This was written for Mother’s Day in 2004 and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC that year, as well as the Wanda (IL) UMC in 2021! The Scripture is from the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 11-18…

       Due to situations that occurred during her teen years, my mother hadn’t been able to finish high school. So it was that she was pushing thirty when she decided to start taking classes and get her GED. And she enjoyed doing that so much, and did so well at it, that she continued her studies until she graduated from SIU @ Edwardsville as a special education teacher. Part of that process included doing student teaching in a regular classroom for a given number of semesters. One of her projects was a science/biology demonstration in which each of the students was to be responsible for watching over and taking care of their very own duck egg. The plan had been that all of the eggs would be hatched by Easter and each student would take his-or-her duckling home with them to keep as an Easter gift. And as best I recall, that’s pretty much the way it worked… except for one small detail. They had forgotten to ask the parents if it was alright for their child to bring home a new pet… Especially a duck! Within two weeks after Easter Sunday most had been brought back to her at school and our farm became the new home to a flock of ducklings.

We started out keeping them in the chicken-house with the chickens, but later that spring we took all of them up to the pond we had built on top of the hill in the back pasture and turned them loose. There, they had plenty of room, water and grass, as well as what food we took up each day. Eventually, though, one by one they started disappearing… well not entirely… we could usually find trails of blood and feathers. You see, in the woods behind our pasture were foxes… and from the sounds that we could hear at times, there must have been a lot of them! Eventually all of the ducks were gone, and then chickens started disappearing… and they were in a fenced pen in the barnyard and locked up in the chicken-house at night!

Now, I had been raised on children’s stories and cartoons about evil, crafty foxes and wolves… at that time they seemed pretty much one-and-the-same to me… and when you combined that with seeing the carcasses left from their occasional raids, I had a very strong respect for foxes.

The adjoining property to the rear of ours had two small hilltops cleared as pasture while the rest was surrounded by the aforementioned woods. As I grew older I came to enjoy walking back there on occasion to relax and work through solving all of the world’s problems, as teenagers are wont to do. One night I was sitting on the side of the hill watching the gathering evening and listening to the foxes run in the woods across the way when I suddenly heard a small ‘bark’ close by. I turned and saw a red fox standing about thirty feet away from me looking at me as intently as I was looking at it! He must have been walking around the hill and came upon me quite by accident… indeed, his bark had been more one of surprise than anything.

Keep in mind that at this time I was a very lanky, skin-and-bones teenager, (though I did have my ‘farm’ muscles) and was probably 15 minutes from any other human being. I was probably wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sandals and never carried anything in my pockets on these walks. I stared at the fox as it stared back… thoughts of stories about rabies and hunting in packs racing through my head. (I know, now, that only wolves hunt in packs, but I didn’t then!) “Okay…,” I said, as I slowly stood up. “Let’s play chicken!” I spread my arms and shouted as I began running towards him! He turned and was out-of-sight in less time than it takes for me to tell it. I won, but decided that it was probably time to head back to the house, anyway.

When the hired hand in Jesus’ story, today, sees the wolf coming, he runs away. Wolves are far more dangerous than the small fox that I faced down, and since the worker had no personal stake or interest in the sheep, his first concern was for himself.

In today’s verses, Jesus declares that He is ‘the Good Shepherd’. Fausset’s Bible Dictionary says that, “The shepherd’s dutieswere to… go before the sheep and call them by name… watch the flock… search for stray sheep… supply water… bring them back to the fold at evening and make sure that none be missing by passing one by one “under the rod”, counting and checking each sheep as it passed…and to act as porter, guarding the entrance to the fold by night. The shepherd had the responsibility of, and at the same time, a personal interest in the flock.

Tenderness to the young and feeble was also part of the shepherd’s duty, and great care was taken not to overdrive them. That’s why the shepherd’s office is often used to represent Jehovah’s tender care of His people.

