Transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope

Here's the reflection that I shared this evening at St Andrew's Wickford:

My family recently celebrated my mother’s 89th birthday. My niece, her granddaughter, had made a photograph album showing all the different stage of Mum’s life. We all enjoyed looking through the album with Mum as she remembered the people and times shown in the photographs.

Remembering, both in the sense of bringing back to mind and also of re-enacting is central to who we are as people. As Katherine Hedderly has highlighted, “The community of the church has a special place in this work because it is a community of remembrance and resurrection. “‘Do this’ in remembrance of me.” We remember what Jesus did and we act upon it in the present. We are witnesses to the living memory of Jesus in the world, to God’s living presence with us, as we are re-membered, or reformed, as a community together. Holding in our midst with love those who no longer have their memory, must be a special task for the church, because we know in a very special way what it means to know who we are because someone remembered us; Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

Jesus remembered his mother while on the cross. On Mothering Sunday, we remember those who, for good or ill, are foundational to our lives, experiences and memories. We were reminded that the simplest things we see and do can often be the most profound and those that touch us in the deepest places.

Jesus' remembering of his mother occurred while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers 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.

In him we see:

 
Love in the midst of torture
Care in the midst of pain
Life in the midst of death
Wounded reconciler
Wounded healer
Wounded carer

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.

Henri Nouwen in his book The Wounded Healer reminds us: "We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for." Yet, 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. Nouwen also writes that: “a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

The forgiveness and love that we receive from Jesus comes out of his experience of the agony and torture of death. It comes out of the wound of crucifixion and this is why it is of significance that his resurrected body continues to bear the marks of those wounds. We do not need to become perfect in order to be accepted and loved by God nor do we need to recover from weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to minister to others. Sometimes it is the willingness and openness to share our own experience of pain and suffering, not in order to burden another, but as an act of empathy with another that is just the support and healing that that other person needs.

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The Alarm - Walk Forever By My Side.

You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand

Here's the Mothering Sunday reflection that I shared at St Mary's Langdon Hills, St Andrew's Wickford and St Gabriel's Pitsea this morning:

Mothering Sunday was traditionally a day in the middle of Lent when people who worked were able to have time off to visit their mothers and their ‘mother’ church, where they might have been baptised.

One of the readings regularly used on this day is John 19: 25- 27, in which Jesus creates a new community of support for his grieving mother when he connects her with the disciple John, who takes her into his home as his mother. Just as John became a support for Mary and vice versa, in life it’s not necessarily just our mothers who give us ‘motherly’ or parental care. There are so many people, especially in church families, who form a community around us to help support us and give us strength.

Just as Jesus remembered his mother while on the cross, today we remember those who, for good or ill, are foundational to our lives, experiences and memories. We are reminded that the simplest things we see and do can often be the most profound and those that touch us in the deepest places.

By way of example, I want to tell you about a mother, not from the Bible, but one who lives in Guyana today. Her name is Lena and she needed help to look after her family but is now a Parenting Group Facilitator with The Mothers’ Union. She says:

The Mothers' Union parenting programme is a special ministry and has touched over 200 lives through the six groups I have facilitated. One woman who was recently been deported back to Guyana heard about the programme and joined my group. Before in the other country she stole, shoplifted, prostituted and used drugs. She even went to jail and her first daughter was born in prison. She felt so low that she wanted to commit suicide and kill her daughter when she was deported back to Guyana once she was released from prison.

When she joined the parenting group she felt so supported by all the other parents and carers there. She started to sell snacks, her local priest assisted her with a house and this led her to start assisting others in greater need. In this parenting group all the members provide emotional and practical support and also financial if it is needed. This support has enabled her to develop her little business and it is now very successful. She also works with the local youth to clean up their local environment. Her daughter is now in high school and doing well. This is just one story of many where the programme has provided a supportive and nurturing environment where people are encouraged to reach their full potential.

Sometimes mothers need people to help them as well as them helping us. Mothers’ Union helps many mothers to care for their family by sharing with them useful ways of being a good parent and encouraging the parents to support and help each other.

To help celebrate and give thanks for mothers and other caring figures in our lives, we can pray using an item that is always with us. Touch a button that is on your clothing as you listen to this reflection.

Buttons hold things together:

Who do you look to to help you when things are busy and stressful? Who can help you to figure out what to do when you are confused about how to keep going? Who helps when it feels as if your world is falling apart? Think of them and say thank you to God for them.

