Mothering Sunday – 10-03-2024 – John 19.25b-27, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is often a bit frustrating to me that, when my girls are upset – which is only rarely my fault – they cry for their mummy.

It is a bit of a comfort that this seems to be the case in most families, and in fact, there is scientific research that has proven that there are biological reasons children tend to go to their mums for food, comfort, reassurance, and protection, and that mothers are simply, for these same biological reasons better at providing that.

I hope that when we think about our own mothers the feelings that evokes are of comfort, reassurance, and protection. Because today is a day when we remember with thankfulness and we celebrate all those mothers and those in a mothering role who have given us care, who have fed, nurtured, and protected us. 

Sadly, this is not everyone’s experience. For some of us our mother may have failed us in some way, and this day and the celebration of motherhood only painfully reminds us of what we would have loved to have but never had.

For others this day may be hard for other reasons, and may painfully remind us of the desire for motherhood that remained unfulfilled, or of the loss of our mother, or indeed the loss of a child.

Mothering Sunday can be a day of many mixed emotions, as being a mother, or indeed a child, can be full of mixed emotions, and can be very hard.

And this was the case of course even for the mother of Jesus. In our Gospel reading, Mary is standing at the cross, watching her own son die. The son she would love to hold, to comfort, to reassure and protect in this hour of pain and anguish, is beyond her reach, suffering on the cross. And there are guards to prevent her from coming any closer. 

And there is Jesus’ follower John. We don’t know the backstory of his mother, but clearly he has lost her, and is now witnessing the death of his master and closest friend, the person from whom he expected so much.

Both Mary and John stand at the foot of the cross, and both don’t know where to begin to look for comfort in this dark hour. 

And then, it is Jesus who comforts his mother and closest friend.

To Mary, here is your son. And to John, here is your mother.

Some people see in this moment the beginning of the Church. Those who follow Jesus are to be to each other mother and son, or in language that is often used later on, brother and sister. To be there for each other as family. And the Church itself is called to play this role of Mother (see also Gal. 4:26), and again, there is a rich tradition of reflection on this theme in the history of the church. Especially in reference to baptism, in which we are born again in the family of God, the family of the Church, and the Church in a sense becomes our Mother. In fact, Mothering Sunday began centuries ago with an emphasis on ‘Mother Church’, and people would return to the Church in which they had been baptised – and servants were even given the day off so they could do so.

The Church, the Christian community, is called to be a mother, that is to offer God’s comfort, protection, and reassurance. And just this week someone was telling me how the presence of other Christians and the Church around them helped them to continue to trust God in a difficult period after losing a loved one.

The Church may sometimes fail to do this, but this should only bring us as church back to our calling, to be there for people, to listen to those who are struggling, to comfort them, to nurture, and to protect and reassure them.

Why is the Church doing this? Because these are all things which God is doing, and what God is offering to the world. His comforting, nurturing, protecting, and reassuring presence. Paul emphasises this in our first reading, calling God ‘The Father and mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console’ those who are suffering.

And it is perhaps not surprising that when the Bible uses the language and image of Mother about God it is in this comforting role.

A text I often use in the context of a funeral service is from the Book of Isaiah where God says: I will comfort you as a Mother comforts her child, and you shall be comforted.

Another familiar image is that of God as a mother hen, gathering her chicks under her wings, which Jesus himself uses in the New Testament (Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34). This image perhaps most powerfully expresses that notion of comfort, protection, and reassurance that is so central to motherhood.

This is also central to who God is.

And then, in our first reading, Paul brings it back to the Church. God is comforting us, so that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfort as with which we are comforted by God. We are called to go out, and to be a comforting mother to others, sharing out what we have received from God to others.

May we, with perhaps all of our mixed emotions of thankfulness, joy, and those of hurt, experience God as a Mother comforting us today, and may we share it out this week to the many that need it in the world around us.

Amen.