Isaiah 66:13
Mother’s Day, 2009
Faith United
I always have a dilemma when I get to Mother’s Day
and celebrating it in the Church
You can’t just flip open your Bible and come up
with good mother stories
even if you know your Bible very well
and know about the mothers in the Bible
Inevitably those mother stories are complicated
they are not neat and perfect “Ozzie and Harriet” type stories
(for those of you old enough to know who that is!)
in fact you’d be hard-pressed to find
Ozzie and Harriet anywhere in the Bible
I have to chuckle a bit
when people talk about getting back to
“biblical family values”
Most of the families portrayed in the Bible
are not something any of us would want to emulate
In the Old Testament
most of the men had multiple wives
and the sole purpose for marriage
was to produce male offspring
So is it polygamy that we want to get back to, I wonder?
There’s Abraham and Sarah
they certainly weren’t what we consider the traditional family
but more like something from “Desperate Housewives”
Sarah couldn’t have children
so in desperation, she orders her maid to sleep with her husband
so he can have a son
When the maid produces a son for Abraham
Sarah gets jealous and throws both her and the boy
out into the street
Of course then God does make sure that Sarah gets pregnant
when she’s in her 90s—
better late than never, I assume…
but then after they have their precious son
Abraham takes him out to a mountain
and would have stabbed him to death
if an angel hadn’t shown up
to grab his wrist just in the knick of time
I’m sure that did a lot to cause lifelong tension
between father and son…
I can see Isaac going to therapy
and saying,
“My father tried to kill me once,
even had the knife in the air
but something stopped him at the last minute…
we never talked about it
but I really think that he thought that God told him to do it.”
Yeah, he might remember his Dad as a little touched in the head
It couldn’t have been a good thing
for Abraham’s marriage to Sarah
the fact that Abraham tried to kill Isaac
that’s one of those things you just don’t forget
Then Isaac grows up, has a family
his son Jacob marries Leah and Rachel
after he’s been manipulated and tricked by his Uncle Laban
for 14 years
Leah has a boatload of children
while Rachel has a hard time getting pregnant
so the two women really don’t get along
they’re competing for their man’s affections
Rachel finally gives birth to Joseph
who is hated by all of his brothers
and sold off as a slave to Egypt
while his father is told that he’s dead
the story unfolds full of major dysfunction
There are lies, abuse, manipulations, conniving
It’s not a pretty picture….
And it goes on, read the Book of Genesis
and you will wonder with me
where we get these so-called biblical family values
There is no model in the Bible
for our one man, one woman, 2.3 children family
You’re just not going to find it
And it’s the same with good mother stories
we have very little to go on
and the rest is up to our imaginations
because the women were just supportive actresses
in the whole biblical drama..
the stories were first spread by men
so, you know how that goes….
Perhaps you see my dilemma….
But the indisputable fact remains,
not all of us have been or are mothers, of course
but all of us have HAD a mother….
so all of us can relate to the very basic, human relationship
We may have varied mother stories ourselves,
just like the Bible
some of them are good, some of them painful
some of them are downright weird …
and that, too, is biblical
So really, is it any wonder,
that sometimes, when you’re a mother
you feel like you’re just winging it?
Just going by instinct?
There is no instruction book,
no perfect model to live up to,
no agreed-upon method of mothering
We generally rely on what our own mothers taught us
whether we imitate them
or improve upon what we learned from them
People get really nervous in the church
whenever we suggest anything about God being Mother
Some will roll their eyes
and make accusations of political correctness
liberalism, or even blasphemy
But the attitude that I’ve always had about my images of God
is that I have never believed myself to be
a single-parent child
We go on and on and on about how it is important
for children to have a mother and a father in their lives
to be balanced
Single – parent families, thank goodness, are more accepted these days
but there was a time
and people still do it,
that it’s been said that it’s just wrong
A child needs a father and a mother, in the ideal situation,
to have a well-balanced life—many people believe
But it’s funny, when it comes to the ultimate Parent
the creator of all things
the creator of each of us
we’re content to be single-parent children
Some people insist that we only have a Father in heaven
there is no Mother
just because Jesus called God “Abba,” Father
But in the very beginning, Genesis says,
we were created in God’s image
we were created male and female
So, how can we all be created in God’s image
male and female
if God is male and only male?
Just wondering….
Early theologians had no problem getting around that
they truly believed that women AREN’T in fact
created in the image of God
but I hope no one believes that anymore …
So if we are created male and female
and created in the image of God
then God, I believe, is both male and female
I can honestly say that no other experience in my life
has drawn me deeper into relationship with God
than my whole experience of being a mother
I will always remember the experience
of knowing that there was a person, a whole person,
growing and coming to life inside of my body
that inexpressible experience
of feeling movement inside my body
feeling a stirring, seeing a foot move across my stomach
from the INSIDE…
talk about weird!
But a wonderful weird!
