Bittersweet Mothers Day Series

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Over the last few months I have received a number of emails from firms - perhaps you have received similar ones? They say “would you like to opt out of Mother’s Day marketing emails?” I think I first received this about three years ago, and have been receiving more every year since. Of course once … we would not even have been talking about Mother’s Day.

Once upon a time, long before the Americans invented Mothers Day, Mothering Sunday was a celebration of Mother Church and Mother Mary.

We see that still in the readings the Church of England offers us. Look at the two Gospels the Church of England offers - both focusing on Mother Mary, though the one we have not got today from John 19 focuses on her role as Mother to the Church. We have gone instead today for her and Joseph at the presentation in the Temple in Luke 2

Then there is the theme of Mother Church - the Church as the caring community in which we are nurtured - a theme taken up again in John 19 when a new family is created at the Cross, and also in one the epistles offered from Colossians 3 which talks a lot about how we as Christians should behave towards each other - which although the word is not used might be summed up as we each ought to mother each other. St Paul takes up this theme in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8 describing his role as a priest to the congregation he served “But we were gentle* among you,Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”

More recently the theme of the motherly love of God has been brought to the fore

Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

Psalm 131:2 the psalmist talks of his relationship with God “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child

Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,

All these themes are perhaps the appropriate themes for Mothering Sunday. But ever since Mothers Day was invented in America in May 1907, the theme of American Mothers Day and seeped into British Mothering Sunday.

Such that if you were to do a Vox Pops and ask a random person on the street what today was all about they would tell you - a celebration of Motherhood.

Celebration is good! We celebrate all sorts of things from birthdays to Valentines day. So if you are a mother you might be thinking “Well for at least ONE day a year my kids remember to celebrate my existence” If you have been busting your guts looking after them, then whether your kids are 3 or 33, perhaps you deserve a little bit of thanks! “Rejoice with those who rejoice” Romans 12:15

Our first reading from Exodus gives us an interesting perspective on this. Because in the story of Moses, Moses’s mother is not the only motherly figure. She protects her baby from persecution.

“When she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him for three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.”

But then Moses’s older sister Miriam steps in 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.” - and when his sister finds the baby . “7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’

I know many of you from Carribean families were brought up at least for a time by family members other than your mother. Perhaps your mother came ahead to England to work and you stayed with your grandmother for several years. Or perhaps your older brother or sister looked after you a fair amount of the time while your mother had to go to work

Then comes the third motherly figure - Pharoah’s daughter who adopts baby Moses thereby saving him.

When I was 13 I became a Christian at boarding school. Coming home in the holidays I started attending my local church. It was very traditional, still 1662 book of common prayer at the time. Not you might think a very teenager friendly church. But from the moment I walked in the door a woman in her late 50s called Betty beckoned me over. She invited me to sit with her, not just that week but every week. She showed me around the really complex service book and helped me to find my place in it. Over the weeks that followed (and she did make sure my mum knew where I was) she would invite me to lunch and otherwise make me feel welcome. She was like a Church mum to me. It was definitely because of Betty that I stayed in that particular church, and probably because of Betty that I stayed in church full stop.