Sermon for Mother's Day
Written and delivered by Judy Pike
Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Bisbee, Arizona
May 1997

Scripture:  Old Testament--Psalm 100
            New Testament--1 John 4:7-19
                                
WHAT IS REAL?

This is Mother’s Day and I have four wonderful children who have made
this day a special and joyous occasion for 20 years now.   However,
biologically speaking, you might say that I am not a “real” mother even
though I have four children.  I acquired our two older children by
marrying their father and we adopted our two younger children.  Does
that mean that I am not their “real” mother and they are not my “real”
children?  No, it does not.  I believe that am a real mother just as
much as those who have given birth to their children; and my children
are as much my real children as if I had given birth to them.  Being
“real” has little to do with biology.  So what IS “real” and how do we
get there?  Let me share with you my favorite part of THE VELVETEEN
RABBIT by Margery Williams.  It has answered for me, in part, the
question of “What is REAL”:

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others.
He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the
seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out
to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession
of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break
their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys,
and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very
strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise
and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. 
       ‘What is REAL ?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying
side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.
‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out
handle?’
       ‘Real isn't how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It's a thing
that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not
just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ 
       ‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit. 
       ‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
‘When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.’ 
       ‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or
bit by bit?’ 
       ‘It doesn't happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You
become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to
people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have been carefully
kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been
loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and
very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are
Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.’ 
       ‘I suppose you are Real?’ said the Rabbit. And then he wished he
had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But
the Skin Horse only smiled. 
       ‘The Boy's Uncle made me real,’ he said. ‘That was a great many
years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts
for always.’” 
 
Being “real” has little to do with biology and much to do with love,
something that cannot be seen or touched.  As Helen Keller once said,
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor
touched...but are felt in the heart.”    In 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4, we
read that “Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is
being renewed every day. . . because we look not to the things that are
seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are
transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”  Or, in the
words of the Skin Horse, “. . . once you are Real you can’t become
unreal again.  It lasts for always.” 

Each of us is on an individual journey toward wholeness--toward becoming
who we really are and our best chance of growing into our full humanity
is to be connected with our God, to nurture the connection with our
source.  A vital part of love is the ability to see and accept ourselves
and others for who we and they really are.  How do we do that--how do we
make each other “real”?
Jesus loved and affirmed everyone he met.  We, too are called to love,
affirm, accept, forgive, minister--to see Christ in each other.    We
seek God not in order to find but to be found.  When God discovers us in
the deepest depths, then we are truly Named, and we become real.  Just
as human beings are known, or “Named,” by God, we are also  called by
God to Name other human beings--to call others into being through
understanding and love--to make others real.

In her writing and speaking, Madeleine L’Engle refers often to “the
butterfly effect.”  If a butterfly winging over the mountains around
Bisbee should be hurt, the effect would be felt in galaxies thousands of
light years away.  The interrelationship of all of Creation is sensitive
in a way we are just beginning to understand.  If a butterfly is hurt,
we are hurt.  No wonder Jesus could say that not one sparrow could fall
to the ground without the Father’s knowledge and that even the hairs of
our heads are all numbered.  What more evidence do we need to prove our
realness?  But with realness comes responsibility because every one of
our actions or reactions has an effect.  “We belong to each other; the
fall  of every sparrow is noted, every tear we shed is collected in the
Creator’s bottle.”  

If we are, therefore, responsible for the being of things, if we are
co-creators with God, this gives us an enormous responsibility.  We are
called to be the eyes and ears and nose and mouth and fingers of this
planet.  We are called to observe all that is around us, to contemplate
it, and to make it real.  In her 1985 Christmas letter, Madeleine
L’Engle wrote:

        “Observe and contemplate.
        Make real.  Bring to be.
Because we note the falling tree
The sound is truly heard.
Look!  The sunrise!  Wait--
        It needs us to look, to see.
        To hear, and speak the Word.

        Observe and contemplate
        The cosmos and our little earth.
Observing, we affirm the worth
Of sun and stars and light unfurled. So let us, seeing, celebrate
        The glory of God’s incarnate birth
        And sing its joy to all the world.

        Observe and contemplate.
        Make real.  Affirm.  Say Yes,
And in this season sing and bless
Wind, ice, snow; rabbit and bird;
Comet and quark; things small and great.
        Oh, observe and joyfully confess
        The birth of Love’s most lovely Word.”

To be a human being, to be real, is to know clearly that anything good
we do is sheer gift of grace. As we read in our morning scripture, “We
love because he first loved us.”  We cannot become fully human in
isolation.  Any single one of us, alone, cannot be the image of
God--instead, we must be with someone else, hand-in-hand.  And it is the
differences among us, the wonderful uniqueness of each of us, that make
a community more whole and more real than one person alone can be.  An
unknown author once wrote:

        “Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or
        more people to produce together conditions under which each
        can be, and spontaneoulsy express, his REAL self; to produce 
        together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which
        each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve 
        alone.”

God loves us so much that He persists in love until we can all, all of
us without exception, freely return his look of love with love in our
own eyes and hearts and that is when we will know the joy of being
co-creators with the one to whom we call. 

By looking for and seeing Christ in each other, we are connected by His
love and we make each other REAL through that love.  Eugenia Price, in
her book Make Love Your Aim,  writes, “Real loves always leaves the
loved one free to be himself, herself.  His best self.  Her best
self.”   Love is truly what makes persons know who they are.  And that
is why, on this Mother’s Day, that I know that I am a REAL mother and
that my children, though we are not biologically related, are my REAL
children. 

Let us go forth into the world looking for Christ in each other, 
reaching out to grab each other’s hands, making each other REAL.  Amen.

Return to the Madeleine L'Engle WWW Resource

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