"Steadfast Love" - Psalm 66:8-20 - May 9, 1999

One day a man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers. He wanted them to be sent to his mother, who lived 200 miles away. As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl, sitting on the curb sobbing. He asked her what was wrong and she replied, "I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother, but I only have 75 cents and the rose costs two dollars."

The man smiled and said, "Come with me into the flower shop, I will buy you a rose." He bought the little girl her rose and then arranged for flowers to be wired to his mother. As they left the store he asked the girl if she needed a ride. "Yes, please. You can take me to my mother," she replied. She then directed him to a nearby cemetery and placed the rose on her mother’s grave.

The man then returned to the flower shop, canceled the flower order to his mother and instead bought a bouquet of flowers and drove the two hundred miles to deliver the flowers to his mother in person.

I received this story from a member of the church one Sunday who slipped it into my hand as she was going out the door. She is both a mother and grandmother. You might be amazed at the amount of material that we ministers receive following a worship service. Sometimes they just appear on our desks. I believe that this one poignantly illustrates what Psalm 66 is saying. God’s love for us is steadfast. God’s love abides no matter what. Like the little girls’ love for her mother, God’s love for us is everlasting.

The steadfast love of God is a love "that won’t let our feet slip." When I was a teen, our family was ice skating during the winter months at my uncle’s pond. My mother slipped on the ice and broke her ankle. I remember my mother, sitting on the sofa with her leg in a cast. It was then we learned to do laundry and cook for ourselves. But somehow my father and three brothers and I managed to eat and continue our lives. It was the first time in her life she enjoyed a short break from the job of raising a family.

My mother slipped but the Psalmist said, "God has not let our feet slip." I believe he meant something different. Life has its falls and setbacks. As the Psalmist went on to say, "God has tested us and tried us as silver is tried. God has laid burdens on our backs, let people ride over our heads and brought us through fire and through water." But in spite of all we have endured, God has delivered us. God has led us to a "spacious place." For the first time as a mother, my mother experienced that spacious place.

We experience all kinds of horrendous circumstances in life but God has a way of setting us free. This psalm refers to the Exodus of the Israelites, when Moses led them from Egyptian captivity. They were grateful that the Lord delivered them and gave them new life. In spite of all they endured they still gave God praise for remaining in God’s "steadfast love." (Exodus 15:13) They were not forgotten and life did not end. "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation" (Exodus 34:6-7)

The fact that God leads us to a "spacious place" means that God continues to give us new life, again and again. The resurrecting power of God is never ending, continuously creative, always able to bring new life from the ashes. Thus the old story of deliverance for the Israelites is still a new song for us today. The steadfast love of God has no limits or boundaries.

My mother does not live in the area. She lives some one thousand miles away. In the last twenty years I have not been able to be with her on Mother’s Day. Unlike the man in the story who delivered flowers to his mother it is impossible for me. Nevertheless, I am not without mothers because I get to celebrate with all of you. I am reminded of Jesus’ words when he said, "there is no one who has left a mother who will not receive a hundredfold, mothers in this day and in the days to come." (Mark 10:29) God has a way of not only replacing our losses but multiplying our gains. God leads us to "spacious place."

Besides giving us "spacious place" God also has "listened and given heed to our prayers." To heed to our prayers means God attends to our prayers. In the discipline of counseling we practice the art of "attending." That means that the counselor acknowledges and cares for his/her client by being close. For example; when a client is sad or distraught and is weeping, the counselor would lean toward them, perhaps touch them on the shoulder, giving the client time to express their pain. The counselor gives the client their total undivided attention. Thus they are able to express their pain and at the same time feel as though they are heard.

This, I believe, is how God heeds our prayers and listens to us. God attends to us. God shares our sorrow and our joy. God does not fix us or shout at us, nor is God indifferent to us. God attends, God listens.

Just because God does not respond immediately, does not mean God is not listening. We are so accustomed to instant gratification in this society we believe that God must not care since we don’t receive immediate results. We tend to forget the Israelites spent 400 years wandering in the wilderness and that God listened to them throughout their journey.

As you may know, Mother’s Day got its official start in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the 2nd Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. This came after years of campaigning by Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia. She actually began her quest in 1907 when her home church in Grafton, West Virginia, held a Mother’s Day celebration. She, however wasn’t the first to suggest the idea. Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic) held organized Mother’s Day meetings in Boston, Massachusetts as early as 1872. It took over 40 years to make Mother’s Day an official day in the life of our nation. Long before that, however mothers were being honored.

It may have taken much longer than Julia Howe or Ana Jarvis had hoped to make Mother's Day a reality but it did come to pass as finally someone listened and responded. There may have been no official Mother's Day but that did not prevent these women from honoring their mothers. God's love for us is just as intense as our love for our mothers. The love of God is steadfast. God attends to prayers and God listens.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio