The Divine Work of Mothering

Preached at Faith Episcopal Church, Sunday May 8, 2005, The Seventh Sunday of Easter.

The language in today’s Gospel – Jesus’ words to God about the people entrusted into his care are words that, as a mother, I can hear easily. “They were yours, and you gave them to me…” “I’m not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” This is the way I always felt about my kids – they were not mine in any kind of ownership way. They were mine to care for, protect, encourage, teach, nurture and ultimately to let go. I was not supposed to mold them into some little version of me or into anything other than what they were inherently meant to be. Most of all, I always knew them as God’s, not mine. Mothering in God’s place – a steward to those tiny bodies and fabulous hearts and minds. If I’ve been a good mother, it’s because I understood the responsibilities and the limits of my role.

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the role of mothers in the Bible – overshadowed as they are by the patriarchs. Eve is more often associated with precipitating expulsion from paradise than with her place as the mother of humankind. But she remains as the first to give birth, the first mother, the first grandmother, the one through whom all the rest came.

Consider Sarah. She is the first woman listed by name in any of the Bible’s genealogies. Before her, men became the father of their children without so much as a nod to women who did all the work. But then, there she is, in Ch 11:29 “Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. It then goes on to say that “Sarai was barren, she had no child.” Soon after Abram is called by God, he’s told that he will be the father of many nations. Given the definition of marriage at that time, Sarai’s inability to have children would probably not have been of great concern to Abram, afterall, it was not a world of one-woman men. Indeed eventually, a son is born to Sarah’s maid, Hagar. But throughout the story, it becomes clear that God is equally intent on Sarah presence in the gene pool. Twice God rescued her from the lascivious attention of foreign kings, and even after she was well past any child-bearing possibility, God says that it will be Sarah who will bear the promised child. God intended Sarah every bit as much as Abraham to be the parents of the chosen people.

Time and time again in the bible, when there is an important child to be born, God carefully chooses the mother. Manoah, the barren wife of Zorah from the tribe of Dan was told by an angel that she would have a special child. She did indeed and his name was Samson, the strong man with a full head of hair who was a hero to his people. Elizabeth, another elderly, barren woman has a son, John and the same time her cousin Mary is expecting her special child. Mothering any of these special children is not left to chance, it is too important because mothering is inherently important – it is one of the great blessing bestowed on humankind.

My favorite image of motherhood is an some footage of a mother elephant in a nature documentary. The elephants were being tagged to be able to track them and the crew was trying to separate a baby elephant from the herd to examine him and put his radio collar on but they hadn’t anticipated his mother. The baby had been shot with a tranquilizer dart and was groggily lying on the ground. A helicopter was flying low to disperse the herd but his mother would not leave him. As the rest of elephants watched from a way off she put herself between her baby and the hovering chopper. She kept nudging him with her foot as she bravely faced this unidentifiable monster, waving her trunk at it and trumpeting. Don’t mess with Mom. Mothering is serious business. Mothering is an activity of the divine.

Julia Ward Howe is the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Putting an end to slavery was important to her, but after seeing some of the devastating effects of the Civil War- death, disease, famine and poverty - she began advocating for a mother's day for peace in 1870. This was her Mother's Day Proclamation:

“Arise, then, women of this day. Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears. Say firmly, we will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us wreaking with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes out with our own. It says, disarm. Disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other, as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, and each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.”

Julian of Norwich, that marvelous mystic writer of the 15th century wrote that in Christ, God chose to be our mother in all things. Julian’s writings are well known and loved. Less remembered is Marguerite d’Oingt, the leader of a priory in Southern France in the 13th century. These are her extraordinary words;

“Jesus, are you not my Mother? Are you not even more than my mother? My human mother after all laboured in giving birth to me for only a day or a night; You, my tender and beautiful Lord, laboured for me for over thirty years….Oh with what measureless love you laboured for me!...But when the time was ripe for you to be delivered, your labor pains were so terrible your holy sweat was like great drops of blood that ran from your body onto the earth…Who ever saw a mother endure so dreadful a birth? When the time of your delivery came, you were nailed to the hard bed of the Cross…and your nerves and all your veins were broken. How could anyone be surprised that your veins broke open when in one day you gave birth to the whole world?” (Andrew Harvey, Teachings of the Christian Mystics, 1998)

This Sunday is not merely Mothers Day – it is the Sunday after the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Having lived among us, as one of us, having died dreadfully, resurrected, he has now taken our human experience with him and makes at home in heaven. He has again been our mother, delivering us in heaven. It has never been more true to say “A mother’s work is never done,” for in Christ we are continually mothered, protected, nurtured, encouraged, and raised as children on our way to spiritual adulthood. Thank you, Jesus. Amen, Alleluia!