Sermon for Mothering Sunday 15-3-2015 Ex 2.1-10 Lk 2.33-38
…The relations of the family to the outer world—what might be called its foreign policy—must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally—almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override for her all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests. The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife.
from Mere Christianity 1952. C S Lewis
On Mothering Sunday, it’s fun to look at these reflections by C S Lewis. They’re very much a product of his time and culture, ’though some people around now might still agree with him. It’s good to look at his very British reflections today, because the readings for Mothering Sunday take a very different slant on things. The Bible passages we’ve heard today show that the Hebrew people cherished precisely that protectiveness and fierce loyalty that made C S Lewis so uncomfortable. They cherished it about their mothers, think back to Moses’ Mum, Jochebed’s canny protection of her baby. * And in Psalm 34 today, we’ve seen how the Hebrew people cherished that fierce, protective loyalty in God.
When you put polite western Christianity side-by-side with ancient tribalist Judaism, what you highlight is that our understanding of God is very much shaped by our culture and by our personal experience. There’s been a dominant element in later Church culture that’s either romanticised and over-sweetened the feminine aspect to our faith (focusing on the purity of Our Lady, and a good version of womanhood that’s defined only by innocence or motherhood)—or we’ve just plain denied the feminine in our faith altogether.
But the grass-roots people have always fought back. Every time I go into Orthodox or Catholic churches, the votive altars tell the real story. The one in front of the sculpture of Jesus has a few candles politely flickering on it, but the candle-tray in front of the lady in blue is a veritable bushfire. The people—women and men—want that loyal, indulgent protectress to bend the old boy’s ear: a more direct approach would probably not work.
The message of today’s scriptures is perfectly clear. God is like a tigress for us; fiercely protective, unashamedly loving, and, despite dear C S Lewis, in very much the feminine way that made him so uncomfortable.
The picture of God we get from our readings this morning is of a God who entrusts very serious matters to women. Moses’ father isn’t mentioned in the story of his infancy; we just have the three women. The Pharaoh has decreed that all Hebrew baby boys should be drowned in the Nile. For the pure love of a child, Jochebed, his mother, Miriam his sister, and the daughter of the Pharaoh conspire together to save Moses from that fate.
The theological significance of their action—the sign that God is an active participant in this rescue—is flagged in the Hebrew word that we wrongly translate as a basket. The word in Hebrew is tevah תֵּבָה.
The only other place in the Bible where the word tevah appears is in the flood story, and there we translate it as the ark. By using this word, the author is telling us that these three women are doing the same thing that Noah’s family did; they are working directly under God’s orders—they are midwives of God’s plan for the world’s future—and so absolutely pivotal figures in salvation history. I find that spine-tingling.
God entrusts very serious matters to women. It’s not that men and maleness are shut out of this—that’s not the intention of this meditation. It’s just that at least on one day, we should consider the significance of the feminine principle in our God, in our community, and in our Church. Mothering Sunday is an invitation to see God and the Church beyond our usual, limited, culturally-defined horizons.
Today, we share the story of three women who subvert an unjust law; they observe its letter but they deny its spirit in order to care for a child. This is an insight that’s become ingrained in faithful Jewish people. In the Gospel we see the confidence of the old man Simeon. He entrusts Mary with the meaning of all his years of waiting for the Holy One of Israel. He knows she’ll follow through. God gave her this child; she’d stay with him no matter what. And Simeon’s trust is immediately confirmed by the prophet Anna.
Today’s stories present God as being like the woman who cares for a family when the father’s not around; like the caregiver who picks up what other carers have neglected. God is in solidarity with the committed carer.
Anyone who cares for the outcast, the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the unlovable—is being like God. In a tangible way for those down-trodden ones, such a carer embodies the presence of the true God. So is it strange to think of God calling the Church to be a mother, and offer nurture rather than wield authority? Mothering Sunday is our opportunity to get to know God’s purpose for us better, and to develop as a community which, in God’s plan, would have us serve the world as an ark. Amen
Mothering Sunday Cake and Posy Blessing
Compassionate God, giver of life, love and joy,
on this Mothering Sunday,
we ask that you bless this cake and these posies,
that they may be to us
symbols of our communion with you and with each other.
As they were once scattered over our land
as blossoms and blooms,
grasses, vines, nut-trees, spice-bushes and sugar cane
and yet are now they are one,
so let us in our diversity
be your one redeemed people and your delight,
knit together by your love,
as you once knit us together in our mothers’ wombs.
All this we pray in Jesus precious name, Amen.
* Num 26:59 The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and she bore to Amram: Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.