At the back of Aston Parish Church in Birmingham is a small memory garden planted in memory of my brother, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1999. Most years, my sister takes our Mum to the memory garden on the anniversary of Nick's death to tend the garden and to remember. Last year, because Mum was staying with us at the time of that anniversary and because Nick had served in the armed forces and died as a result of doing relief work following the Bosnian conflict, we went to the local arboretum, the Living Memorial at Rettendon, and prayed in their chapel.
Such experiences parallel those found in the choice of readings used for Mothering Sunday. These include Moses born into slavery and only able to survive as his mother finds a way to have him adopted by the Egyptian royal family (Exodus 2.1-10), as well as Hannah praying into the experience of childlessness and then dedicating her firstborn to serve God in the Temple (1 Samuel 1.20-28). The Gospel readings including Simeon prophesying that Mary's heart will be pierced through her experiences as the mother of Jesus (Luke 2.33-35), a prophecy fulfilled when Mary sees Jesus die on the cross, and Jesus, on the cross, asking John, his disciple, to care for Mary after his death (John 19.25-27).
Such experiences parallel those found in the choice of readings used for Mothering Sunday. These include Moses born into slavery and only able to survive as his mother finds a way to have him adopted by the Egyptian royal family (Exodus 2.1-10), as well as Hannah praying into the experience of childlessness and then dedicating her firstborn to serve God in the Temple (1 Samuel 1.20-28). The Gospel readings including Simeon prophesying that Mary's heart will be pierced through her experiences as the mother of Jesus (Luke 2.33-35), a prophecy fulfilled when Mary sees Jesus die on the cross, and Jesus, on the cross, asking John, his disciple, to care for Mary after his death (John 19.25-27).
These stories and experiences take us into the heart of the mix of pain and pleasure involved in first, carrying, then giving birth to, and then supporting a child through life. The experiences and emotions involved are so many and so varied, even where the tragedy of a shortened life is not involved, that it would take a series of novels to really do justice to all that is involved.
At the heart of these stories is the understanding that, at its best, a mother's love will endure through all the challenges that being in a deep relationship with another human being will inevitably bring and that that love will adapt and change in order to be there for their child whatever circumstances may be. That is why motherhood can be used as a parallel for the love of God towards us, a parallel that we celebrate particularly on Mothering Sunday.
While, our personal experience of receiving parenting may not have had that same degree of consistency or care, the reminder that comes to us on Mothering Sunday is that God's love is like that of mothers whose love for their children endures through all the vicissitudes and changes of life, including the challenge of your child dying an early death, as was the experience of both Mary and my mother. The Bible celebrates love expressed in the challenges posed by the messiness of real life, rather than presenting us with an ideal from which we will always fall short.
I have seen, at first hand, how losing a child pierces a mother’s heart, as that is what happened to my Mum when my younger brother died. My love for and appreciation of my Mum grew through seeing her response to sharing the same experience as that of Mary. These are experiences from which we should all seek to learn, seeing them, as was the case for Mary, as being bound up in God’s good purposes for humanity; even, as in her story, as the seedbed for the greatest acts of liberation in human history.
Jesus remembered his mother while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers in the way we have just been discussing, might involve complex and conflicted memories which bring back to mind some of our more painful moments in life. Jesus ministered in and through and out of his pain; remembering particular people (his mother and John, his disciple), forgiving those who tortured and mocked him, and dying for the salvation of all.
It is from reflection on those experiences and actions of Jesus, that the idea of the wounded healer has come. This is the idea that our own pain and difficulties - our wounds - do not necessarily preclude us from ministry but may provide a resource or source from which our ministry can flow. To remember and reach out to support, sustain and strengthen others whilst remaining wounded ourselves may be, as was the case for Jesus, among the deepest and most profound of our ministries to others.
In bringing his mother into a mother-son relationship with one of his disciples, Jesus was extending our understanding and concept of what constitutes family life. For John to view Jesus' biological mother as his mother and for Mary to view John as her son, went beyond ties of blood into other forms of relationship. We could talk in terms of adoption (although in our day and time that word has a legal definition that is narrower than what is happening here) or we could talk in terms of extended families (a more helpful phrase, which we have, in part, lost sight of in a time when we still think primarily of nuclear families). However, we choose to categorise what Jesus did here, we need to recognise that he was initiating a family relationship which was not based on ties of blood and that this necessarily opens up space in which a range of family structures and family ties become possible.
