Mother Claire's Sermons

My six-year-old daughter really wants to be a grown up. And from her perspective, I can see the appeal. Grown-ups make all the rules. We get to stay up later. And we are constantly telling her to enjoy being six. But it’s hard for her to wait. And, the bad news for her, is that waiting won’t get easier when she does become a “grown up”, whenever that happens. But we also remind her that she has so much cool stuff to do in the meantime. So many fun games to play, so much to learn, so many books to read. While she has to wait, there is so much activity in her life. I googled “songs about waiting” this week and got countless results across time and genres, from Phil Collins to Jennifer Lopez, the Beach Boys to Cindy Lauper, No Doubt to Tom Petty. There’s even a song in Hamilton called “Wait For It”. But in none of these songs are they simply sitting still - even if they aren’t physically doing anything, they become songs less about waiting and more about anticipation. We practice waiting,...

Every Memorial Day, it is a tradition in my family to go to the graves of our loved ones. We go as far back as my mother’s great great grandmother who died in 1934. Sometimes as a shorthand we’ll talk about how we’re “visiting” them. Like “let’s start with Aid and Clydia, then go by Grammy Owen and then Howard, etc.” It sounds like in high school when you’re planning your graduation party circuit. The day that Lincoln Memorial got rid of the water spigot that was our landmark to find Grammy Owen was a family crisis. We talk like we’re visiting living people; going to see them. We plan when we’re going to go to Waverly “for Grandpa Hennecke”. But we know they don’t live there. What does live there are our memories. And those names on the stones cause the memories to come back to life. They give us opportunities to talk about the people we still love although we don’t get to see them anymore. About the time my brother played tag in the back yard with our great grandmother who was in her ...

In 1993 the Christian band Audio Adrenaline released perhaps the most 90s song with their interpretation of John 14:2. The song’s called “Big House” - does anyone know it? It was a huge Contemporary Christian Music hit - it reached #1 on Christian Radio and was named song of the decade by CCM Magazine . The chorus goes, “it’s a big big house / with lots and lots of room / a big big table / with lots and lots of food / a big big yard / where we can play football / a big big house / it’s my Father’s house”. I don’t know how I feel about that song. It somehow seems to do some great 90s youth group exegesis while simultaneously minimizing Jesus’ comforting words about his return by hearing in those words a promise about playing football on the lawn. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t watch the music video this week and enjoy every second of it and have the song stuck in my head for several days. Because not everything has to be high art. If you weren’t here last week, to recap, Jesus ...