Buttons are strong:

Think about the times when you have felt sad, upset or afraid. Who has helped you to be strong. Who is the strongest person you know? Thank God for those people.

Buttons come in different shapes and sizes:

Those who care for us and keep us safe might be mothers, but they also might be other people in our lives. Try and count in your head how many different people have helped you during the past week. Thank God for each one of them.

When buttons are missing, we notice and things don’t hold together as well as they did before.

Some of the caring figures in our lives may have died and we miss the fact that they are no longer here. Take a moment to remember them and the love they shared with you. Thank God for them.

As we close, let’s remember a verse reminding us of what God says about helping people: “You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand.” Galatians 6:2 (Contemporary English Version)

We come here today to thank God for mothers and carers around the world who obey the law of Christ by offering others a helping hand. It takes a very special love to care for a family. Today we celebrate that love and thank God for his own perfect love for us all.

We’re not all mothers ourselves but we all have a mother, whether or not they are still with us, and we are all children of God. He is our loving Father but is also the one who remembers and comforts us as a mother comforts her child, and draws us close as a hen protects her chicks.

Let us pray: Thank you, Jesus, for a mother’s unfailing love, for her unstinting devotion and steadfastness, for her wisdom and support, and for always ‘being there’ in times of happiness and stress. Thank you for love and forbearance, for laughter enjoyed and sorrow shared. Thank you, Jesus, for the comfort of a close friend; for the sharing of life and our deepest selves along the Way. Thank you for peace given to each other sincerely, and received beautifully; for open arms in which the love of God shone. Help us remember your gifts and be glad to give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Sing We Of the Blessed Mother.

The mother heart of God

Here's the reflection that I shared in today's Mothers' Union Eucharist for All Souls Day at St Andrew's Wickford:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!” (Luke 13. 31 – end)

In this statement of his love for the people of Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of his concern and love for Jerusalem being typified by a mother hen gathering together all her chicks under her wing for safety and warmth. Lovingly, Jesus is saying he wants to be like the mother hen gathering God’s people to him where they will then experience safety and love. At the same time that he makes this specific statement to the people of Jerusalem, he is also paying a wonderful tribute to motherhood itself by equating the love which God shows towards us to the love that mothers show towards their offspring.

We tend to think most readily of God as a father but there are several places in scripture where God’s love is described as being like that of mother for her children.

Hannah Whitall Smith wrote “My children have been the joy of my life. I cannot imagine more exquisite bliss than comes to one sometimes in the possession and companionship of a child. To me there have been moments, when my arms have been around my children, that have seemed more like what the bliss of heaven must be than any other thing I can conceive of; and I think this feeling has taught me more of what God’s feelings towards his children are than anything else in the universe. If I, a human being with limited capacity, can find such joy in my children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards his; In fact most of my ideas of the love and goodness of God have come from my own experience as a mother, because I could not conceive that God would create me with a greater capacity for unselfishness and self-sacrifice than He possessed Himself; and since this discovery of the mother heart of God I have always been able to answer every doubt that may have arisen in my mind, as to the extent and quality of the love of God, by simply looking at my own feelings as a mother.”

Hannah Whitall Smith lived in the United States in the 1850’s. She was born into a Quaker family but later became a Wesleyan preacher and was one of the inspirations behind the Keswick Convention. She wrote those words about the mother heart of God after reading Isaiah 66. 12 – 13, another passage of scripture in which God’s love for all people is described as being like a mother’s love for her children: "The Lord says, “You will be like a child that is nursed by its mother, carried in her arms, and treated with love. I will comfort you in Jerusalem, as a mother comforts her child.”

Jesus’ focus was on the safety that mothers’ seek to provide for their children out of love. Here, the focus is on the sense of comfort that the child receives from the love of its mother, particularly as it is nursed and fed. Isaiah also used motherly imagery in reference to God in Chapter 49. 15 where the focus is on the faithfulness of a mother’s love:

“The Lord answers,

“Can a woman forget her own baby
and not love the child she bore?
Even if a mother should forget her child,
I will never forget you.”

Nancy Hicks picks up on imagery around nursing the child when she writes about Psalm 131:

“Nursing was one of the most intimate acts I have ever been allowed to participate in, and what joy to be utterly depended upon! But a nursing baby is a demanding baby, “Pick me up NOW! Feed me NOW!” And when she fell asleep in my arms I felt needed, but not really appreciated for anything other than my capacity to satisfy hunger.

