There was a beautiful story in the Life magazine section of The Miami Herald yesterday about superstar jazz singer Cassandra Wilson taking care of her mom. Cassandra was devastated in December 2004 when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer= s disease.

Dr. Mary Fowlkes had always been so sharp, so intelligent, so powerful and strong-willed. She taught elementary school in Jackson, Mississippi for 40 years. She worked the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. She had so much in her head. Now, at age 80, she doesn= t know where she is a lot of the time.

In 2005 Cassandra uprooted herself and her son from their life in Woodstock, New York to return to Jackson to take care of her mother. She is returning some of the lessons she learned from her mother. As Wilson said, A Your parents spent time taking care of you. The least you can do is take care of them. I always knew I had my family as a support system. Now I= m part of that support system. I= ve had to reorient myself and rethink what= s really important in my life. Who= s really important.@ Cassandra Wilson asking herself the same question we are asking ourselves as a congregation this month: What is really important to me?

Undoubtedly all of us treasure family. And in that, we treasure our mothers. Even those of us who have had rocky relationships with our mothers, still honor, respect, and love them. That is one truth I have found to be universal, children, no matter what their mother is like or how she treats them, love their mother. If nothing else, we want to love our mothers, and so we will love an idealized version of them or the idea of them, if we have trouble loving the real thing.

But while we treasure our mothers, our society does not really treasure motherhood.

One woman experienced this a number of years ago when she went to renew her driver= s license. The clerk, a woman, wanted to know her occupation. She hesitated a moment and so the clerk began to explain, A What I mean is, do you have a job, or are you just a...?@

A Of course I have a job,@ she snapped. A I= m a mom.@ A We don= t list > mom= as an occupation,@ said the clerk. A Housewife covers it.@

The mom forgot all about that event until a few weeks ago, when she had to go for another renewal. Same place. Same clerk. She didn= t remember the mom, of course, but the mom remembered her. A Your occupation?@ she asked.

Not knowing what prompted her, the words simply popped out. A I= m a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.@ The clerk paused, ball-point pen froze in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right. The mom repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words. Then she stared in wonder as her pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire. A Might I ask,@ said the clerk with new interest, A just what you do in your field?@ Coolly, without any trace of fluster in her voice, she replied, A I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn= t) in the laboratory and in the field, (normally, she would have said indoors and out.) I= m working for my Masters, (the whole darned family) and already have four credits (all daughters). Of course, the job it one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction than just money.@ There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk= s voice as she completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door.

She had to create a fancy title with the suggestion of a fancy job to gain respect from a bureaucratic clerk.

Yet we all know how important are our mothers.

We all know that the early years of a child are so important.

Our attitude, our personalities, our values, our habits, our principles C perhaps above all, our self-esteem C and to some degree, our IQ= s, are shaped powerfully by what happens to us in the first years of early childhood. Much of that is taught to us by our mothers.

But not all of it. And mothers themselves realize the importance of community, for they realize we cannot do the really important things in life alone. And that includes mothering.

A woman telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling. A Terrible,@ came the reply over the phone, A my head= s splitting and my back and legs are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy.@ Very sympathetically the caller said, A Listen, go and lie down, I= ll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is Sam?@ A Sam?@ the complaining mom gasped. A Who is Sam?@ A My heavens,@ exclaimed the first woman, A I must have dialed the wrong number.@ There was a long pause. A Are you still coming over?@ the harried mother asked hopefully.

So mothers realize what Jesus was talking about with vines and branches as imagery for his relationship with his disciples and their relationship to him and each other.

A vine and its branches work together. The branches are not just appendages; they are integral to the whole. This wholeness Jesus describes with this metaphor is about community, the community of the faithful that forms the church.

This community does not just exist for its own sake, but for the sake of each member, each branch, and for the sake of the whole world in which the church stands. To live as the branches of the vine is to belong to an organized unity shaped by the love of Jesus. What this vine/branches image suggests, then, is that there are no freestanding individuals in the community of faith.

Remember what happened to all the trees and plants last August and September when the hurricanes blew through?

Most all of them had branches broken off.

Those branches, torn from the trunks of the trees, quickly died.

This may sound very trite, and you may be saying, A well of course they did! A limb cannot live separated from the tree.@ I too know this fact, but we too often forget it when applying it to our life as Christians.

A I am the vine, you are the branches@ Jesus says to us. We cannot live the Christian life and be fruitful Christians apart from Christ any more than those limbs could live after being torn off the tree trunks.

Every branch draws its identity, its sustenance, its life from the vine.

No two branches are alike and yet they are all the same.

Paradoxical as it is, it is true.

Every Christian is unique and yet every Christian is the same.

Our identity is derived from the Vine. We are known by the Vine.

We receive our sustenance and life from the Vine.

That is why one of the things really important to mothers is the church. Not the institution, but the gathered community of people who are striving to remain connected to the Vine and to help each other remain connected to the Vine. For mothers realize we cannot do it alone; we need each other; we need God; and we need others who will help us stay connected with God.

This is the community described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he said: A The church has always put us first before anything else. It took us in as babies, before it knew who we were, what we might be, what we might have. It called us > children of God= and received us into its arms; it walked beside us in good times and in bad times... It prays for us when we go astray, welcomes us back as a loving mother when we come to ourselves: it is with us in sickness, sorrow, and death. Every other organization we join first ascertains who we are, what we have, what our social standing is: akss if we will > fit in,= what we have to offer, etc. How different is the church that turns to us and says, > I don= t care who you are, what your background is, what you have. You are a child of God and as such I welcome you without reservation; I offer you all the privileges and blessings; and I shall belong to you and you to me now and forever.@

That is the kind of community that our mothers realize is important for each one of us to find. That is the kind of community possible through our connections to the True Vine, Jesus the Christ. This is the kind of community it is important to build through our generosity of heart and money.

The Reverend Sharon Lee MacArthur, pastor of Sycamore Congregational Church in El Cerrito, California, remembers learning an important lesson about community from her mother at the kitchen table. There, where so many of life= s important moments occur, she learned to give the best away. A My mother had turned the entire back yard into a garden,@ Pastor MacArthur says, A and it was at the kitchen table where I helped her sort the vegetables. Neighbors and acquaintances received the best ones C the cream of the crop. Cousins and other extended family members were given the ones that were not as pretty. The vegetables that had some damage were used in our immediate household. With my mother, I experienced sharing our abundance. It was a celebration of what we had and included all those around us.@

From that lesson, Pastor MacArthur developed a sharing and generous heart; she became committed to building community where abundance could always be shared; and she learned that we are part of a greater whole which we all help support and build.

And she learned that lesson from her mother.