Mothering Sunday Sermon 14 March 2021
Readings: Exodus 2.1-10; John 19:25-27
A year ago Mothering Sunday was an eagerly anticipated event,
not only to offer our thanks for mothers,
but to welcome our children
who were to be admitted to Communion before Confirmation!
As you, and I know, it didn’t happen!
The 22nd March 2020 was our first Sunday of lockdown!
What strange unknown world were we entering?
Few of us had any idea! We were scared – some more than others.
And although the prospect of being locked in our homes
was highly unwelcome, we could appreciate
the love and care which motivated our separation!
Now, a year later, our worship well-established on Zoom and Facebook,
we gather again on Mothering Sunday on Zoom and Facebook!
So, how has it been for you through these strange times?
I guess for most of us, a mixture of emotions.
Fear of unquantifiable losses of all kinds.
Fear of inadequacy to perform new tasks!
Frustration. Perhaps a little too much togetherness in confined spaces.
And indeed also joy –
intensified relationship, discovered in unexpected ways;
and a delight in summer sun when we were for a few short weeks,
‘let out’ so to speak, able to meet up in wider circles!
So how has a year of lockdown changed us?
Changed our perceptions of family love? Motherly love!
It is always heart-warming to watch our children
distribute posies of flowers to all the women in our congregation!
And that is the point!
Mothering Sunday is very much a two-edged sword.
Total delight for many! Excoriating pain for others….
Mothers who grieve their children who have not survived them –
through all ages from womb to elderly.
And of course this morning, our hearts and our prayers
are very much with the family of Sarah Everard. …
Excoriating pain for mothers forcibly separated from their children,
remembering from our community,
Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe and her daughter Gabriella.
Then there is hidden pain for those who long to be mothers,
and for whom this has just not happened.
Either because of physical disability,
or because they have not met the right partner.
It can be hard being single in a church community.
Although I am single – divorced, I also know
it is an entirely different kettle of fish for me
having my son, a lovely daughter-in-law, two lovely grandchildren.
Mothering Sunday.
It is sometimes pointed out, even the single and childless can celebrate, because there is not one of us who hasn’t had a mother.
A mother for whom we can offer our thanks to God for giving us life!
But what of those who have no relationship with their mother?
There are mothers who, their own mothering as children
having been inadequate or absent, mothers who have simply not received
the emotional resources to love their children
in the unconditional way that enables children to thrive.
Hopefully such children do find mother substitutes.
Mothering Sunday is a mixed bag of emotions –
reflected in our readings this morning:
the highly dangerous tangled circumstances of Moses’ birth;
and for Mary, mother of Jesus, the sword that shall pierce her own heart,
as she watches her son die a most cruel death on a cross.
As we now know from that interview a week ago,
even in the most privileged of circumstances,
being a mother is complicated! And complicating!
We cannot control everything that happens to us.
We will never have full prior awareness
of every circumstance of each situation we choose to enter.
And sometimes we are deeply disappointed.
Our press is most certainly biased in its presentation of the world.
We need to challenge it.
We also have the freedom to choose
how we respond to each of our circumstances.
We can choose to respond with continuing love,
seeking to understand, when people hurt us.
Grow in a willingness to forgive –
to seek God’s blessing for those who injure us – as Jesus taught us.
For when we resort to the blaming,
when we make our situation, our grief, someone else’s responsibility
we have trapped ourselves, we get stuck in the pain.
Jesus’ life and teaching model for us,
not only the right way to live, he models the best way to live:
the road to emotional freedom.
In the power of the Spirit we have freedom to choose how we will respond.
We have strength to embrace responsibility for ourselves.
To seek God’s grace in each new circumstance.
These may seem rather hard words on a day
which is meant to be one of celebration.
Gratitude does not always come easy.
It is perhaps easier when we first acknowledge some of these hard truths.
Perhaps then we are able to give thanks for the gift of our lives,
for the deep bond between mother and child,
for the joys of motherhood!
For the joys of mothering – whatever biological status or none
our children may have to us.
Rejoice in the gift of those daffodils outside church right now!
Our Lent groups have been reflecting on Stephen Cherry’s book
‘Thy Will be Done’ looking at the Lord’s Prayer.
He speaks of God as ‘motherly Father’.
As we remember mothers today,
let us also remember that the loving qualities we cherish
pertain to father’s too.
And so we offer thanks to God for the gift, the joys and the challenges,
all the various ways in which each one of us has opportunity for parenting.
Thanks to God for all the new things we have learnt about ourselves,
about family relationships through lockdown.
Amen.