Remembering that, reminds me of God at creation
brooding over the dark waters
stirring up life amidst those waters
bringing forth creation, out of seemingly nothing
A child was being nurtured within me
nurtured by mysterious, life-giving waters and blood,
connected to me, unseen, in some dark place
growing, changing, forming
without any intentional effort on my part
All I could do was wait and wonder
at what was happening in the deep recesses of my body
There are many references to God in the Bible
longing, groaning as a woman in childbirth
for the redemption of all creation
The whole earth, the Bible says, is in labor pains
longing for new life
throughout the Psalms and prophets
we hear God speaking of giving birth to us as a people
how God longs for God’s children to return home
how we have forgotten God,
the source of our lives
God longs for us like a mother longs for a child
who has left home, gone off to war
is in prison, or has just renounced his ties to home
God is always waiting to welcome God’s children back again
Pregnancy, I have to say, was a profoundly spiritual experience
Women tend to experience the presence of God with their bodies anyway
And here I was participating in creation
making, nurturing, anticipating a life
Now I’m not going to glorify the experience of birth --
my doctor didn’t believe in epidurals--
so yeah, it hurt!
like BLAZES, as my father would say
I don’t remember much, though, of the 13 hours of labor
But I remember the moment they put Sarah on my belly
it was beyond words
‘So there you are,’ I thought
the one I’ve been waiting for, wondering about….
this life growing inside of my own body….
still too miraculous to explain
The Bible talks about being born again
about God transforming our lives
and that is never a quick, easy process
when it truly happens
it feels like our whole world is upside down
sometimes it is painful
sometimes we think we’d rather die than change
even if we know the change is good for us
And even though we believe in eternal life
most of us are not looking forward to death
perhaps our greatest fear is the pain
but we have to die in order to come to eternal life
It’s not something we are all rushing to do, though,
we want to put off that experience as long as possible
Birth and re-birth is not easy for anybody
But I sensed the profound presence of God
in being trusted with this tiny, human fragile life
Other writers have talked about the spiritual experience of nursing
their children, and I can relate to that
mothers literally feed their children with their bodies
and are saying, “this is my body, given for you,
take, eat….”
But you don’t have to have had the experience of birth or motherhood
to know the presence of God as Mother
Whenever women comfort someone in pain
whenever we hold someone who is keening with grief
who are trembling and sobbing
we are being God in the flesh to someone
Whenever we hold the hand of someone who is afraid
or who is sick
whenever we make food for someone
or babysit their kids when they need a break
I think of Isaiah…
“Like a mother comforts a child, so I will comfort you,
says the Lord…”
I’ve had a lot of mothers
besides my own mother
There was Georgeann who pushed me to audition for my first solo
when I didn’t believe I could do it
She all but pushed me out on that stage
Then she celebrated me afterwards as if I’d won a Grammy
brought me flowers and fussed all over me
She was God in the flesh for me
There was Sandie who just loved to hug me
stroke my hair, pick on me and make me laugh
insist that I sing for her
she was the one who answered the phone
in the middle of the night
when I called her from college to cry
I remember watching Sarah play soccer
when she was 5 and 6
watching her finally kick that ball
or play goalie and stop the ball
watching the delight on her face
from doing something she didn’t know she could do
I remember thinking this is how God must feel
about us…
delighting when we step out and know joy
delighting when we try and sometimes win
Jesus was a Mama’s boy
we don’t hear a lot about Joseph
after the Birth stories
most scholars assume he died
during Jesus’ childhood
But we see where Jesus was influenced by his mother
The way he touched people all the time
held the face of a blind man
even gave him one of those embarrassing spit-washes
and told him to go clean up in the river
and he’d be ok
Jesus wept over Jerusalem
and said, “oh, how I have longed to gather you together
like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wing…”
And who would have taught Jesus about God
before he was old enough for Hebrew school?
Probably his mother
she probably told him all the crazy stories
about his ancestors
and their mixed-up, God-filled lives
I remember many nights
when Sarah would have croup
and couldn’t lay down
Staying up all night with my arms around her
until she fell asleep
trusting in my embrace
Often I wouldn’t go lay her down
that awesome sense of a child’s complete trust in you
that they can go to sleep, knowing that you will take care of things
I think that’s how God is
we can sleep, we can curl up in God’s arms
and sleep
knowing that God is taking care of things
Terrible things happen
Nightmarish things happen
but God is always there
to envelop us in loving arms
The psalms talk about finding shelter under God’s wings
and I often remember that when I’m afraid
or afraid for someone that I love
I try to imagine them under the shelter of God’s wings
I try to trust that we are all being nurtured daily
by the invisible waters of God’s creation
sometimes in our darkest hours
when it feels like nothing is good
or will ever be good again
We are still being created, nurtured, loved into being
like we were as babies in the womb
Our whole world is groaning in labor pains
and we who believe that there is more to life than this
we groan with it
all wanting to be reborn, renewed, healed
welcomed home
When Sarah was a baby, I sang to her all the time
many, many songs
but our main song, was a song called
“I Will Be Your Home”
It says, “though you are homeless,
though you’re alone,
I will be your home
Whatever’s the matter, whatever’s been done
I will be your home…”
I wanted her to know that in this crazy, mixed up
and often scary world that she had just been
thrust into,
I would be her home, to the best of my abilities
I would be her shelter, her comfort, the arms she could count on
It’s a song that was written as a message from God
God saying to US, I am your Home
When we often feel like aliens in this world
when we’re scared, confused, hurt
We can be assured that God is our Home
a home that will never be broken,
a home that is always there
a home we can count on forever
The second verse says, finally,
“When time reaches fullness,
When I move my hand,
I will bring you home
Home to your own place,
in a beautiful land, I will bring you home….”
God, who is our home
where we can find shelter under the strength of God’s wings
will finally, when it’s all said and done
will bring us home from this fearful, fallen place
that has been our earthly home
We all need a home
We need each other
We need to know we’re not alone
We are human beings, born into a human world
but ever since Mary gave birth to Jesus
we know, too, that God has brought flesh and spirit together
reminding us that we are all God’s children,
made of flesh and spirit
And all of us, male and female, are made in the image of God
our Father, our Mother, Creator, Birther, Sustainer,
Nurturer, the list goes on
Whatever’s the matter, whatever’s been done, God will our home
holding us, empowering us, healing us, making us new
until that day when we’re done here
and turn our faces toward home forever. …
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