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What Would My Mother Say?

The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
10 May 2009
Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year B

WWJD?

What would Jesus Do?

This is the question that many of our evangelical brothers and sisters ask when they are faced with tough decisions.

I have to admit, though, that I have never found this question to be very helpful. It always seems to me that Jesus would have avoided whatever mess I have gotten myself into!

I tend to default to a different standard. “What would my Mother say?”

Though to claim that I have chosen this standard is not quite true. If there’s a hard call to be made, the answer often comes to me before I even get around to asking the question.

Just when I think that nobody is watching, I can hear my Mother’s voice. It is telling me “to act as if whatever I do will be on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow.”

Just when I think that I’m bored, and nothing is really happening, I can hear her voice. It is reminding me that the host just throws the party. It’s up to the guests to figure out how to have a good time.

And, just when I think that I finally know where I’m going, I can hear it again. It is pointing out someone who is being left behind. The one who is standing over there, almost out of sight—unable to buy a ticket, or not wearing the right clothes, or just not sure what to do.

So, when I hear the story of Philip, I feel like I have been here before!

Philip is having great success and, I suspect, feeling pretty good about himself. He is, after all, emerging as the star preacher in a growing church. I imagine that he might have allowed himself to start wondering about what might be next—perhaps a more comfortable place in which to preach, or a better class of folk in need of conversion.

Instead, he is awakened by a voice telling him to get up and go out into the wilderness.

There, on a hot, dusty road in the middle of the day, he over-hears a stranger reading a familiar text. It is the same passage from Isaiah that we read on Good Friday. God’s servant will be led like a lamb to the slaughter. He will be cut off from the land of the living. (Is. 53: 7-8).

This stranger has a position of some privilege. But, his job requirements prevent him from having his own family, or from joining the religious family that has attracted his interest. He sees himself as being cut-off, just like the person being described in the passage.

So, his question is not surprising. Who is it that must suffer? It is the prophet or his enemies? Who is it that must be cut-off? Is it the one favored by God or the one being punished by God?

Philip offers another alternative. It is not the prophet or his enemies. It is the Messiah. It is Jesus who suffered and was cut–off. It is Jesus who was excluded. It is Jesus who became the stranger in order to save us from our sins.

The stranger sees water and asks if there is any reason why he can’t join the family that Jesus is creating through the waters of baptism.

It is a wonderful story. It inspires us to reach out to those who are strangers to us.

We have come to the all too painful realization that we often erect unnecessary barriers to our relationships with others. At first, we believe that they preserve meaningful distinctions. But, later, we realize that they are largely arbitrary, and that the distinctions don’t reflect any real differences after all.

But, I think this story is about more than just a prescription to be inclusive. Being inclusive, without more, is not even a meaningful foundation for building a Christian community. We need more. We need some boundaries of self-definition to know who we are. We need to be challenged and to have demands made on us in order to grow toward something greater than ourselves.

I have learned something by listening to my Mothers’ voice over the years.

She’s not telling me what to do—well, ok, sometimes she is. Usually, though, she’s telling me how to look at things, what perspective I should take, where I should be standing to get the best view. She’s telling me that I will never know the truth until I can see it through the eyes of those whom it is hurting the most.

And, it strikes me that this is the rest of the story. The story is not just about what Philip does for the stranger, but what learning to see the world through the eyes of the stranger does for Philip.

I love the image of Philip running along the side of the carriage until the stranger invites him in. In order to witness to the stranger, Philip must work to enter the stranger’s world. Philip must physically and emotionally meet the stranger where he is and, in doing so, he must have recognized again the similarities between that place and the place of Christ on the cross.

I imagine that the stranger was persuaded to follow Christ because Philip was able to show him that Christ had taken the place of the stranger, that Christ has taken on his suffering in order to redeem it.

What would Jesus do?

This question has been helpful to other people when faced with difficult decisions. It has never been very helpful to me. I have always worried a lot more about what my Mother would say.

I’m not sure when it happened.

It might have been when I learned that, after visiting a camp of migrant workers in Florida, my Mother convinced state officials to allow her to organize a new school for their children.

It might have been when she told me that, although no one else believed the pleas of a recent Russian immigrant, she had persuaded the department of family services in Savannah to return his child to him by proving that the bruises were not the product of abuse, but symptoms of a rare and previously undiagnosed blood disease.

It might have been when Mother mistakenly threw out the favorite dress and shoes of my sister-in-law, just before a big party. She posted a sign on the back fence that said: “Blue Dress. White Shoes. Thrown Away By Mistake. Please Return.” Two days later a homeless woman came to the front door. She was carrying the blue dress and he white shoes, still in the plastic bag. Mother thanked her and then admitted that she hadn’t really expected to ever see them again. “Why would you be surprised,” the woman said, “after you have been so generous to me for all these years.”

I’m not sure exactly when it happened.

But, at some point, I realized that my Mother’s voice was not an unwanted intrusion. It was not the sound of an over-protective parent who couldn’t stop telling me what to do. It was the sound of a spiritual guide reminding me of how to look at things in order to move a little closer to becoming the person that God wants me to be.

Today, I give thanks for my Mother’s voice. Without it, I would not be at all!

AMEN

Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org

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