In Jesus’s life and teaching there is less of a focus on the structures of our relationships and more of an emphasis on relationships which are characterised by qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These are qualities with which one of New Testament readings for Mothering Sunday (Colossians 3. 12 - 17) calls us to clothe ourselves. These are qualities that we can easily associate with motherhood but which are applicable to all of us as Christians. In Colossians 3 we are called to bear with one another, forgive each other; clothe ourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which we were called in the one body. These are all actions which are consistent with what we understand mothers, at their best, to do for their children. But the call, here, is to practice these qualities not just in our families and among our blood relatives, but with all those we encounter and, especially, here in Church. They are, perhaps, then, maternal qualities for application in Mother Church.
These are the qualities we need to practice and express if we are to share God's love in ways that endure through all the vicissitudes and changes of life as was the case for Mary and my own mother whose love for their children endured through the tragedy of their children’s shortened lives. May we learn from their example and follow in their footsteps. Amen.
At the heart of these stories is the understanding that, at its best, a mother's love will endure through all the challenges that being in a deep relationship with another human being will inevitably bring and that that love will adapt and change in order to be there for their child whatever circumstances may be. That is why motherhood can be used as a parallel for the love of God towards us, a parallel that we celebrate particularly on Mothering Sunday.
While, our personal experience of receiving parenting may not have had that same degree of consistency or care, the reminder that comes to us on Mothering Sunday is that God's love is like that of mothers whose love for their children endures through all the vicissitudes and changes of life, including the challenge of your child dying an early death, as was the experience of both Mary and my mother. The Bible celebrates love expressed in the challenges posed by the messiness of real life, rather than presenting us with an ideal from which we will always fall short.
I have seen, at first hand, how losing a child pierces a mother’s heart, as that is what happened to my Mum when my younger brother died. My love for and appreciation of my Mum grew through seeing her response to sharing the same experience as that of Mary. These are experiences from which we should all seek to learn, seeing them, as was the case for Mary, as being bound up in God’s good purposes for humanity; even, as in her story, as the seedbed for the greatest acts of liberation in human history.
Jesus remembered his mother while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers in the way we have just been discussing, might involve complex and conflicted memories which bring back to mind some of our more painful moments in life. Jesus ministered in and through and out of his pain; remembering particular people (his mother and John, his disciple), forgiving those who tortured and mocked him, and dying for the salvation of all.
It is from reflection on those experiences and actions of Jesus, that the idea of the wounded healer has come. This is the idea that our own pain and difficulties - our wounds - do not necessarily preclude us from ministry but may provide a resource or source from which our ministry can flow. To remember and reach out to support, sustain and strengthen others whilst remaining wounded ourselves may be, as was the case for Jesus, among the deepest and most profound of our ministries to others.
In bringing his mother into a mother-son relationship with one of his disciples, Jesus was extending our understanding and concept of what constitutes family life. For John to view Jesus' biological mother as his mother and for Mary to view John as her son, went beyond ties of blood into other forms of relationship. We could talk in terms of adoption (although in our day and time that word has a legal definition that is narrower than what is happening here) or we could talk in terms of extended families (a more helpful phrase, which we have, in part, lost sight of in a time when we still think primarily of nuclear families). However, we choose to categorise what Jesus did here, we need to recognise that he was initiating a family relationship which was not based on ties of blood and that this necessarily opens up space in which a range of family structures and family ties become possible.
In Jesus’s life and teaching there is less of a focus on the structures of our relationships and more of an emphasis on relationships which are characterised by qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These are qualities with which one of New Testament readings for Mothering Sunday (Colossians 3. 12 - 17) calls us to clothe ourselves. These are qualities that we can easily associate with motherhood but which are applicable to all of us as Christians. In Colossians 3 we are called to bear with one another, forgive each other; clothe ourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which we were called in the one body. These are all actions which are consistent with what we understand mothers, at their best, to do for their children. But the call, here, is to practice these qualities not just in our families and among our blood relatives, but with all those we encounter and, especially, here in Church. They are, perhaps, then, maternal qualities for application in Mother Church.
These are the qualities we need to practice and express if we are to share God's love in ways that endure through all the vicissitudes and changes of life as was the case for Mary and my own mother whose love for their children endured through the tragedy of their children’s shortened lives. May we learn from their example and follow in their footsteps. Amen.
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U2 - Iris (Hold Me Close).
