Our second reading today, from St John’s Gospel, is very short, just three verses - in fact the lectionary requires only two and a half - and yet there is a great deal in those verses. A certain amount of confusion, to begin with. It’s not entirely clear how many women were there, for example; the list of names in the original Greek could imply anything between two and four.
Many New Testament scholars would, however, agree that John is telling us there were four women there, and they were Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, some of whose story we know, Mary the wife of Clopas, of whom we know nothing, and - un-named - Mary’s sister. It’s suggested that this is Salome, whose presence at the cross is noted by Mark and Matthew, and that Salome was the mother of the disciples James and John, who were therefore first cousins to Jesus. His mother’s presence at the cross would also explain how it was that John (“the beloved disciple”) came to be at the foot of the cross, after he and all the other disciples had initially fled as Jesus was arrested.
It’s a deeply moving account. Jesus is staring death in the face and will have been in the most tremendous agony, and yet through all this pain he has his mother’s future care in mind. Not her physical care, as we know she had other children who would provide for her - but we also know that those other children did not as yet believe in what Jesus was doing, and certainly they couldn’t have understood how it was, and why it was, he had to die.
So we find Jesus committing his mother to John’s keeping, and John to hers, so that they’ll be able to provide for each other the spiritual support and comfort they’re going to need in the days to come. And this is both the eldest son, through all his pain, not abandoning his duty of care as a son for his mother; and at the same time God’s anointed one, the man for others, at the hour of crisis continuing to think more of the sorrows of others than of his own suffering and pain.
But study any part of John’s Gospel, and you will find there are often layers of meaning: you may well find there’s something more behind the immediate and obvious meaning of the words - and that could well be true here.
Some scholars think so, anyway: and they would see Mary in these words as representing the Jewish faith and tradition from which God’s new work of salvation springs, while the beloved disciple stands for the new church that will be founded in what Jesus does. If we see the words Jesus speaks in that light, we can find a message there both for the historic faith and for the new Church: neither is complete without the other; they belong together. The message to John, and therefore to the Church, is: “Never forget where you came from.”
And that’s actually quite a relevant message for today, which is not just Mother’s Day but also Mothering Sunday. For today is a time to celebrate not only our own mothers, and our own physical birth and upbringing, but also our mothering in the faith and our spiritual birth and formation; and as we mark both these things, to d reflect also on all the ways in which we belong together. That’s why one tradition on this day used to be that of people going back, perhaps in procession, to the original mother church of the area, or perhaps to the cathedral church of the diocese.
But let me move on now to our first reading today, from Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae, a significant city within Asia Minor, located now within modern Turkey. Paul is writing here about how the members of the church should live together as family - their behaviour toward one another should reflect and convey the grace, forgiveness and renewing love they have received from God. They won’t always agree, but what matters is how they deal with that: there should be, there needs to be, a depth of mutual care, of tolerance and respect and most of all of love, so that they know above all else that they belong together in Christ.
So their fellowship will be a joyful testimony to the love of God active within and among them. It has to be said that we human beings can be a quarrelsome lot - and even the closest of families won’t be entirely immune from this. To be honest, I do quite often fall out with my brothers; but the point is that we always fall back in again. We don’t let things fester, and we don’t mind not always seeing things the same way. And, as we see from Paul, tolerance, forgiveness and a readiness to sort things out rather than turn disagreements into permanent rifts - these things should be the mark of the Christian family, the mark to of the Christian fellowship as family. And there’s a word for that - it’s mothering.
Mothers may well tell their children off, and discipline them when they’re disobedient or naughty; and a good mum certainly won’t always be doing or providing whatever her children demand, however hard they may pester her. But at the same time she’ll be doing her best to provide what her children need; and she’ll be wanting the best for each child, and for each of them to find his or her own way in life and do well - and, fundamental to all that, she’ll never stop loving them. As Paul says, “To bind everything together there must be love.”
And that, more than anything, is what we celebrate today: the love that binds us as family, the love that inspires us to care, the love too that sets free, that forgives, the love that looks out for the other and supports and applauds and comforts and listens and deals with hurts. And the love which forms us and saves us, the love that kindles love within us: the love that makes us greater than our own mere selves.
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