Then she was weaned. Now, when she crawled into my lap it was for relationship and comfort and intimacy. I understood God’s delight at the psalmist’s words, “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.” 

In Psalm 131, the Psalmist pictures himself having the kind of intimacy with God that a weaned child has as it cuddles up on its mother’s lap. That intimacy comes after the child has been fed and has moved on from milk to solid food.

So, the picture that we gain from all these descriptions is of God’s love as the love of a mother for her child is that of God wanting to bring us into a place where we feel safe alongside her, where we know the comfort of being fed and therefore grow from the basics of the faith (the milk) to the depths of the faith (the solid food).

Do you experience the love of God in these ways? Have you thought, like Hannah Whitall Smith, that if we can find deep joy in our children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards us? God loves you like a mother loves her child. As we reflect together on All Souls Day and pray for the souls of those we have loved and lost, God wants to take us into a deeper relationship with him and at the heart of that relationship is his infinite heart of love beating with the kind of love which mother’s commonly show towards their children. May we open up our lives and hearts to receive that love and enter in to that depth of relationship today! Amen.

There are two final points it is worth us noting. As we have already said, we commonly speak about God as male and yet the scriptures do use, as we have seen, female imagery of God. Interestingly, not just in terms of the mother heart of God, but wisdom and Spirit in particular are often feminine terms. This is of real significance in understanding that women and men are valued equally by God and were created by God to be equal.

Secondly, all talk about God as male and female, Father or Mother, is ultimately only descriptive language. God is always more than any label or image we use to help us understand him. Ultimately, God is Spirit and neither exclusively male or female. It is great to think of God as a loving Father or a loving Mother because those images help us understand and grasp something of the reality and significance of his love but God’s love is always greater and deeper than the love that we have experienced even from the most loving of parents.

Our Service for the Commemoration of the Departed is at 6.30 pm on Sunday at St Andrew's Wickford. All are most welcome.

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Hildegard von Bingen - Voices of Angels - Voices of Ascension.

A covenant of fruitfulness

Here's my last Sunday sermon for St Martin-in-the-Fields in my current role, for this morning's Mothering Sunday Eucharist: 

'Anna Tymchenko was scared. She had been in labour for hours, but her hometown was being bombed and her apartment was shaking. She and her husband were trapped with no electricity, running water or doctor. The small town of Bucha, 18 miles from Kyiv, had come under relentless bombardment since the start of the war. Twenty-one-year-old Anna, along with her husband and brother, had previously taken refuge in the basement of their block of flats. But when the electricity was cut off and the heating stopped working, the basement was plunged into darkness, and it was bitterly cold. Anna's husband Volodymyr was torn between remaining in Bucha or trying to flee. When they did finally try to escape by car, they had to turn back when they heard that a column of Russian military vehicles was heading their way.

They then decided to stay in the apartment and when Anna went into labour late on 7 March, she called her neighbours for help. Anna's neighbours had to deliver the baby themselves. Only one of them – Irina - had had any medical expertise. "When the baby's head came out, we got scared," Viktoria, one of the neighbours, said. "She was blue and we didn't know what to do. Then Irina gently turned the baby's head and she came out. She didn't cry at first … but then she cried and we all cheered." Volodymyr cried tears of relief for baby Alisa, who was born on 8 March - International Women's Day.'

The natural cycle of birth, with its inherent generativity and creativity, continues, even in the extreme circumstances of war, through the resilience of all involved in this story. Today is a day for celebrating both the vital role of mothers and the wider village needed through which we nurture and bring up children, the fruit of our fertility and creativity as humans.

The experience of childbearing and of childbirth is one that is used through the Bible as a metaphor for the creativity and generativity of God, who is also endlessly creative and fertile even in the most difficult of circumstances. In Isaiah 42:14 God is pictured as a woman in labour crying out, gasping and panting, as new things spring forth in our world. In Deuteronomy 32:18 we read of Israel as the people that God brought to birth, while in Isaiah 49:15 God is compared to a nursing mother and then in Psalm 131:2 to a mother who has weaned her child.

I have been at St Martin’s for seven years and today is the last sermon I will preach here on a Sunday, at least in my current role. In that time St Martin’s has seen God bring many new things to birth in and through us and so, on this day when we celebrate the ongoing generativity of God, Mother Church, human beings, and, especially, mothers themselves, I want to reflect on three things that have come to birth over that seven year period; one in me, one in this church, and one in the wider church.

