Mothering will pierce your heart - A sermon for Mothering Sunday.

Readings: Exodus 2:1-10; Luke 2: 33-35.


Today, whether we want to or not, we’re thinking about Mother’s. All mothers. Good mothers. Bad mothers. Surprise mothers. Wannabe mothers. Rich mothers. Poor mothers. Birth mothers. Adopted mothers. Step mothers. Treasured mothers. Painful mothers. Present mothers. Long-gone mothers. Bereaved mothers. Our own mothers. Other people’s mothers. The mothers that we see in the mirror.

Let’s pray. Before we begin let’s offer up all our thoughts about mothers to God; whether happy, joyful, complex or painful, and ask God to hold those thoughts for us; not just here right now, but for the rest of this blessed day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Let’s talk about Motherhood. Last Monday was the feast of the Annunciation – a day where we celebrate Mary, the mother of God, being visited by Angel Gabriel. We commemorate Mary saying Yes to God’s plans for her. She said yes to motherhood. From that moment, nothing was the same ever again. As anyone who has ever become a mother will tell you, motherhood, however it happens to you, changes everything. We are not the same people we were before. It’s a powerful thing. And it’s often painful.

When my oldest child was just 7 months old, she was starting to cruise around the furniture, holding onto the sofa and my mum’s Labrador retriever, when one day she slipped and banged her face on the corner of the toy box. It was the first time she’d hurt herself, it certainly wasn’t the last. Nothing makes your heart leap up into your throat more than the sight of your child falling and hurting themselves. Nothing makes you move faster. I was across that room in two seconds flat, scooping her up into my arms. There was blood all over her face, and I don’t know who was crying louder, her or me. My mum, who’s house we were in, stayed calm, took a good look at the situation, and ascertained that this was just small cut on her lip. Lips bleed a lot and make things look a whole lot worse than they actually are. She saved that situation. Thank God for mother’s.

So when I hear the passage from Luke, that we heard today, particularly line 35 when Simeon says to Mary – “A sword will pierce your soul.” I can imagine all too clearly what he means. For a mother, there is no pain quite like the pain of your child.

Simeon knew it. And even though she’d been a mother for such a short time, Mary knew it too.  Jesus was just 6 weeks old when her and Joseph took him to the temple, as per Jewish custom. This young girl, a teenager, had already been through so much. She’d been visited by an Angel. She’d conceived a child. She’d undertaken the long journey to Bethlehem, given birth in a stable, with no midwife on hand, been inundated with Shepherds, proclaiming her son the messiah. All that and now this.

I think part of her was probably relieved at Simeon’s words. After all, he only has to hold Jesus and he knows that it’s the son of God he’s holding, without being told. That’s vindication for Mary. She told the truth; it happened just as she said. 33 years later, that precious newborn baby lying in her arms, would absolutely break her heart, when she had to endure him being nailed to a cross. The pain must have been piercing.

Jochebed knew these truths too. This is the name of Moses’ mother, his Hebrew, birth mother. In defiance of Pharaoh’s edict that all baby Hebrew boys should be thrown into the Nile, she schemes with her daughter to protect the life of her infant son. We don’t know what his birth name was, but his Egyptian name was Moses – named by Pharaoh’s daughter because she “drew him out of the water,” from the Egyptian verb, to draw. Many years later, this baby boy who ended up being raised by the daughter of his oppressor, would become a man who would draw his people out of Egypt. This was made possible because Jochebed sacrificed her own motherly instincts, to protect her child.

Jochebed ends up being paid to care for her own son. We are told that she cared for him until he was weaned, which in Biblical times would have been anywhere between the ages of two and six. Jochebed got to play a part in her sons life. She got to be his mother. But I imagine it still felt like a sword piercing her heart on the day she had to hand him back over to Pharaoh’s daughter.

Motherhood is bound up with pain. Whether you are a Jochebed or a Mary, beginning your mothering journey with the physical pain of childbirth, or a mother like Pharaoh’s daughter, mothering a child not biologically your own, but still absolutely your child, there are always moments of pain. From the first hurts they experience, to the moment they leave us, motherhood is piercing.

And that made me think: What does the pain of these two mothers teach us about God? If we are all made in God’s image, man. And woman, then Mothers are made in her image as much as Fathers are made in his. If we are all God’s children, how then does God experience what happens to us? Our hurts and travails and challenges?

In other words, what things in our world pierce the heart of God, our mother God? When we are bereaved. When we are heart-broken. When we are depressed and feel like we can’t go on. When we are bullied, or isolated, or mocked.

God’s heart is pierced by our greed, by our ignorance, by our cruelty, and by our disdain for the world she created for us. When we hate and when we push people to the margins; when we dehumanise our fellow humans. When a gunman walks into a mosque full of people at prayer, and opens fire on them, God’s heart is pierced, and like a mother God weeps, both for the people who are praying, and also, for the one holding the gun.

People ask “Where is God in all this suffering that we see?””Where is he?” I believe God is right beside us, an arm around our shoulder, weeping with us and murmuring “It will be ok. I’m here.” Because that’s what any good mother would do.

We can’t fully understand the heart of God without acknowledging that as well as our Father, God is also our Mother. We are people of a faith born out of – quite literally – the body of a woman. The story of Christianity begins with a courageous teenaged girl, who said YES to God, YES to motherhood, and YES to having her heart pierced into tiny pieces.

This is the burden of mothers. We love even though it hurts. This is also the burden of God. God loves us even though it hurts. Today, whilst we stand poised in the wilderness of Lent, on our journey once more to the cross, let’s remember that mother heart of God, willingly pierced by the sword of humanity over and over, for me, for you, for us all. Amen.