm 136 where the Psalmist begins – praising God.  The Psalmist writes in both the beginning and the end, “O give thanks” to God.  The response of God’s people, like the response of a child on Mother’s Day, must be gratitude – giving thanks to our Heavenly parent for and with love.

This kind of gratitude is present in many appreciative relationships between children and mothers.  At the Oscars in February Jared Leto receive the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award as a transgendered woman in “Dallas Buyers Club.”  He began his acceptance speech by telling the audience about a teenage girl from Louisiana, a high school dropout and single mom who “somehow managed to make a better life for her children,” who encouraged them to “be creative and work hard and do something special.”  That woman, he revealed, was his mother, Constance, who accompanied him to the Oscars as his date.  “Thank you,” he said to her, “for teaching me to dream.”

There is a lot of professional basketball-watching going on at my house this time of year with the boys watching the NBA playoffs.  Earlier this week Kevin Durant won the most valuable player award.  During his acceptance speech, he saved his last thank you for his mother, saying, “We weren’t supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street. You put clothes on our backs, food on the table. When you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You’re the real MVP.”  One could hear in Durant’s words, and see in his mother’s face, steadfast love.

The descriptions of two mothers by their children, reveal qualities of God.  A sacred parent who teaches us to dream big and puts food on the table.  The God of Heaven who gives food to all flesh.   A divine mother who holds nothing back.

You might remember that in a sermon last December I talked about the shortbread that I tried to buy for my mother for Christmas?  There is a church here in Tenleytown which makes great shortbread.  My mother, who lives in Ohio, loves it and so I get it for her each year.  I called the church last November and they had made some but as I told them it was for a Christmas present, they suggested I call back at Thanksgiving to get a fresh tin.   I called back Thanksgiving week.  Trouble is they make shortbread on Thursdays and since Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday they weren’t going to make it that Thursday and recommended I call back in December.  The second Thursday of Advent I called mid-day on my way down to the church to get a tin of shortbread.  The person on the phone told me that that past Thursday was the final day of making shortbread and they had just sold the last tin right before I called and wouldn’t be making any more until next year. 

Several of you responded to my sob story by making me shortbread to give to my mother for Christmas.  Thank you!  J  Well, I found something for her that I thought she’d love even more than the dessert.  You might remember I shared in December that I’d tell you after Christmas what it is.  It was time.  It was time.  It was time.  Rather than buying shortbread for her I gave her the gift of time.  The idea was to spend the time making shortbread together.  We got together and spent the holiday time together.  Even though we had the ingredients, we didn’t even get around to making the shortbread, because we had such a precious time.  Time spent with the person who first taught me the meaning of steadfast love. 

The Bible tells us that steadfast love is about time.  A specific quantity of time.  It lasts forever.  It is a love that precedes our birth, stays with us in life and goes with us into the life to come.  It is bigger, stronger and more permanent, and yet more intimate and caring, than we can imagine.  Just like God.  So our only real appropriate response is the one the Psalmist offers and suggests – Praise. 

Today is the 100th anniversary of mother’s day.  The ancient tradition of honoring mothers this Sunday developed in the U.S. in 1872 when Anna Jarvis, the daughter of a Methodist pastor, wanted to honor the mothers who had braved trials during the Civil War and began to work towards that goal of a national day of recognition.   When Anna Jarvis died on May 12, 1906, her daughter, speaking at her funeral said, “By the grace of God, you shall have that Mother’s Day.”  Her daughter took up her mother’s campaigning and in 1914, one hundred years ago, a Presbyterian Elder, who happened to be President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, officially established Mother’s Day as a national holiday to be held the second Sunday of May, a date honoring Anna’s death and the words of her child at her funeral, “By the grace of God, you shall have that Mothers’ Day.”

The work of God continues on through us.   Much as the work of mothers continues on through their children.  By the grace of God we were born.  By the grace of God we have Easter hope of life eternal.  By the grace of God we are here today, accepted, forgiven and loved.  Loved unconditionally as a mother might love a child.   God’s steadfast love endures forever.   Praise God!  Amen.