So, beginning with myself, one of many blessings for me personally in being at St Martin’s over this period of time has been the involvement that I have had with the disability work that happens here through the Disability Advisory Group led by Fiona MacMillan. That includes the annual conference on Disability and Church organised through a partnership between St Martin’s and Inclusive Church and hosted, in more recent years, by HeartEdge. Although I had previous experience of being with disabled people in addressing access issues through my time as civil servant, I nevertheless found I had a huge amount to learn through being at St Martin’s. What has come to birth in me in this time is a greater understanding - not simply of access as joining in not just getting in - but of disability at the heart of God and as a key to understanding the nature of God and the incarnation.

God experiences brokenness on the cross, a brokenness that leaves physical scars on his body, but then, in the words of Donald Eadie, a disabled Methodist minister, his “world cracked open and life broke through.” It wasn’t just Jesus’ world that cracked open in that moment but ours as well, because as we follow him into that experience of brokenness leading to new life we also share in that same experience. Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen encourages us to forget our ‘perfect offerings’ because there is ‘a crack in everything’ and ‘that's how the light gets in’. Jesus, the Disabled God, reveals the necessity of brokenness in order that life and light can be received and experienced.

Then, in regard to this church, another new thing to have come to birth in this time has been our artists’ and craftspeople’s group. This group is what its prosaic name describes: a group for any artists or craftspeople in the St Martin’s community. There are many such in our community but there wasn’t originally a forum in which the gifts of those people could be engaged and, more than that, the important programme of art commissions from artists outside the community had created a perception that the gifts of those within the community weren’t valued.

The artists’ and craftspeople’s group organizes a range of participatory activities and opportunities to make and create. These are open to participants of all abilities. There have been periodic opportunities for participants to show their work, including a monthly drawing group, art workshops in Advent and Lent, a monthly rota for displaying work, and an annual group exhibition. Significant creative energy has been released within our community as a result. Those with established creative gifts have been affirmed and those beginning to explore their gifts have been encouraged. Many have been blessed by the displays, exhibitions and installations that have resulted. God is the ultimate creator and this new creative energy that has been set free within St Martin’s is an expression of the image of God in our community.

Thirdly, the new thing that has come to birth in the wider church with which I have primarily been involved is HeartEdge. HeartEdge is an international, ecumenical movement galvanising churches to be at the heart of their communities whilst being with those on the edge. Its 1,500+ partners can be found on four different continents, but its growth was seeded here, and its development has been supported from here.

What is new about HeartEdge is not primarily its network of partners, but the new language being coined that is transforming discourse within the Church around mission. HeartEdge is expanding the imagination of a church captivated by scarcity and enabling churches to receive the abundance that God is continually sharing and thereby become fully alive. HeartEdge seeks to transform church and society through the 4 Cs of commerce, culture, compassion and congregational life which, through their interdependence, provide a model of what a renewed society might look like. The 4 Cs, as they inter-connect, create a new model of mission that sustains itself, is open to the gifts of strangers, and exhibits the life of faith.

God is the one who says: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert … I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise” (Isaiah 43.18-21). Then, in Jesus, God becomes the new thing that is brought to birth by Mary, the God-bearer and Mother of our Lord. God becomes both creator and created, the nurturer and the nurtured, the sower and the seed, the chicken and the egg.

It should come as no surprise then, that God longs to create communities that are fruitful and generative. Here at St Martin’s, we have a history of seeding new initiatives that are cultural, compassionate or commercial including St Martin’s School of Art, the Social Care Unit that has now become The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, St Martin-in-the-Fields Limited, Liberty, Shelter, Amnesty International, and The Big Issue.

As a result, it should also come as no surprise that in more recent years, in addition to HeartEdge, we have seen the creation of the Frontline Network, the Nazareth Community, the Companions of Nazareth, and the Being With Courses. God has created here a community that is consistently fruitful, creative and generative even in times of difficulty and challenge, as has also been the case during the pandemic. We called the book about our ministry during the pandemic ‘Finding Abundance in Scarcity’ because that was our experience as we looked together for the opportunities to find God’s abundance in the midst of the pandemic’s scarcity.

