On Mother’s Day at Church

It must not be all about Mom.

So this coming Sunday is Mother’s Day.  That brings back some dark memories for me.

“What?” you might be thinking.  “What sort of ghoul dislikes Mother’s Day?”

Well, I actually like Mother’s Day . . . at least I do now.  But let me explain, even though I really can be a ghoul on a bad day.

I suddenly lost Mama when I was 13.  I recovered from the shock and the loss as well as can be expected, and God did use it for good.  It began a providential chain of events that brought me to faith for one thing.  Romans 8:28 is practically my life verse because of the experience.

But then in my twenties into my thirties, I wrestled with a more persistent difficulty — I very much wanted to marry a good Christian woman and have a family but was making no progress at all towards that.  And I felt more and more helpless to bring that about.  (I won’t get bogged down explaining why I think that was the case, but a lot of it was I was socially incompetent for a number of reasons.)  I was so unhappy with my involuntary singleness and the growing possibility I would remain single that I went in and out of depression for five or more years.  Thanks be to God that he snapped me out of that in an unusual way, but that is a whole ‘nother story.

During those unhappy years I attended a church that made Mother’s Day Sundays all about Mother’s Day.  I exaggerate slightly, but their services made a big to-do about Mother’s Day.

This was a non-liturgical church, by the way.  It turns out just about every church has a liturgy whether they admit it or not.  And if you do not have traditional catholic liturgy, you are prone to adopt worldly liturgy, even Hallmark liturgy, which is exactly what this church did on Mother’s Days.

Well, those Sundays not only pounded into me that I no longer had Mama, but that marriage and family was something other people had, not me, no matter how much I wanted that.  It not only made me feel left out, it practically rubbed my face in it.

So I began to hate those Sundays and Mother’s Days, too.  For several years, I skipped church and went on vacations and staycations on Mother’s Day, ignoring that Sunday as best I could.  One could say I made it Mark’s Day in self-defense. Church on Mother’s Day had become too miserable for me.

I recall all this not for sympathy.  I’m good now and am rarely depressed anymore.  And, again, Romans 8:28. God used those difficult years, even the Mother’s Days, for good. But churches need to be balanced in how they deal with Mother’s Day.  My experience is an example of the harm that can come from churches being out of balance on that day.

So do I think churches should ignore Mother’s Day?  No.  Although I do not think the church should allow the world to set the church calendar, the church at its wisest has always made some concessions to secular customs when they do not contradict Christian teaching.

And mothers certainly merit recognition and appreciation at church.  Mothering is important, to state the obvious.  And mothering is hard, and the world is making it harder as Anne Kennedy pointed out yesterday in her unique way.

But to make this coming Sunday at church all about Mom is — yes, I will go there — it’s idolatry.  It reminds me of the church near mine that dared name itself Family First Church. No, Someone else should be first. Their building has become a vacant field, thank God.

It would be an understatement to say mothers are important.  It would be idolatry to make church this Sunday all about them.

Not only is it idolatry, it harms those for whom Mother’s Day is difficult as it is, those who still feel sharply the loss of their moms, those mothers who have lost children, those who want to become mothers (and fathers) but are unable to do so, those whose mothers were not very good ones, and those mothers who feel they are not very good ones.  Church should be for them, too, on every Sunday.  Above that, church services should be focused on Jesus.  It is only by the Spirit of Jesus that the church can minister effectively to its people, whether they be moms or not.

I think my traditional Anglican church has it about right.  We invite the mothers, expecting, present, and past, up to the rail, pray for them, and give them a flower.  (This Sunday, we also have a light lunch in their honor afterwards.)  But the rest of the service is focused on Christ and is guided by the church calendar, not the secular calendar.  It will be Rogation Sunday this year, thank you.  Mothers are warmly recognized and appreciated, but those for whom motherhood is a difficult subject are not bombarded for an hour.  And Christ is kept first.

Sorry if this became something of a rant.  I honestly was not expecting that when I began this post.  But some churches need a reality check on how they handle Mother’s Day.  So if I rant, I rant.

Do have an excellent Mother’s Day though, whatever your situation and whether you celebrate it or make a point to ignore it like I did.  And don’t skip church like I did unless you really have to . . . like I did.