A sermon for Mothering Sunday
Texts: Exodus 2.1-10, Colossians 3.12-17, John
19.25b-27
I confess to you, my brothers
and sisters, that I have always had a rather ambivalent relationship with Mary,
the Mother of Jesus. This no doubt stems
from my low-church upbringing. I was
never really taught about the importance of Mary in the story of Jesus. The veneration of Mary was something which
the Roman Catholics, down the road, did.
It was slightly odd, and a little bit ‘suspect’. It was something which marked them from us. And so, in my early, formational years, Mary was treated as
little more than the human incubator for the Son of God.
The extent to which Mary
should, or should not, be venerated is a theme of church debates throughout the
centuries. Those who think that such
veneration has got out of hand, at times, point to the Qu’ran, (specifically 5.116). There’s a moment when the prophet Mohammed
clearly thought that Christians were not just venerating Mary, but worshipping her, as if she were an equal
member of the Trinity. In fact, in
Mohammed’s understanding of what he observed among Christians, the Holy Spirit
hardly got a mention! The Qu’ran was
written around the turn of the 7th Century after Jesus – so clearly,
Christians of that time were giving Mary a lot of attention.
Questions about the emphasis we
should place on Mary have clearly been a feature of our history, here at St
Faith’s. Last week, in preparation for a
school assembly, I carried out a bit of a survey of images of Mary in our
building. I walked around the church
with a camera, describing for the children all the different ways that Mary is
represented in our pictures, statues and windows.
For example, there is the
Mother’s Union Banner, the icon in the prayer area, and then the gorgeous
statue in the Lady Chapel. There are
stained glass windows of Mary as the queen of heaven (in the South Aisle) and
appearing to St Bernadette at Lourdes (in the South-West window). There are images of Mary at the Nativity
(South Transept) and an image of today’s Gospel reading in the great East
Window. Mary, and John are shown
standing at the foot of the cross. I
haven’t done an actual tally, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there
might be are more images of Mary in
our church than there are of Jesus! Only
the Stations of the Cross really redress the balance, in terms of a tally, and
they are a relatively recent addition to the church.
After Easter, Bishop John will
once again lead our Walsingham Cell of our Lady of Faith on a pilgrimage to ‘England’s
Nazareth’. Our pilgrims will venerate
Mary, and ask for her prayers to God, in the greatest English Shrine to
her. After missing the occasion for the
last two years, due to Covid, I’m sure it will be a very meaningful encounter for
everyone who goes.
As an amateur historian and practicing
theologian, all this interest in Mary intrigues me. Why has there been such an interest in her,
over the centuries? After all, her contribution,
through Scripture, to theology is relatively small. We only have her selfless willingness to bear
Jesus, and her glorious hymn of liberation, called the Magnificat. Both of these are wonderful and inspiring
moments, but essentially, they only echo much more developed theologies of
service, and of the Kingdom, in the rest of Scripture.
Her wider story is, of course,
inspiring to us. A peasant woman,
willing to give her all to God, succeeds in bringing God himself into our world. She raises the child, and then stands with
him throughout his ministry, his death, and his resurrection. She is devoted to Jesus, through thick and
thin, never straying from his side, either when the crowds are shouting
Hosanna, or when they shout ‘Crucify Him’.
Her story is one of devotion, and steadfast faith, and serves to
encourage us all to do the same.
But, arguably, other Bible characters
had similar levels of devotion. Some devotions were even greater – leading them,
for example, to persecution and imprisonment, torture and death. By tradition,
Mary (on the other hand) was carried bodily into heaven, never having tasted
death herself. So why does Mary intrigue
us so much?
My gut tells me that Mary
fascinates us because of her gender. In a patriarchal world, in which men make all
the decisions, Mary makes her decision
(to say yes to God). In a Bible-world of
kings, conquests, geo-politics and apocalypses, Mary offers us a vision of
faith in the domestic setting. Through her story, we glimpse the intimate
realities of God in the home environment – growing up in the bosom of a loving
family. Through the eyes of God’s ‘hand-maiden’,
we glimpse the reality that God isn’t just interested in who wields power in
our world, but also how power is
exercised in our homes, and in our families.
Mary offers us a narrative of
Motherhood, which stands in contrast to the traditional notions of Fatherhood –
which all too often is about issues of power and control. Although we know that God made both men and women in God’s image, Mary reminds
us of the feminine aspects of God. She
gives us permission to apply the adverb ‘she’ to God, as much as ‘he’. What do I mean?
Well, this: if we only conceive
of God in male terms, then we will
expect God to act as males tend to
act. We will expect God to control the situation we are praying
about. We will expect God to intervene, and to ‘sort it out’. When we pray
about conflicts in the world (like the one in Ukraine at the moment), we will
expect God to step into the battlefield, like a Head teacher into a playground
scrap – to separate the warring parties, and give them detention! But Mary, in reminding us of God’s feminine
characteristics, will show us a God who sometimes stands back from her squabbling
children, so that they might learn and grow through the squabble, always ready
to both comfort and to teach. The
feminine God isn’t focussed on control, or domination, but rather in the growth
of her children. She wants her children
to become all that they are capable of becoming – like the stereotypical mother
of some cultures who pushes her child to become a Doctor. And she knows that a lesson lived is more likely to be learned than
a lesson taught.
It is this feminine aspect of
God, reflected in humanity, which emerges in the other readings that are set
for today. In the first reading, from
the Book of Exodus, the Mother of Moses uses her cunning and guile to protect
her new-born son. She doesn’t gain custody
of him through violence or coercion, but out of love, and compassion, and sheer
motherly determination. In the second
reading, from the letter to the Colossians, St Paul teaches that Christians
must treat one another with the kinds of qualities we associate with the
feminine: compassion, love, humility,
peace, forgiveness. What a remarkable transformation
this is, from the Saul who originally sought to control people through
violence, persecution and murder!
So on this Mothering Sunday, let us give thanks for all those, like Mary the Mother of Jesus, who ignite in us the feminine aspects of God. Let us pray for those who are rightly repelling the violent Russian invaders in Ukraine, but also for those who are mothering the refugees who are fleeing the fighting. Their efforts, to bring food, medicine, clothing and shelter are no less heroic, no less important. And they, like Mary, remind us all of the feminine aspects of God, who creates, supplies and cares for all God’s children. Amen.