Our experience in that regard has been similar to that of Anna and Volodymyr in Bucha; that there is no let up in the flow of abundant creativity from God especially in times of trial and difficulty. It has been a privilege and pleasure for me to be a part of this community for the past seven years to learn more of God’s abundant goodness and to be, with you, a midwife in bringing some of these new initiatives to birth. Just as Anna and Volodymyr needed their neighbours to bring Alisa into the world, so HeartEdge, the Disability Advisory Group, the artists’ and craftspeople’s group, the Frontline Network, the Nazareth Community, the Companions of Nazareth, and the Being With Courses need the village that is this community to continue to nurture what has been brought to birth here.

On the day I was licensed here, Sam Wells said we were ‘looking to establish a covenant of fruitfulness with partners and friends all around the country and beyond.’ He said: ‘We could settle for enhancing our resources, developing our programmes, and deepening our common life. Those are all fine and demanding things, and most churches in the country would be overjoyed to have such an aspiration. But we’re being called beyond that. We’re being called to share our message and to influence the wider church and world. And right now the way we’re seeking to do that is by making mutually-enriching partnerships and working with other institutions to help them better realise their vocations. Why? Because we believe that’s God’s way. God in Christ didn’t shout from afar or keep a light hidden on a hill far away. God in Christ made relationships one by one, some close and constant, some occasional and passing, and came alongside people of all kinds, opening up their hearts, setting their souls on fire, and lifting from them the burden of oppression or pain or guilt. That’s what a covenant of fruitfulness looks like.’

That’s what we have seen and heard and experienced over the past seven years. That’s what God has brought to birth and to which we have been midwives. It’s what we can pray for the people of Ukraine and for Anna, Vlodymyr and their neighbours as they bring up Alisa in the midst of war. It’s also what we can celebrate together this Mothering Sunday as we celebrate the ongoing generativity of Mother God, Mother Church, human beings, and, especially, mothers themselves. It’s what we continue to be called to nurture, grow and develop both here at St Martin’s and also for me, shortly, in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry. I go to become one of the partners and friends that you have around the country and beyond, so this Covenant of Fruitfulness will remain a bond between us, a covenant in which we continue to share even as I leave the role I have had among you here. So, let us commit to pray for fruitfulness and new life, creativity and generativity, to characterise all our contacts, friendships and partnerships as we go from this place today. Amen.

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John Tavener - Mother Of God, Here I Stand.

The Mother heart of God

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!” (Luke 13. 34)

In this statement of his love for the people of Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of his concern and love for Jerusalem being typified by a mother hen gathering together all her chicks under her wing for safety and warmth. Lovingly, Jesus is saying he wants to be like the mother hen gathering God’s people to him where they will then experience safety and love. At the same time that he makes this specific statement to the people of Jerusalem, he is also paying a wonderful tribute to motherhood itself by equating the love which God shows towards us to the love that mothers show towards their offspring.

We tend to think most readily of God as a father but there are several places in scripture where God’s love is described as being like that of mother for her children.

Hannah Whitall Smith wrote “My children have been the joy of my life. I cannot imagine more exquisite bliss than comes to one sometimes in the possession and companionship of a child. To me there have been moments, when my arms have been around my children, that have seemed more like what the bliss of heaven must be than any other thing I can conceive of; and I think this feeling has taught me more of what  God’s feelings towards his children are than anything else in the universe. If I, a human being with limited capacity, can find such joy in my children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards his; In fact most of my ideas of the love and goodness of God have come from my own experience as a mother, because I could not conceive that God would create me with a greater capacity for unselfishness and self-sacrifice than He possessed Himself; and since this discovery of the mother heart of God I have always been able to answer every doubt that may have arisen in my mind, as to the extent and quality of the love of God, by simply looking at my own feelings as a mother.”

Hannah Whitall Smith lived in the United States in the 1850’s. She was born into a Quaker family but later became a Wesleyan preacher and was one of the inspirations behind the Keswick Convention. She wrote those words about the mother heart of God after reading Isaiah 66. 12 – 13, another passage of scripture in which God’s love for all people is described as being like a mother’s love for her children:  "The Lord says, “You will be like a child that is nursed by its mother, carried in her arms, and treated with love. I will comfort you in Jerusalem, as a mother comforts her child.”

Jesus’ focus was on the safety that mothers’ seek to provide for their children out of love. Here, the focus is on the sense of comfort that the child receives from the love of its mother, particularly as it is nursed and fed. Isaiah also used motherly imagery in reference to God in Chapter 49. 15 where the focus is on the faithfulness of a mother’s love:

“The Lord answers,

“Can a woman forget her own baby
    and not love the child she bore?
Even if a mother should forget her child,
    I will never forget you.”

