It’s never easy as a visiting preacher to deliver a sermon on Mothering Sunday. For it’s one of those days when if you don’t really know your congregation, it can hold you back. For some folk, Mother’s Day (to use the popular name) may be a time of sadness, for some it may bring bitter and difficult memories. Not everyone has a good experience of either mothering or being mothered.
But Mothering Sunday is deliberately that, not only Mother’s Day, so it can be more than just a celebration of mums, important though that is. Today is Refreshment Sunday, time off for good behaviour in the middle of Lent (even though in fact the forty days of Lent excludes all the Sundays); and a day when in the past people made pilgrimage to their mother church, perhaps a cathedral or other great and ancient church, or just their own family church where they were christened; and also the day when youngsters in service might be given time off to trek home and visit their families.
It was in fact a lady called Constance Adelaide Smith who, inspired by the success of Mother’s Day in America, called for the medieval tradition of Mothering Sunday in this country to be revived, and to become a celebration of motherhood. In America Mother’s Day’s always the second Sunday in May, but here it has to move around, because it’s linked to the date of Easter which changes year on year.
Now that’s also one reason why the Gospel readings set for today in the Revised Common Lectionary can present a bit of a challenge for the preacher. I have resisted the temptation to ditch them in favour of easier readings, and in fact I’ve chosen to use both the readings offered, since they’re not very long. Both of them in fact involve an element of pain. The first one - from Luke - is his account of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, when Simeon tells Mary that her son is destined to save many people, but also that a sword will pierce her own heart. And the second - from John - shows that happening, as Mary at the cross sees her son helpless and dying, and can do nothing to save him.
So Mary is a focus for today in Church, as, maybe the Church’s great icon of motherhood. Luke tells us how Mary says yes to the angel who brings her a life-changing message from God, that she is to bear his son. But later he also tells us of Jesus seeming to ignore and even reject his mother, when she arrives with his brothers to take him home. To those he’s teaching, Jesus says, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Anyone who does the will of God is my mother and my sister and my brother.”
Those words could come across as cruel and dismissive - but in fact they contain an important truth, which is that mothering isn’t just the job of mothers . . . not if by “mothering” we mean showing in practical and caring ways the kindness and generosity of God. Mary in any case was not dismissed; she was, as we’ve heard, standing at the cross, when so many of those who’d followed her son had fled; and she was also there with his disciples on the Day of Pentecost, and received the gift of the Holy Spirit as did they.
Perhaps we can think of Mary as having made a journey from being the mother of Jesus to becoming mother to the whole family of believers; on Easter morning Jesus gave another Mary, Mary of Magdala, a message to take to those who had been disciples but whom he now called his brothers. The Church has taken many forms as it’s spread across the world. It’s had its share of the pain and suffering part of being family. It has been deeply divided and in many ways still is. But Church is made up of those whom Jesus still calls my sisters and my brothers, those on whom Jesus continues to bestow his Spirit, those whom Jesus still sends into the world to share everywhere the good news of our redemption, and of God’s unending and unfailing love.
Church is supposed to be family, not organisation or institution. We belong together, because together we belong to God; together we belong to Jesus. There is an old tradition that if someone saves you from death you thereafter belong to that person for ever. And I trace that sense of belonging to Jesus in the letters of Paul.
So let’s turn to one of his letters now: the first reading I used, from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. It’s a favourite reading of mine. If mothering is everyone’s responsibility within the family of the Church, here’s a good place to find out what that means in practice. “Put on the garments that suit God’s people,” says Paul - and I like those words. “Clothe yourselves” in another translation: clothe yourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Clothe yourselves especially in love - that’s what binds everything together and makes sense of it all. Paul’s words remind me that it’s a deliberate decision to choose to live this way. It’s not something that happens only when I’m in a good mood. It’s not about who I like and who I don’t really rate. It’s not about who’s in and who’s out, or whether I might gain something from it.
It’s about choosing to live as family. Paul gives us God’s model for a community or family of love. It’s a model of mothering, for the kind of family life in which everything is shared. Where everyone shares member shares in the good and the bad, the times of joy and the times of pain, the joys and the weeping. And the songs, too! I also like this particular passage because Paul tells us to “sing from the heart in gratitude to God.” And that sounds good to me.
It feels like encouragement not to be too stiff and solemn about our faith. And not having to pretend. It’s OK not to be fine, I don’t need to pretend it’s all good if it isn’t. It’s OK to be confused or to struggle with something, I don’t have to pretend I understand when I don’t. Church as Mother Church is a big part of today’s theme, and Mother church needs to be a place where differences don’t matter and honesty does, where we can look one another in the face, speak honestly, and know we’ll be accepted and treated with compassion and care. In some churches what seems to matter most is conforming; a rigid and judgemental sort of religion. We do stand under judgement, certainly: but read Matthew 25 verse 31, the parable of the sheep and the goats to see what we’re judged on. Mothering; our care for those most in need, our readiness to give.
So as we thank God for mothers and for mothering, and as we pray for families and for all who have the gift and care of children, let’s also be praying for God’s help and guidance in that task of mothering that’s at the heart what it means to be Church as family. Let’s clothe ourselves with that love that can bind everything together in perfect harmony. Let’s make sure that we do everything in the name of Jesus, and after the example of Jesus: and may his peace rule in our hearts. Amen.
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