Behind every good man is a woman and it's his mother.

Sorry wives but by the time you get your husbands they are pretty much a done deal. So for good or bad mom gets the credit. Which is not to say there are good moms whose sons just don't develop. There are plenty of teenage males in our society who think they are middle aged husbands.

Yes I'm a mama's boy and proud of it. Although she only stands about half my height my mother has been a major influence in my life. My sense of determination and courage comes not from my father but from my mother. Although he was crippled in one leg, everything seemed to come easy for my father. No so my mother, she has had to fight and protect every inch of her life. She got married young, 17, endured a rocky marriage for over 50 years, held our family together when my eight-year old brother died of leukemia, and went on to stand next to me in the graduating line of Cal State Bakersfield. You could say I'm close to my mother.

And I know my story is not an unusual one. There are mothers all over this would holding things together. I would venture to say that besides God, mothers are the most powerful force in the universe. Today with a fifty percent divorce rate, and a ratio of single mothers that's not much lower, where would we be without mothers?

Mothers aren't perfect of course, but why should they be? In many ways it's their imperfections that make us love them all the more. Because they have had to battle even themselves to nurture us to adulthood.

So on this Mothers Day 2010 I want to give a big thank you to all the mothers who have sacrificed so much for their children

At first glance this morning's scripture reading John 14:23-29 might not seem to have much to do with Mother's Day. Look at that scripture again. See the imagery in verse 23 where Jesus promises that he and God will come to the disciples and make a home with them. Homemaker? You bet one the most overused words to describe motherhood in American history. Men in our society may have traditionally built houses, but we were never considered to be homemakers. That responsibility is reserved most often for mothers.

The whole imagery of home, which John used, as opposed to kingdom, often used to describes God's presence, adds a whole different feel to this passage. Kingdoms are of course most often ran by males, while we know who must often runs the home.

Home also speaks of a family atmosphere. If your like my family your family had it's own special way of doing things, and inside jokes, ways of communicating outsiders may not understand.

One of those key words was "cactus" which referred to my father's unfortunate inability to control what we hillbillies would otherwise call farting. But there are places where such language would prove inappropriate so we all used the code cactus, Whenever in the company of others, and it became apparent dad was having problems, his two sons would always shout cactus and then roll on the floor laughing.

Men are lizard brains. Really. Science has found that the male human brain has the same kind of protective covering that lizards have. Women don't have that protection. Maybe it comes from decades of getting hit over the head in combat. Whatever the reason, in our society our wives are right, we are thickheaded. Women, on the other hand, are more relational. Better suited to home building.

And here Jesus talks about sending the Holy Spirit to teach us and remind us of how God's house operates. More than that Jesus says next that he is leaving us his peace. And I get the feeling the Holy Spirit is also a peace maker.

In my own personal experience it was my mom who was mainly in charge of these responsibilities of making peace, and enforcing the family way of doing things. I mean Jesus was male, and we think mostly of God in the male gender, why can't the Holy Spirit be mom? Of course, as this scripture passage shows, God the father is also very much God the mother in relationship to us.

And it seems to me when Jesus is speaking of his peace here, he is speaking of the kind of peace experienced by countless God loving mothers. That is the peace of the Christian household.

Ok, now that you're done laughing, I admit that family life for Christians is anything but peaceful as the world understands it. But remember here that Jesus warns he is not talking about the peace of the world, but his peace, God's peace.

Even in those Hell raising times of family life, when it feels much more like war than anything else, there is peace. The peace of belonging. The peace of structure that provides protection and guidance. And the peace of knowing that behind all the turmoil of family existence is God who has a purpose for it all. If you look at the troubles that face us today, education, economic, and whatever else, they all generate from broken homes. The difference between those who make in this world and those who won't is largely in how much effort our parents put into raising us. We can't have effective churches, schools, or governments, without families. There should be a great peace for mothers and fathers knowing that they are doing the most fundamentally important job in the Kingdom of God, suffering and caring in the Christian family.

In the same way we need to understand that in our congregations, which after all really are families, the peace of God may not always be so peaceful as the world understands it. But I'll tell you something, as a grandparent the greatest peace and joy I've ever known comes sometime when I'm holding my grandsons. Because I know my children are better parents than I was. And because their family is also as conflicted and crazy as mine was. My grandsons are going to be alright. And that, my friends, is the peace Jesus gives us.

by monty keeling