Regarding Mother’s Day

Sunday is a big day!

Yes, it’s Mother’s Day. Honestly, I’ve never had a great love for Mother’s Day. I am terrible at cards and greetings for birthdays; adding in Mother’s and Father’s days gives me more opportunity to fail at sharing my love for my parents. As a pastor, Mother’s Day is often just another Sunday for me. In fact, in my first seven years as a mother, I didn’t have weekly worship responsibilities but still often ended up in the pulpit preaching! No breakfast in bed for me when I’m trying to get my toddlers out the door so I can lead worship! I also refuse to go out to lunch on Mother’s Day because everyone does that and after a long morning at church, I want my kids home and napping, not fighting them when they aren’t hungry in a restaurant filled with people!

I share this to say that the holiday we call Mother’s Day is not what the card companies and commercials want you to believe. For many, it’s a reminder of what they have lost. For others, it’s a reminder of what they never had. For still others, it’s another day with cultural expectations that are never fulfilled.

Mother’s Day was first observed in a Methodist church in West Virginia in 1908 thanks to the work of a church member, Anna Jarvis. She never had children of her own, but she worked to make Mother’s Day a national holiday, arguing that most of the current national holidays focused on the contributions of men. However, by 1920, she was dismayed at the commercialization of the holiday and began to work to remove the holiday from the national calendar. It had moved far from her original intention of giving thanks for the sacrifices of mothers for their children.

As we gather to worship this week on Mother’s Day, our focus will not be on mothers. Instead, we celebrate Confirmation Sunday. Six students will profess their faith and join the church, completing their year-long journey of learning what it means to be United Methodist. We celebrate this milestone, and give thanks for those in the church and at home who have raised these children to profess faith in Jesus Christ. We will read of Tabitha, or Dorcas, from Acts 9 – a woman who was a leader in her faith community and made a great impact on those around her. We will indeed pray prayers of thanks for mothers in our lives, even if they weren’t perfect.

I hope you will join us. However you celebrate Mother’s Day, church is a good place to begin that celebration. If you don’t celebrate Mother’s Day, come celebrate our young people making a faith commitment. If you struggle this Mother’s Day, come be reminded of the presence of Christ in your life, holding you close in your grief.

No matter where you find yourself Sunday, I pray that you experience the love of the risen Christ who gives us people on our path who help us to follow Christ more closely.

See you soon,
Pastor Lynn

WORSHIP SCHEDULE

• 8:30 a.m. Traditional service with choirs in Sanctuary and child care in Rm 15
• 10 a.m. Modern worship service with Praise Team in Fellowship Hall
• 10 a.m. Traditional service with choirs in Sanctuary
• 10 a.m. Youth and children’s Sunday School and child care
• 10 a.m. Livestream premieres on YouTube and Website

To access our livestream service:

• From the main menu on our website click “Worship.”  -OR-
• Go to YouTube and search for UMC St. Mark’s Oro Valley or use this link.