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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.
We may well have all sorts of Motherly figures we want to celebrate in our lives. A grandma, a sister, someone who befriended us at church. I can say this because she is not here - I know many of you have been been helped and supported by the care Mother Patty has shown you. The beating pastoral heart of this church.
We can celebrate ALL the motherly figures who God puts in our lives, which doesn’t take away celebrating our biological mothers too.
For some of course, celebrating Mother is beautiful but also involves a trip to lay flowers at a gravestone. And for some, hardest of all, it is the other way round.
In our Gospel reading 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
A prophecy of the cross - and in the alternative Gospel reading from John 19 we see Mary standing at the foot of the cross. I think in renaissance art one of the most moving statues there is, is Michaelangelo’s Pieta - Mary holding and cradling the dead body of her adult child.
Over the years I have seen far too many elderly mothers mourning a child who died before them. I still think of Jess Whipp. Jess was a lovely lady in her 80s and a very committed member of Holy Trinity Barkingside, my first church as a vicar. Her son had died many decades earlier - and still she asked How had God allowed that? A sword pierced her heart. SInce meeting Jess I have come across so many others more or less healed from that pain - whether they lost their child as a 30 year old, a 50 year old or as a still born baby. I wonder what my Grandma felt when her son, my dad, died at the age of 47?
Romans 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice - but also weep with those who weep
Which brings us to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1: 20”In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son.” We have skipped a bit here - the first 19 verses that talk of Hannah’s pain - her infertility and her longing to have a baby but not being able to. That’s quite a common theme in the bible - look at Sarah and Abraham. Look at Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist - though in her case we don’t know if it was her or her husband who had the fertility problems.
And although it is not talked about much, common also today.
Weep with those who weep.
Of course the story of Hannah ends with a happy ending. “In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son.” In the midst of pain, sometimes God works miracles.
In October there was the Dicoesan Healing Service held at St Jos. Lots of people from many churches had come and wanted to receive prayer and I was one of several priests drafted in to do prayer ministry. A woman (feeling very embarrassed) admitted to me that she wanted prayer because she was desperate for a baby. For two years her husband and her had been trying and no baby! And so I prayed. That was in October. I recently heard from her. The baby is due July. Do the maths!
Rejoice with those who rejoice.
Today many here will have much celebrate - be it a miracle - or just the love of your mum. Treasure those things to celebrate. They are worth celebrating - that’s why we give out the daffodils.
We all rejoice with each other in celebrating those beautiful things. But we also acknowledge among ourselves those for who today is either bitter sweet or painful. And while we may rejoice we surround them with our love and care and prayer
