This upcoming Sunday, churches across the country will want to “honor” mothers by having them all stand, or by pinning a special flower or pin on mothers as they walk in, or putting up cheesy PowerPoint slides (like the one on the right) to honor mothers, as if women who aren’t mothers don’t have inner beauty.
I am not a fan of churches “giving in” to Hallmark holidays and celebrating the commercial holidays during worship services. It’s funny, even the founder of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, was really upset by the commercialization of the holiday by the 1920s (she had just started it in 1914). Oh my, what would Anna say today?
But what I did learn recently (thanks to the Wikipedia article here), is that Mother’s Day falls just behind Christmas and Easter in terms of attendance. So, our churches are going to be filled this Sunday…and the question is what do we do with Mother’s Day? Earlier this week, I had a brief conversation with David Hansen and Bruce Reyes-Chow on Twitter, and it has had me thinking the past few days. You can see the conversation below:
My default response is to say nothing. It’s a commercial holiday. People are going to have their own celebrations and traditions following church…so why give it more time in the context of worship?
After losing Micah and Judah 2.5 years ago, and realizing what parenthood looks and feels like when you have lost children, it gave me a deeper appreciation for the fact that Mother’s Day and Father’s day have the possibility of being horrible days for many people.
When we lost Micah and Judah, and I began to blog about my journey through grief so openly on DazedDad.com, I had so many older women come up to me at church and tell me stories of children they’d lost, miscarriages they’d had and other stories of infant loss that they’d never told anyone before. If you haven’t thought much about this before, you would probably be shocked at the high percentage of women who will be sitting in your pews this Sunday who have suffered these types of losses.
But then I had the above conversation with David and Bruce, and two tweets in particular stood out to me. First, one from David in which he said: “Ppl are going to make meaning out of those events. Church can either be a part of that meaning-making, or let them go at it alone” (link) and when Bruce said: “I always mentioned them if only to give permission and language to deconstruct them . . . because they need to be” (link).
And that’s true. People are going to make meaning out of these holidays and events, as they do with everything else in their lives. And the question for the church is whether we’re going to be a part of that meaning-making. Others have said if you don’t say anything about it at all, then you’re just making the church look more irrelevant. And I can see that. I can see the important of allowing the church to have that prophetic meaning-making voice. Of mentioning these particular types of holidays and events in the lives of people to allow them the freedom to join you in some deconstruction of them and the meanings that have been attached over the years.
So, that’s got me thinking about how we might be able to do that in a way that still recognized the profound and deep sadness, anger and confusion that many feel during these particular days. It’s certainly not easy to figure out – but it’s an important conversation that we all need to be having, instead of just sitting around in staff meetings and asking the question: “So, how are we going to honors mothers this year?”
Finally, there have been many others who have written about Mother’s Day in the church recently, and you’ve probably seen some of their posts and written liturgies. A few that I have really appreciated and resonated with are below:
- Marci Glass has a really moving piece called “Mother’s Day” that all pastors should read in preparation for worship this Sunday
- Amy at The Messy Middle wrote a post that went viral this past week, and is another must-read for you: An open letter to pastors {A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day}
- Finally, Ashley-Anne Masters has written two beautiful prayers that could be used in your liturgies this Sunday. First is a Prayer for Parents & Those Who Want to Be and the second is a Prayer for Children of All Ages.