Sermon for Mothering Sunday at Hanwood family service by The Revd Emma Phillips 10th March 2024
Exodus 2.1-10
Luke 2.33-35
Today we say thank you for our mums! Did any of you do something special for your mother today? Or are you going to do something nice later? We mustn’t forget that not all of us have mums still here on earth, so some of you will be thinking of your mum in heaven, in whatever way you like to honour her.
So what are we saying thank you for? Any suggestions, maybe starting with what mums do for babies...and older children...and grown up children! In our Bible story we heard about the way that Moses’ mother protected him, and the way that Pharaoh’s daughter rescued him, so Moses got two mums. That’s great, and many of us will have had mothering from more than one person. Anyone have a grandma who looks after them, or an auntie or godmother? How about a teacher or a guide leader? As we get older, we realise that we need the wisdom and support of all sorts of women that God has put in our lives. Today we give thanks for them all.
Now you may think that mothering can only be done by women, but men can be pretty good at mothering too, if we think of the ways that they nurture and care for us. Anyone got a dad who gives good cuddles, or picks you up when things go wrong? Graham looked after our children when they were little, when I went to theological college to train to be a vicar, and he learnt how to do all the things that mums often do – change nappies, run the house, deal with tears and tantrums, have conversations with multiple interruptions, and so on! It didn’t come easily, his own mum and dad had had very traditional roles, so he had not seen other dads in charge at home, and he didn’t know any other full time dads, but he did a fantastic job. You can tell, because even now he can comfort a baby, holding them just right!
All of this tells us that we have many people who have given us mother love, but that love doesn’t start here. We can love as mothers because God first mothered us. Now we get into a bit of a muddle with God because we assume that he is male. After all, we talk about him with male pronouns, and we often we call him Lord or Father. But that’s because we are human beings and we need to think of persons as having gender – we don’t want to call God ‘it’ because that would make him sound like a thing, which is obviously wrong. Because of the way that society has developed it has just been easier to talk to God as male but in truth he is neither male nor female, although he includes both in his nature. And in between the more familiar male language in the Bible there are some wonderful images of God’s mothering.
The one we may be most familiar with is the picture of God as a mother hen, gathering her chicks under her wings. Have you seen a hen sitting on eggs? When they hatch out she keeps them warm and safe, snuggled under her. That’s how God looks after us, gathering us to him. But there is another picture that Hosea gives us, of God as a fierce mother bear. God says “like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them and rip them open”. That’s not a sweet and cuddly image at all, but you may know just how fierce your mum can be if you need defending! The Bible tell us that God is like that too, ready to come to our defence when we are in trouble.
Today on this Mothering Sunday we thank our mums, but as we remember that their love comes from God so we also remember that we can pass it on. God’s love never runs out, and when we get tired and fed up, we can turn to him for more mothering and a new determination to be good at mothering ourselves, whether we are male or female, whether we have children or not, whether our own mums were amazing or not so good at loving us.
Let’s just finish by opening our hearts to God’s mother love right now. Be still and quiet for a moment.
"We ask God to comfort and reassure us, to lift us and support us.
As we thank you, God, for our mums, please help us to rest in you so that we can pass that love on."
Amen