May 9, 2004
The Prodigal's Mother
Riley E. Jensen

I want to begin by telling you a story -- actually it is more like a parable, a story with a hidden lesson.  Once upon a time there lived a tailor whose name was Hans.  He had a good reputation and when an influential entrepreneur in his town needed a new suit, Hans was the one to see for a tailor-made suit of superior craftsmanship.

The next week when the customer came to pick it up, he found that it wasn’t quite what he expected -- one sleeve twisted this way and the other that way, one shoulder bulged out and the other caved in.  He pulled and he struggled until finally (twisted and contorted) he managed to make his body fit the strange configuration of the suit.

Not wanting to cause a scene (this had to happen in the Midwest where all the nice people live) he thanked the tailor, paid his money, and caught the bus for home.  A passenger on the bus, after surveying the man’s odd appearance for some time, finally asked if Hans the tailor had made the suit.  Receiving an affirmative reply, he remarked, “Amazing!  I knew that Hans was a good tailor, but I had no idea he could make a suit to fit someone like you.”

I am pleased to announce to you this morning (on this Mother’s Day and Heritage Sunday) that you have standing before you Grand Rapids’ ministerial counterpart to Hans the tailor.  I have been having a great time this week moving from group-to-group asking for help on my research on the prodigal’s mother.  Responses have ranged from referring me to books on women in the Bible to the frenzied expression of a person who had just realized she was double-parked.

This morning I may be pressing the prodigal to play straight man for Hans the tailor, forcing him to fit into a relationship which was never properly designed for him.  Or I may be like the missionary priest who visited the Eskimo hunter in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  The Eskimo hunter asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”  “No”, said the priest, “not if you did not know.”  “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”

It is entirely possible that you could go a lifetime without ever considering the prodigal’s mother and not feel deprived.  Nevertheless, I am not being entirely fanciful when I ask you to consider her this morning.  The Christian faith is about relationships.  It is about the way in which we are connected to one another.  In fact it is the very meaning of the mission of the church not to lose sight of the way in which we are connected to one another.  And, of course, we are reminded of those connections powerfully by the presence of our 50-year members this morning.

So this morning I am going to violate a biblical principle in order to speak to a point that is very biblical.  The biblical principle is, “Never rely on an argument from silence.”  The Biblical point is, “Always stand up for the needs of those who are the most invisible in any society.”

Hence, the prodigal’s mother!  You have correctly never heard of her because she is never mentioned in scripture.  Therefore, the argument from silence can take many speculative turns.  Why have we never heard of her?  After all, it is just a story, and too many characters would clutter it up.  Or, can we assume that like every good story teller, Jesus knew his audience.  He knew that they did not take women seriously.   He knew that the love of a woman for her child was something that was assumed.  In many ways, it was considered a weak love, the kind of love that could be taken advantage of and trampled upon.  Is it for this reason that he chose to place love at the disposal of a father -- one who either because of conviction or helplessness would allow his errant child to wallow in a condition of his own making.

Therefore, I submit that the presence of the prodigal’s mother in this story must be assumed; that she was taken for granted both by Jesus and his peers just like many of us tend to take for granted the love of our mothers.  It’s always there.  It provides a source of tremendous security, but we just assume it, never thinking that it is deserving of any special appreciation (except, of course, on Mother's Day).

I will never forget one trip I made home from college.  It was a mid-term break in February.  I had been home the previous Christmas, and I was not due back until the following May.  But as college students are prone to do, I acted impulsively with some friends, and we decided to make a quick trip from Santa Barbara to Seattle, which at the time involved 24 hours of straight driving.

I arrived home at 3 a.m. and my plan was to tiptoe up to my mother’s room to surprise her, never thinking that it might give her a heart attack.  I’ll never forget how I got about 10 ft. from her door and she called out, “Riley, is that you?”  Now her ability to recognize me by my footsteps in the middle of the night under those circumstances was absolutely astounding to me, but I have come to find out by consulting with other mothers, that it is just part of mother love -- to know your child so well that you can recognize their footsteps in the middle of the night.

