Mother’s Day is always a difficult service to plan and prepare for, because there are so many pieces that have to be remembered and taken into account. Of course we celebrate our mothers, but there are those whose mothers are gone, and they mourn, and there are those who never had a mother, or lost their mother early, or those whose mothers were unable to be a mother or to love as we expect mothers to. And then there are those who desperately wanted to be mothers, but who were unable to, and others who feel judged and thought of as less than a woman because they didn’t have children, and there are the mothers who have known the pain of a child dying, or that have lost a child in other ways. Although worship attendance tends to be higher on Mother’s Day, because mom’s say “I want you to come to church with me today”, and the family does, I also know many women who choose not to come to church because it’s just easier not to try and be in church an deal with some or all of the emotions and feelings that come with just some of the situations I just named. And so wherever you are today, as we’ve been saying, whether you are experiencing joy and celebration on this day, or sadness and pain, or something in between, it’s okay, and it fits into our next issue of getting to the heart of the matter, and that is the heart of comfort.
Each Sunday, we’ve begun by holding our worry stones, or perhaps our pocket crosses, and rubbing them as a reminder of the steadfastness of God, and that God is with us always. We hear that is the Psalm that was read, in the Psalmist’s plea for deliverance from whatever it is that they are facing, that they are seeking refuge in God. Twice the Psalmist talks about God being their rock and fortress, first in asking for God to be that, and then in recognizing that God is their rock and their fortress. That God’s faithful and steadfast love will redeem them and protect them. In that imagery, in that call, and in that assurance and knowledge of God’s steadfast love, the Psalmist finds comfort. That God is rocksolid in God’s promises and in not going anywhere, and all the other things that the idea of God as rock means for us. And yet when we say that God is our rock, or even God is our fortress, we of course don’t literally mean that God is a rock. We understand that this is a metaphor that’s being used to give some attributed about what God is like. It’s to say that God is like this, but also to know that God is not like this. And there is certainly some comfort in understanding God to be our rock, solid, true, holding us and protecting us. But as we think of God’s comfort there are other metaphors that also need to come into play, especially as we celebrate our mothers and other significant women in our lives.
Because no offense to dad’s, and I am one, but when children, regardless of their age, need comforting, who are they most likely to go to? It’s to mom. The other day Samantha fell off her back and skinned up her hands and knees, and got a really good bruise on her thigh, and when she came into the house, to whom did she go to? It was to mom. I was passed right by. Now if Linda hadn’t been there, she would have come to me because she didn’t have any other choice, but mom was going to comfort her. Many stories are told of soldiers who have been injured, or victims in accidents, calling out for their mothers. Occasionally it’s for their father, but normally it’s mom who is needed for comfort, because there is something about mom’s and their love and whatever it is that they do that can just make things better. In lamenting over Jerusalem, Jesus even says “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” That is when he seeks to give an image of protection and of comfort, he takes on the image of mothering. And so while we most often hear metaphors about God being masculine, and there are certainly needs for that, there are also metaphors in scripture and language used that take the feminine, and that too is important, especially as we think about comfort and being comforted.
Because there are times in our lives that our much more than just a skinned knee, when we need to know that we are cared for and loved, in which we need to be comforted and we need to know that God is there, and our imagery and metaphors for God have to match that reality. Rev. Carolyn Jane Bohler, author of God the What? What our Metaphors for God Reveal about Our Beliefs in God, which has greatly helped me greatly expand my metaphors for God, says that after the birth of her first child, she found herself exhausted, physically, emotionally and spiritually, which I think every parent in her can identify with, and she found her prayer life not working for her at the time she most needed to be sustained by something bigger than she was. And then she came to use the metaphor of God who was a nursing mother who would feed her and give her sustenance at the time when she felt her weakest and was most vulnerable and dependent, just like her infant. We hear that very thing in the passage from 1 Peter, in which Peter says, that like newborn infants, we are to “long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that but it we may grow into salvation.” This spiritual milk builds us up in the faith, strengthens us, and even comforts us.
And from where does this spiritual milk come? It comes from several places, including from one another, but primarily it comes from God, who has adopted us as beloved sons and daughters in the water of baptism. Because remember that when we are baptized, we die to our old selves, and then what happens? We are reborn, made a new creation, and God is the actor in that rebirth, just as God is the one who gives us life, just as God is the one who creates, and according to Psalm 90, gives birth to mountains and the world. But more importantly, in Isaiah, which has more female imagery for God than any other book, God says, “Can a woman forget her nursing-child,or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:??) And then to get to the heart of the matter, in the 66th chapter, Isaiah records: “For thus says the Lord: As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” God will not only comfort us as a mother comforts her child, but we will be comforted even more than what a mother is capable of doing, because, and remember that I love you moms, we are imperfect, but God’s love is perfect and never ending, as is God’s comfort
In Italian, the phrase to give birth, is dare alla luce, which literally means to give to the light. When we are reborn in the waters of baptism, when we are given new life by God, through Christ, we come into the light of Christ, and the truth of Christ, for he is as we heard in the gospel passage, he is the way and the truth and the life, and we come to the father through him. It is through Christ that salvation is found, but we also have to remember that Christ is in the father and the father is in him. There are in a oneness, like a baby in a womb, and to see the work of the father, we look at the work of the son. And what are Jesus’ works? They are healing and wholeness, they are care and they are comfort. Think of the ways that Jesus responds to those who come to him for assistance, even for those who trying to trap him, he responds with comfort, or as Matthew says, he has compassion for them as they were like sheep without a shepherd.
But, then he says that those who believe in him will also do the works that I do, that we too will do works of compassion and comfort. Or as Paul says, we are to carry one another’s burdens. That’s what we do when we pray for one another, when we take meals to someone, when we call or write or send cards, when we do drive by celebrations. That is the way that we live and grow into our faith, it is the spiritual milk that we give for others, because mothering is not about giving birth, but about how we live and love in the world. Although it’s said more about dads, it’s also true for moms, that anyone can be a mother, a biological act, but it takes someone special to be a mom, or even more, a mommy. To be that person that children run to when they’ve scrapped their knee and need to be held and told that it’s alright, to kiss and wounds to make them all better, to be the personification of compassion and the definition of what compassion is and looks like. And so we thank our mothers and those who mothered us.
God plays that same role, and for things much bigger than skinned knees. For God’s steadfast and faithful love is always there for us, and are demonstrated through the gift of Jesus and of Jesus’ actions in the world, who is the living stone, the foundation, the cornerstone of our faith, our rock and our salvation. As Peter says, “Once we were no people, but now we are god’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.” So come out of the darkness into the light of Christ, celebrate your birth in the Lord and the comfort of a mother offered to us, for even though a mother may forget her child, God will never forget or forsake us, and in the comfort we receive, we are then called to offer that same comfort to others in need, for comfort is at the heart of the matter. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
based on a worship series created by Marcia McFee, Worship Design Studios
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