Are You My Mother?

Happy Friday!

I hope this email finds you doing well. This week my kids began school, so it was the crazy mix of end of summer and the beginning of schedules and responsibilities. There has been excitement, a dash of dread, and metaphorical whiplash.

We are also beginning a new season at LUMC. This week we start a new sermon series exploring some people in Jesus’s family tree according to the Gospel of Matthew. It makes me think of the book with the bird who falls out of his nest and goes searching for his mother, “/Are you my mother?/“ He meets a kitten and asks if the kitten is his mother. He meets an excavator and asks the same question. He continues finding many who are not his mother.

Two interesting themes arise out of this book for me. One, everyone’s family looks different; the diversities of our families are often as beautiful as our diversities as individuals. The second theme for me is the care, concern, and love the bird’s mother has for him when she finds him. She offers nature of food and the safety of returning them home in a way none of the strangers offered. How often has the behavior of someone defined who they are for you far more than the titles and assignments blood and/or society offer?

On Sunday we’ll be talking a bit about Joseph, a man with very little parchment spent on him in Matthew or any of the gospels. I invite you to join us in exploring the man who raised the Son of God as his own son. May we all be so bold as to live our best lives as the families we are even when we don’t resemble the families who live next door.

Peace to you and yours,

Rev Elizabeth