When we tell stories, even fictional ones, sometimes we are telling a great deal about ourselves.  Have you ever considered that Jesus might have seen himself in this story as the prodigal or the errant son?

As a carpenter, Joseph was one of the important craftsmen of Nazareth.  In the fixed society of that day, it would naturally be assumed that he would pass on his talents and his business to his son, Jesus, who with his brothers would be expected to continue the trade, both because of family honor and community necessity.  But Jesus cashed it all in for a career as an itinerant preacher.  Is it significant that during Jesus’ ministry we have no reference at all to his father, Joseph?  His mother was present when he preached to the people.  She was there at the wedding at Cana.  She was standing by the cross.

It is worth a reflection or two to wonder, where was Joseph during these times?  Like many of us, did Jesus also struggle with the ambivalent feelings of having taken a path in life which had disappointed his earthly father?  Of one thing we can be sure -- in Jesus’ own experience, the long-suffering love of his own mother matched that of the loving father in the story.

Mothers, forgive me if I am taking away anything from the honor accorded you on this day.  However, I need to point out that the meaning of this day from a biblical perspective is not so much to honor mothers for something which they have done above-and-beyond the call of duty, but it is rather to recognize something that is in our natures, and which is illustrated best in the wonderful relationship between mother and child.

Martin Luther put it this way, “God’s love is like a mountain spring that gushes forth.  A spring flows neither because of one’s need nor because of earth’s desire, nor does it cease to flow when it flows uselessly, when its water winds its way to the sea without being used or appreciated.  A spring flows because it is its nature to flow, and it continues to flow because it must.”

Parents are not to be rewarded because they love their children.  It is a fact of life that parents will love their children, just as a spring flows because it is its nature to flow.  But how that love is expressed is something else again.  A perusal of the daily newspaper will tell stories of a child kept for weeks, perhaps months on end in an attic.  It will render accounts of physical and sexual child abuse, and statements from parents will reveal that in their own perverted way, they felt that they were doing the best thing even when we see it as so terribly distracting.

How does this parable then speak to such a distorted view of the expression of father-mother love.  In a few words, the kind of parental love which is expressed here is neither controlling nor manipulative, and that is the difference.  Jesus told this story in order to make an original contribution to the Jewish understanding of the nature of God.  It was a new thing for them to think of God in parental terms.  God was the God of the cloud who led the people of Israel through the wilderness.  God was the God of the burning bush who met Moses on a mountaintop.  God was the God of the Shikina Glory hidden in the inner sanctum of the “Holy of Holies”.  God was the God of the prophets who called Israel back from their errant ways.

For this God to be understood as having the long-suffering love of a parent was a new thing.  The contribution of Jesus is that he has helped us to think of God in parental terms for it makes a difference when something is brought up close, close enough for us to develop a relationship.

I conclude this sermon where it began -- with the prodigal’s mother.  Does she exist?  Is she worthy of mention?  I will confess this, that in the fashion of Hans the tailor, I have been pressing to make a fit where there is no fit, but I want to suggest to you that the prodigal’s mother is worthy of consideration because in fact she is there.

She may not have been mentioned in the story, but you can be sure the prodigal had a mother.  And I want to raise before you this morning that unless we are careful, we will overlook those who exercise their care, support, and compassion silently behind the scenes and who demonstrate their love quietly and without fanfare.  Is it possible that the prodigal was able to return from the far country because he was sure of his mother’s love, even if he wasn’t as positive about his father’s.

This morning, let the prodigal’s mother represent that source of love which is at the heart of the universe, that love which we so often take for granted and yet the same love which sustains us, a love which is not there to be rewarded or honored but which is like a spring, “It flows because it is its nature to flow.”  It is what gives us health and hope and the ability to take the risk of returning from that far country.

Amen.