Today is Mothering Sunday, a
lovely day of celebration for some, but a day which is fraught with
complications for others.
Some will find nothing but
joy in this day. Those who have, or have had, wonderful mothers, those who have
children who they delight in may find this day easy.
But many don’t. There are mothers
who have lost children, children who have lost mothers, especially if there
have been issues that make mourning complicated or difficult. There are those
who never knew their mothers, or whose mothers weren’t able to care for them,
and those who long to be mothers but haven’t been able to have children of
their own. There are mothers who are estranged from their children, or whose
children are a source of worry. There are fathers bringing up children alone,
who have to be mum as well as dad. There are many reasons why today might be
problematic, awkward, painful for some.
That’s why I am glad it is Mothering
Sunday, and not Mother’s Day we celebrate today. Its origins are rather obscure
– don’t believe all you read on the internet – and its observance has waxed and
waned in popularity over the centuries, but it is linked to the medieval custom
of honouring “Mother Church” on this fourth Sunday in Lent. Today is also known
as Laetare Sunday – “Laetare” is Latin for Rejoice. The title comes from the opening
words of the Latin prayer which would have begun this service, which quotes
Isaiah 66.10 “Rejoice, Jerusalem”. Isaiah goes on to describe Jerusalem as a
mother feeding her children from her breast.
Mothering Sunday was
developed in its modern form in the UK early in the 20th Century,
drawing on those ancient traditions, by Constance Adelaide Smith. She was aware
of the quite separate and secular “Mother’s Day” which was celebrated in the US
in May, but wanted to put the emphasis not just on mothers, but on mothering in
all its forms, including Mother Church, and that makes all the difference. It broadens
its meaning out immensely.
And, frankly, if Mothering
Sunday was just about biological mothers, the readings set for the day would be
a rubbish choice. There aren’t any hearts and flowers in them. No one gets a
box of chocolates or a lie in, and the family set ups they describe are full of
pain.
That’s not unusual in
Scripture. You’d struggle to find any family that looks much like the 1950’s
ideal of the nuclear family, Mum, Dad and 2.4 children, all biologically
related. In the Bible, there’s polygamy, which is never condemned or outlawed,
even by Jesus. The consent of the woman is usually not even sought, never mind
required. There’s incest and adultery, siblings who murder each other or sell
each other into slavery. Women conceive children then give them up to others to
raise, as Hannah does with Samuel. And of course, there are widows and orphans,
many, many of them, left to fend for themselves in a world which has no room
for anyone who has somehow fallen out of the conventional family structures.
Reading the Bible can feel a bit like binge -watching Eastenders, except that I
think many of the Biblical story lines would have been rejected by the editors
as too shocking to be shown before the watershed.
The Bible stories we’ve heard
today are no exception to this pattern of unconventional family arrangements. A
Hebrew woman gives birth to a baby boy at the worst possible moment, when
Pharaoh has ordered all Hebrew male children to be thrown into the Nile. She
tries to hide him, but you can’t hide a baby for long, so she makes a basket and
covers it in pitch – a tiny Ark – and leaves it at the water’s edge. At least
there is some hope that he might be found, rather than drowning or being eaten
by crocodiles. And she is in luck. Pharaoh’s daughter comes along and finds
him. But that’s problematic too. How can the daughter of the man who has made
this cruel order possibly help? Will she even want to?
This particular baby is in
luck too, though. He ends up with many “mothers” in his life – the mother who
bore him, the big sister who watches over him, the princess who takes him under
her protection, and who, I am quite sure, knows exactly what is going on, and
all her entourage too, who keep the secret. God isn’t hindered by the vagaries
and vulnerabilities that plague human attempts to build families; the political
and economic circumstances beyond people’s control, the accidents and illnesses,
ignorance, or deliberate cruelty that blight the lives of so many children. God’s
idea of family is very much bigger and more flexible than ours. It’s not the
biological or legal connections which make a family in God’s eyes, but the love
and care people share, which can take many shapes and forms, and come from a
multitude of sources.
The same picture emerges in
the Gospel reading - just a couple of verses from John’s account of the
crucifixion. Its another story I doubt you’d see referenced on a Mother’s Day
greeting card. Mary is about to lose her eldest son; Jesus is hanging on the
cross, disgraced and dying. But he is the one who, in traditional Jewish
thinking, would have been the head of the household, and her main protector.
Jesus doesn’t entrust her to another male relative, though, despite having
brothers who could have taken the task on. Instead, he makes a new family for
her with John, his disciple, who is also full of grief at the loss of his
friend. He needs a mother; she needs a son. They find what they need in each
other.
This is all of a piece with
the message celebrated by the early church, which saw itself as a new family. In
most families of the time – Roman, Greek, or Jewish - everyone had a place, and
knew their place. In Roman families, even adult children were under the rule of
the Pater Familias – the oldest living male in the family, who had
absolute authority over them, including power to kill them in some cases. But
the early Christian communities challenged all this. In the family of the
Church everyone was equal – men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile.
Early Christian communities provided a family, too, for many who had lost their
own – slaves who had been taken from their families, widows and orphans who had
no one to support them, people whose families might have rejected them because
of their new-found faith. The new family Jesus made of John and Mary as he died
was a symbol of this. God’s love united them. God was the parent – father and
mother – who drew them into his family.
As a mother, and a daughter,
myself I think it’s great to celebrate mothers on this day, if we can. But Mothering
Sunday should be good news for all people, whether we share our genetic
material or our homes with anyone or not. In way, it should be especially good
news for those who might not be either giving or receiving flowers and
chocolates today, because they have no children, or no mother, or their
relationships with them are fraught or complicated. Mothering Sunday calls us to celebrate all
whom we are called to love and be loved by, to open our eyes to those God calls
us into family with, and to celebrate God, the Mother of us all, from whom all
love ultimately comes.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment