My Mothering Sunday thoughts - being balanced with all of humanity in the pew

I think for a worship leader Mothering Sunday is one of the most difficult to get right. I had two services this morning, one in an Anglican village church and the other in my church in Rye. I am always conscious as a worship leader, you never know who is out there, and that worship if it is to touch people has to meet people where they are with good news. Many people find this day too awful to come to church to be confronted with flowers and families. Others quite rightly want to celebrate. There are some nightmare stories of the giving out of flowers and the basket going round again if there are flowers left over for women who are barren! There are cards I know are sent today to childless women "from the cat." A bit of fun? Perhaps not.    

I chose this morning to concentrate on biblical mothers and what they teach us. And to remind folk to be open to the mothering love of God. How far I hope we have come from the launch of the 1999 Methodist Worship Book when a small group came to me in disgust when I used the fabulous liturgy which has in it "God our Father and our Mother"...         

We thought about Eve, the mother of Cain and Abel – and we remembered she would bury one of her children – and that her other child was a murderer – Abel murdered his brother Cain, and he was a bit of a nightmare “am I my brother’s keeper?” We paused to remember parents who have lost children today. I am conscious of many young people who go missing. I am also conscious this week is the 20th anniversary of the shootings in Dunblane. I remember leading worship on the Sunday after that tragedy, and which church I was in - Smithy Bridge Methodist Church in Littleborough. How must it be for parents to wave their children into school and never see them again?  

We thought about Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. We remembered John the Baptist who went off into the desert to live in some sort of commune we think. How did Elizabeth feel? We paused to remember parents who are surprised that they are having children, the sudden pregnancy test, and parents whose children leave home, which is always hard for the parent, but even worse when children lose contact. 

We thought about Sarah, the mother of Isaac. We remembered Sarah was very elderly when she was told she is going to have a son. How does she react? She laughes. Sarah helps us remember that motherhood isn’t easy. How did she react when Abraham takes Isaac up a mountain to sacrifice him? How did she react travelling from what she knew to a country that was God knows where? We remember parents who are struggling today to keep their children safe, on arduous journeys, as refugees. When children are sprayed with teargas across the channel a few miles from where we were worshipping this morning (on a clear day from the cliffs near here you can see the French coast), what sort of world do we live in?   

We thought about Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. After the death of husbands in a foreign land, Naomi tells Ruth to let her go and return home, but Ruth stays with her and they have an amazing bond. We paused to remember mothers in law – not all the butt of Les Dawson jokes, our extended family. 

We thought about Jochebed, the mother of Moses. To avoid the mass slaughter of Hebrew boys, she set her baby adrift in the Nile River, hoping someone would find him and raise him. God so worked that her baby was found by Pharaoh's daughter. Jochebed even became her own son's nurse. So we remember the sacrificial love of parents and carers of children today, often putting the child's welfare first, even when it hurts.

We thought about Mary, finally. Motherhood was not easy for Mary. When Jesus was born she was young, inexperienced and ostracised because of his conception. Her baby was born far from home in difficult and dangerous surroundings. When she took her son to the temple, only days old, Simeon’s prophecy for his future was both ominous and exciting. He prophesied that a sword would pierce her soul. She then lived as a refugee in a foreign land because the King wanted to kill her child.

Jesus was difficult as a child. At 12 year old he stopped behind in Jerusalem to discuss theology.

When he was older and his peers were getting married and having children, which was obligatory, Jesus did not. It could not have been easy for Mary to have Jesus being single and still living at home. His public ministry alienated him from his family as well as the religious leaders. Mary had to learn to put her own feelings to one side to support him in his mission. Finally, she suffered the worst thing that can happen to a mother, she had to watch her son die a long, painful, tortuous death.

But Mary was there. Supporting her son, no doubt with many emotions and thoughts racing around.

We think Mary would have been at most about 48 at the cross.

Perhaps biblical mothers show us something of a love that costs, accepts, and sometimes hurts. Perhaps all the mothers in the bible and those who care for others at their best, show us something of the love of God, caring and nurturing, and yes, hurting when we get it wrong or there is indescribable pain.      

   

And therefore we need a day when we remember not just Mums, but mothering and those who in God’s name care for us and we need a day when we stop and remember the nurturing care of God. 

I chose to end the reflection this morning with Mother Julian, who reminds us of God's embrace, whether we are parents, whether we have lost children, whether we wanted children and could have them, whether we choose not to have children and a day like today leaves us out. In service one this morning there were loads of flowers left over. I wondered if some men might get some. We did not. Do we give fathers a gift in June in church? What about having in church a single is fine Sunday, or a divorced people are fine Sunday - I wonder what gift I would get??! 

On a Sunday I found hard to prepare for and deliver the wise deep thinkers words remind me of the all encompassing love of God, whose care and concern are beyond measure:

"It is a characteristic of God to overcome evil with good. Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him ­ and this is where His Maternity starts ­ And with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never ceases to surround us.  Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.  And He showed me this truth in all things, but especially in those sweet words when He says:“It is I”. As if to say,  I am the power and the Goodness of the Father, I am the Wisdom of the Mother, I am the Light and the Grace which is blessed love, I am the Trinity, I am the Unity, I am the supreme Goodness of all kind of things, I am the One who makes you love, I am the One who makes you desire, I am the never-ending fulfilment of all true desires. (...) Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is ‘Being’, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through his marvellous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Saviour. It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates and our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank him reverently and to praise him for having created us and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Ghost, to obtain help and grace. I then saw with complete certainty that God, before creating us, loved us, and His love never lessened and never will. In this love he accomplished all his works, and in this love he oriented all things to our good and in this love our life is eternal. With creation we started but the love with which he created us was in Him from the very beginning and in this love is our beginning. And all this we shall see it in God eternally." From “Revelations of Divine Love”