Mothering Sunday – 14th March 2021
I remember an animated discussion Paul and I had in the early days of marriage. It’s a perfectly normal conversation to have when transitioning from carefree, candlelit dinners to sustaining a home together. Paul jokingly pointed out that, unfortunately, he lacked the vital “housewife gene.” It turned out that I lack it too. So we had to come to an arrangement.
The issue of the “housewife gene” – which obviously doesn’t exist, raises a question. In today’s world…what is a woman’s or a mother’s role?
Monday was International Women’s day, and today is Mothering Sunday. We celebrate women, their achievements and their roles in our lives. I don’t want to rain on the parade of celebration, but it is a bit unfortunate that women still feel enormous pressure to look or behave a certain way. Going by the advertisements we see all the time, all I need to achieve this feminine ideal is a certain shampoo which will transform my hair into a cascade of wonder, and a particular perfume that will lure men, like bees to a honey pot. It doesn’t seem to be working for me.
What’s worse, recent statistics show that during the pandemic, women have struggled more, and been lonelier. They are more burdened with housework, care of parents and children, and home schooling (often in addition to paid jobs). I am aware that men have had similar struggles but, women still carry a disproportionate load as “care givers.”
In this confusion of the absurd expectations and depressing realities that confront women, how can we discover God’s expectations of women and mothers? Our readings today take us back in time, and give us a glimpse of some unusual, feisty women.
Meet the first group of women, from the book of Exodus. Imagine them standing up here beside me. Here is a Hebrew slave and her daughter (Jochebed and Miriam – Moses’s mother and sister); Here is Pharaoh’s daughter with her handmaids. Women from very different social, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. They are great candidates for an International Woman’s Day or Mothering Sunday line up. For these are women who shape the course of history.
But did you notice something? There are no men in this story to orchestrate events or choreograph the women’s actions. It is the women who undermine a powerful ruler. They defy Pharaoh’s decree that every male Hebrew baby should be thrown into the crocodile-infested Nile. The traumatised Jochebed keeps her baby for three months. Then, unable to hide him any longer, she places him in the river in a snug basket. When Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, she knows he is a Hebrew slave’s baby. She also knows of Pharaoh’s decree. Yet moved by pity, she saves him, and adopts him as her own.
To understand the magnitude of these events, imagine Harry and Meghan picking up a baby boy from a refugee camp. Imagine them bringing him to the palace, and hiring his mother to care for him. Imagine the scandalised headlines. The gesture subverts so many social norms.
These women conspire to save a baby condemned to die. They don’t know the dramatic consequences of their act – that the baby will grow up to end the enslavement of the Hebrews and shake up the powerful Egyptians.
We remember Moses, the hero in the dramatic Exodus of God’s people from slavery in Egypt.
But we forget the women without whose boldness, care and nurture there would be no Moses – no Exodus.
Fast forward several centuries. Meet a Jewish girl, Mary. But wait – she has gathered imaginative debris over the centuries, like barnacles on a ship. With her makeovers and heavenly veneer, we imagine her as a serene, submissive and sublimely beautiful white woman. So take a fresh look at her.
Mary is probably 15-years old. She’s a slip of a girl when she takes on the colossal task – to carry and nurture, to manhood, the Son of God. She is small in stature, with black hair parted, her centre parting coloured with purple dye. Mary is olive-skinned. She works hard and her hands are rough. She’s of marriageable age, and so wears some jewellery – a nose ring or earrings. As her response to the annunciation – the Magnificat – suggests, Mary is familiar with the poetry of the Psalms and scripture. She is articulate, educated, spirited and courageous.
Like the women in Exodus, Mary has walked a difficult path. In conflict with society’s norms, she has risked shame and death. Three decades later, we meet Mary standing at the foot of the Cross, watching her son die. She stands. She is not prostrate with grief as wailing Jewish women usually were. She is strong. Note too, the men (except for John) have disappeared. Mary, with the other women, is left beside the cross with John.
Both readings today give us glimpses into unusual relationships. The Bible presents not just revolutionary women, but revolutionary and transformative relationships. The Bible is not big on the nuclear families so central to the Western world. It speaks of unexpected relationships of care and nurture: Pharaoh’s daughter adopts a Hebrew slave child; Mary, young and unmarried, welcomes the Son of God into her womb and, with Joseph, nurtures him. And at the cross, as Mary grieves, Jesus brings John to her as a son – forging a new relationship of mutual caring.
God adopts us as his children, and is both a father and mother to us. The Old Testament provides many metaphors of mothering and nurture in God’s relationship to his children. In Deuteronomy, God is an eagle hovering over its young, and spreading wings to carry them; In Isaiah, a comforting mother, the only one who cannot forget us. In the Psalms, our souls are quieted in God like children calmed by their mother; God is a protective mother bear robbed of her cubs, attacking the assailant; in Hosea, God lifts infants against his cheek, bending down and feeding them. Jesus himself is an embodiment of compassionate care and nurture. He weeps with people, embraces them; he touches the untouchable leper, befriends outcasts, and when his disciples send children away, Jesus welcomes them.
As we give thanks for our mothers, and those women who have nurtured us through life… Let me leave you with two questions.
First – what does God expect of women today?
The women we met today are bold, spirited nurturing women. Even though most of them had little social power or position. Be like them. They nurture life. They make daring choices and chart extraordinary paths. We must do the same. Especially if we want to be a part of God’s call to build his Kingdom and transform the world.
Second – what does God expect of all of us?
I believe that God’s calling to women is no different to His call to men. Clearly, the housewife gene is fiction. But the nurturing and caring gene is not!
Paul and I were cared for last year by so many – around us and across the world – including members of the Cathedral community. And last year we tried something new. We extended care in trying the process of Restorative Justice. We met one of the teenagers who stole and wrecked our car in the hope that it would enable a renewal of his life.
The recent “pay rise” debacle for NHS staff demonstrates how little care and nurturing is valued today – this despite front line workers giving up family life, and sometimes their own lives. In a world that does not put a premium on caring, God’s call to care is counter-cultural.
As those created in God’s image we are called to nurture and care for others – to love our neighbour as ourselves. Remember the parable of the Samaritan who lavished care on an injured Jew. The Bible compels us to step outside our narrow worlds into something bigger and richer.
Choose daring actions. Choose to love. Choose to nurture. Choose to extend care to those who need it. In a world that is often harsh and painful, we are all called by God to live by a different manifesto.