Nancy Hicks picks up on imagery around nursing the child when she writes about Psalm 131:

“Nursing was one of the most intimate acts I have ever been allowed to participate in, and what joy to be utterly depended upon! But a nursing baby is a demanding baby, “Pick me up NOW! Feed me NOW!” And when she fell asleep in my arms I felt needed, but not really appreciated for anything other than my capacity to satisfy hunger.

Then she was weaned. Now, when she crawled into my lap it was for relationship and comfort and intimacy. I understood God’s delight at the psalmist’s words, “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.”

In Psalm 131, the Psalmist pictures himself having the kind of intimacy with God that a weaned child has as it cuddles up on its mother’s lap. That intimacy comes after the child has been fed and has moved on from milk to solid food.

So, the picture that we gain from all these descriptions is of God’s love as the love of a mother for her child is that of God wanting to bring us into a place where we feel safe alongside her, where we know the comfort of being fed and therefore grow from the basics of the faith (the milk) to the depths of the faith (the solid food).

Do you experience the love of God in these ways? Have you thought, like Hannah Whitall Smith, that if we can find deep joy in our children, what must God, with his infinite heart of love, feel towards us? God loves you like a mother loves her child. As we pray and study the scriptures during Lent, God wants to take us into a deeper relationship with him and at the heart of that relationship is his infinite heart of love beating with the kind of love which mother’s commonly show towards their children. May we open up our lives and hearts to receive that love and enter in to that depth of relationship!

There are two final points it is worth us noting. As we have already said, we commonly speak about God as male and yet the scriptures do use, as we have seen, female imagery of God. Interestingly, not just in terms of the mother heart of God, but wisdom and Spirit in particular are often feminine terms. This is of real significance in understanding that women and men are valued equally by God and were created by God to be equal.

Secondly, all talk about God as male and female, Father or Mother, is ultimately only descriptive language. God is always more than any label or image we use to help us understand him. Ultimately, God is Spirit and neither exclusively male or female. It is great to think of God as a loving Father or a loving Mother because those images help us understand and grasp something of the reality and significance of his love but God’s love is always greater and deeper than the love that we have experienced even from the most loving of parents.

It is that depth of love into which God wishes to draw us. So I say again, As we pray and study the scriptures during Lent, God wants to take us into that deeper relationship and at the heart of that relationship is an infinite heart of love beating with the kind of love which mother’s commonly show towards their children. May we open up our lives and hearts to receive that love and enter in to that depth of relationship!

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Larry Norman - Strong Love, Strange Peace.

Prayer - Thanksgiving

Three prayers collaging lines from the likes of Anselm, Karl Barth and William Temple, among others:

O Lord God our Father. You are the light that can never be put out; and now you give us a light that shall drive away all darkness. You are love without coldness, and you have given us such warmth in our hearts that we can love all when we meet. You are the life that defies death, and have opened up for us the way that leads to eternal life. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, in the light that shines in the darkness and which has never been extinguished. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, in the light that shines in the face of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and which reveals your glory. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, in the light of the Holy Spirit which inflames our hearts and inspires our worship. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, Now and for ever. Amen.

Thank you, Jesus, for a mother’s unfailing love, for her unstinting devotion and steadfastness, for her wisdom and support, and for always ‘being there’ in times of happiness and stress. Thank you for love and forbearance, for laughter enjoyed and sorrow shared. Thank you, Jesus, for the comfort of a close friend; for the sharing of life and our deepest selves along the Way. Thank you for peace given to each other sincerely, and received beautifully; for open arms in which the love of God shone. Help us remember your gifts and be glad to give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O Lord our God, from whom neither life nor death can separate us from those who trust in your love, and whose love holds in its embrace your children in this world and in the next, so unite us to yourself, that in fellowship with you we may be always united to our loved ones whether here or there. So give us courage, constancy and hope. May we so know and love you that we rejoice in you and if we may not do so fully in this life, let us go steadily on to the day when we come to that fullness. None of us is a great Christian; we are all humble and ordinary. But your grace is enough for us. Let the knowledge of you increase in us here, and there let it come to its fullness. Let your love grow in us here, and there let it be fulfilled, so that here our joy may be in a great hope, and there in full reality. Amen.

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U2 - Magnificent.