Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:18 AM - Sermon
Genesis 22:1-14; Romans 6:12-23 We preachers teach the adults and tell stories to the children. We probably have that reversed which is why church goers often remember the children's message and not the sermon. I was thinking about our readings today, about death and life, about obedience and sacrifice, and the preciousness of giving even a cup of cold water to a little child and how to tell you about those things.
Once there was a woman that wanted to be a mother. Well, there was a couple that wanted to be parents, but I'm just talking about the woman who wanted to be a mother. They were married, settled in their jobs as much as anyone could be, healthy, had a home, everything society deemed appropriate and good for child raising. Yet no child. “Give it good year”, they were told by the hopeful and given all sorts of potions and procedures by the helpful. Then came the poking and the prodding by the earnest people in smocks. What started in hope and then moved to fear quickly became mechanical as leaky plumbing and as hopeful as day old lottery ticket.
After being rejected by the expensive midwife of medicine and surgery, they had given up and were beginning the adoption process. She was too old, too late, to be a birth mother. She told herself it was okay, even laughed when other asked about her pregnancy prospects. It eased the awkwardness around her friends and their brood and kept her from crying she already had her tear quota filled. Laughing was the way to go.
Then one week she was sick and didn't get better. She finally went to her doctor who asked the usual questions and routinely took another pregnancy test. She wondered how much money her insurance had spent on pregnancy tests and if she was eligible for a refund or maybe an award. They could give her a framed certificate, customer of the decade. She could show it to people when they asked about her children. Maybe a wallet sized copy to pass around when folks got out the baby pictures. No, better to keep laughing, keep the pain chained away so it doesn't attack others especially her sweet husband who supported and loved her as wife even without being a mother.
Beep Beep a message on the machine. Probably from him, he'll be late home again. She wondered if he would be home more if there were a family to come home to, instead of a-wife-not-a-mother like her. Babies have sure been on her mind for she thought all this between the beep and the button. A message from her doctor, odd, she never calls. After the appropriate greeting and identification, a two word message: “Call me”. Well, maybe below average conversational skills are why the doctor didn't call more. She obediently calls, and gets right through. The disclaimers and cautions that naturally flow from a doctor even when commenting about the weather slowly filled the room. She poked her finger in the flood, “Just tell me”. “You have morning sickness. Your pregnancy test was positive.” Two impossibilities one, she was too old to be pregnant, and two, there was nothing morning about the sickness, it was all day!
The impossible is only impossible until it happens. Every birth is impossible until the birthday. She held on to the impossible until the end. For even after the classes which showed films that gave her husband morning sickness, the surrender of coffee after a valiant battle, the cartons of crackers for her stomach which in return, became the shape of a cracker barrel, she was ready to call this motherhood thing off during delivery, loudly call it off. She had changed her mind! Her husband, who, with the rest of males of the species, had yet to learn that women in labor are to be loved and endured rather than understood, had tried to explain rationally, the impracticalability of her clearly stated desire to stop the birth process between contractions. Silly man, she knew that there was no stopping, but she felt she had given all she had to give and still the baby demanded more of her poor body.
All was forgotten, when the baby came! Joy of joys all that labor, and it was labor, was worth it. A baby boy. Someone to carry on, a physical message of their love to the future.
Over the years she tried to remember the labor to bring this boy out of their hearts and into their home. She caught herself in times of turmoil over the years to remind herself she wanted this. She wanted this dirty, loud, crying, running, sleep stealing whirlwind. Wanted it more than anything. Her son would catch her smiling sometimes, even laughing softly at the wrong times. So he would ask her what was so funny, eager to be amused with her or excused by her. She would tell him, “You are”, “You are my laugh”. For before he was even a sick feeling in her stomach, he was a laugh.
Could that laugh have echoed 18 years? Yet here he was, or there he was, up above her head since he was 12 telling her his plans after high school. Looming over his breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios and fruit it was like a pronouncement from the gods on Mt. Olympus after a feast of golden ambrosia and grapes. “Mom, I can't stand school. It don't want to spend that much money for years and years wasted in a room somewhere with books. I want to do something important. I'm joining the Army. They need me in Iraq.” He said more, well rehearsed and researched, for once, but she heard no more. She was sick to her stomach. She knew that this would last longer than the morning.
Before he came into her life, she had pain she couldn't show. Now, that he was leaving her life, again, she had the pain that could not be shown. She wanted to do right by him, by the country, by all those others mothers, evil needed to be confronted and conquered, but why does it cost her baby, her only child? Who knew that the leaving would be harder than the arrival? Over the next few weeks, she bit her tongue bloody and resolved to make her body go through the motions even if her heart would not be moved from the special selfless selfishness of motherhood.
The big day came. He went to the testing by himself. It was just as well, she both wanted to go with him and run the other way, she didn't know which she would have decided, and was glad he rang the bell ending the emotional wrestling match which had both sides losing. Brrzzz the boy, texting. “The kids never call” has a new meaning now. She laughed at her joke as she opened the phone. Two words. “Call Me.” She remembered those two words a dozen and a half years ago, that announced his advent now will be the words that begin the end?
Caller ID had long since shredded human greetings, so his first words kicked right in, “I didn't get chosen”.
From long practice, she bit her tongue just in time for her heart was jumping up her throat and needed to be corralled before it broke. Clenching her teeth to protect her heart from another kick, she wondered aloud, “You're not going to Iraq?”
“No. I guess someone else will be going instead of me.” A wave of relief that left a burning sting of guilt washed over her. All she could think was that her son was spared, she couldn't spare thought right now about someone else's mother who was asked to sacrifice. His voice crashed over the surf, “Well, thanks for supporting me, mom. I know you didn't want me to go . I guess I'll have to find a new life.”
Yes, a new life. She laughed, once again, a new life was given.
Advanced permission is given for non-profit, for-prophet use of the above at no charge as long as it is reproduced unedited with notices and copyright intact. Written copies are provided after they are preached as a courtesy for the personal, private, appreciative use of the congregation of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church, their families and friends to support the ministry of Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church and its pastor the Rev. J. Christy Ramsey. Join us Sundays! 8:15 Traditional Worship and 10:15 Blended. Mingle in our Gathering Room between services and take advantage of Christian Education opportunities.