Jesus does all of these things for His flock! He knows His sheep and His sheep know Him. And ultimately, as ‘the Good Shepherd’, He is willing to lay down His life for His sheep. In fact, He says it no less than four times in these eight verses! Looking back from our vantage point of two-thousand odd years of learning, we are all well aware of what He was talking about. And we know that He did it out of His love for each of us! And I put it to you that each of us are expected to love one another in that same way and to also be shepherds of the flock!

In the 3^rd chapter of 1 John, starting with verse 16, the same ‘John’ who wrote the Gospel of John writes,

“We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters. But if anyone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help–how can God’s love be in that person?

“Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. It is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before the Lord…”

The Life Application Commentary says that, “John dismissed the idea that God’s love is a mere theoretical concept. He rejected the notion that sentimental words are an adequate expression of love to others. On the contrary, he argued, Biblical love is a verb…it requires action! Yet, we so easily rationalize away biblical demands that in most of the world, our Christian brothers and sisters lack proper food, clothing, and jobs to live decent lives. Consider the people God has placed in your life and ask yourself, “What does an active love require me to do for them today?

“Talk is cheap, so unsubstantiated claims of mere word or speech are worthless. Anyone can claim to have faith, but if his or her lifestyle remains selfish and worldly, then what good are the words and speeches.”

Since this is Mother’s Day, let me tell you a little more about my mother. After graduating from SIU, she started working with the Special Ed program in Edwardsville, and eventually became the administrator of that program for the entire district. In the mean time, she continued taking courses and eventually received a Masters Degree in Education. She was appointed principal of one of the inner Edwardsville grade schools for a number of years, until being asked to take over as principal at three of the district’s rural schools. She also was asked to teach courses on Special Education at SIU and was a part-time professor there for a number of years. At the same time, she had continued with her own education and was getting close to getting her Doctorate before two separate family members were overcome with serious health conditions and she chose to take an early retirement in order to care for both her husband and my brother.

And all along the way, each of the things she did she did out of love… love for the children she worked with… love for the profession that she was proud to be a part of and to help others learn… love for each of her family members… and a very strong love for the God that her mother had shown her and helped her to know! And because of that love she excelled in everything that she did!!! (And still does!)

For those who may have trouble picturing the kind of love that God has for us… trouble seeing just what kind of love Jesus expects from us… and trouble comprehending the love that we should be showing for all of those around us… just picture the love that a mother has for her children!

Let me read this piece that came in my e-mail some years ago… you’ll find it in today’s bulletin.

Love In the Home

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in its place, but have not love, I am a housekeeper—not a homemaker.

If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements, but have not love, my children learn cleanliness—not godliness.

Love leaves the dust in search of a child’s laugh.
Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.
Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.
Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.

Love is present through the trials.
Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.
Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood.
Love is the key that opens salvation’s message to a child’s heart.

Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection.
Now I glory in God’s perfection of my child.
As a mother, there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

Yes, we are all of us shepherds… we are shepherds of our families… we are shepherds of our friends and neighbors… we are shepherds of our Christian brothers and sisters all over the world… and we are shepherds of God’s church! And to be effective shepherds we must all be filled with the same overpowering love for each other that a mother has for her child… the same overpowering love that God has for His Son… the same overpowering love that Jesus has for each one of us sitting here today!

The writer of 1 John said that, “We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us.” Then he adds these words…

“Dear friends, if our conscience is clear, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive whatever we request because we obey him and do the things that please him. And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments live in fellowship with him, and he with them.”

The Life Application Commentary says that, “If we could ask John what the one message he wanted us to get from his epistles was, he would probably say, “Love one another.” This command did not originate from John… it came straight from the lips of Jesus. John repeated this command often, basing it on the premise that since “God is love,” all who claim to know God must exhibit that same love in their relationship with others. Jesus commands his followers to love others as he did.

It is easy to talk about love and how much we love people, but love means putting others first. Love is action — showing others that we care — not just words.

To that I can only add ‘Amen’… and to all mothers… thank you for loving us and for teaching us how to love… “Happy Mother’s Day!”