Mothering Sunday - Here is your Mother

It is the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Once called ‘Mid-Lenting’ in some traditions, it’s also called ‘Laetare’ from the Latin for ‘Rejoice’. It’s the root of the word ‘laughter’. We’ve reached the point when we take a little break from our Lenten fasting and draw breath, before we rush into Passiontide, Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter.

It is also, of course, Mothering Sunday. In medieval times folks gave thanks for their ‘mother church’ on this day - sometimes their parish, sometimes their cathedral. From the seventeenth century onwards, it became a Sunday when young people in service were sent home for the day to visit their families.

From the 1920s onwards, Mother’s Day in the USA and Mothering Sunday in the UK began to be developed and promoted as a day on which to give thanks for mothers. This was especially important following the First World War, when so many lost children to warfare and disease. So, it’s a rich day, with much more to it than buying a card for your mum (though that’s important too!).

Mothering is a gift we can all experience and exercise, whoever we are. The act of mothering can be done by all of us, to anyone of any age. We can ‘mother’ as individuals and as communities. The readings set for today contain good examples of mothering and help us to focus on three qualities: care, courage and compassion.

In the Book of Exodus Pharoah carries out ethnic cleansing. All Hebrew babies were to be drowned in the Nile. But one Levite mother takes great care to conceal her baby boy for three months. She then takes the enormous risk of placing him in a waterproof basket in the crocodile-infested Nile and trusting his future to God. Desperate times demand desperate measures and tremendous courage. Pharaoh’s daughter, finding the baby, is moved by his crying and identifies him as a Hebrew. In her compassion, she takes an enormous risk to save the baby. The baby’s sister is watching out for him - caring what happens - and in a stroke of courageous genius, intervenes to suggest that her mother might help to raise the baby. So, Moses is raised by his mother, under patronage, ensuring that he is absolutely safe. Not only that, his mother gets paid for raising him. All three women are exercising amazing mothering in this story, showing care, courage and compassion. But, did you notice? God is also mothering, weaving an imaginative, brilliant and compassionate rescue that will lead eventually to the liberation of the Israelites.

Jump forward hundreds of years to the crucifixion. In our Gospel reading Jesus is on the cross, looking down on his mother Mary and the beloved disciple who is not named here but traditionally acknowledged to be John. Care, courage and compassion feature heavily in this story too. All three show extraordinary courage in the face of this horrific episode of torture and slow execution.

From the cross, Jesus creates a new family. Mary and John are brought together as parent and child to care for one another in the years ahead, bridging the gap left by a son and a friend. Jesus shows immense courage to die as an innocent on behalf of the world, and in that moment to have sufficient care and compassion to look out for those you leave behind. These biblical examples of ‘mothering’ are perhaps beyond the scope of most of us. But the mothering qualities of care, courage and compassion that make such a difference in people’s lives take place every day, in communities all over the world. They take place in this community too.

So, how’s your mothering going? Where are you showing those qualities of care, courage and compassion? How might we do more of this as a Christian community? Caring for those in need in our parish and beyond, having the courage to call out injustice and making ourselves unpopular for the sake of those whose voices go unheard, walking alongside the suffering and broken, with compassion to bring consolation and hope for the future. Economically, environmentally and politically it all seems bleak at the moment. But so it was for the Israelites and those first followers of Jesus. Let’s not allow our feelings of powerlessness hinder our capacity to to exercise care, courage and compassion and in doing so take back power!

On this mid-Lent Mothering Sunday, pause and give thanks for those who have mothered you down the years, and pray that the Lord may fill you with the gifts of care, courage and compassion as you seek to follow Jesus Christ faithfully in the power of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Every blessing,

Christian