"God our Mother"
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that
are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ
in God." Today is the fourth Sunday of the Easter season, and
we reflect on Paul's exhortation to be completely transformed by
the resurrection of Christ. Today is also the day when we honor
our mothers and grandmothers, and all who nurture the gift of life.
But what is the connection between these two ways of describing
May 11, 2003--between our Christian liturgical calendar and our
American secular calendar? If holiness means turning our minds away
from things on earth, it would seem that there is no connection
between Mother's Day and resurrection thinking--for there is nothing
more earthly than the daily joys and challenges of motherhood.
Morning sickness; dirty diapers; sticky kisses; loud arguments;
algebra homework, and soccer practice, and prom dresses, and weddings
that begin the cycle again for the next generation--all these realities
are vividly and exuberantly physical. Is Paul joining the many voices
in history that have branded the physical world--and women, whose
body cycles are so visibly linked to that physical world--a temptation
and distraction from the search for God? Does he advocate a spirituality
for mountaintop gurus--finding enlightenment by escaping the mundane
concerns of lesser human beings? Does his Christianity peddle "pie
in the sky by and by when you die"--telling victims of injustice
to humbly accept their crosses on earth and patiently wait for rewards
in heaven? If so, the letter to the Colossians is justly included
in Karl Marx's condemnation of religion as the "opiate of the
masses"--one of the most effective weapons in the hands of
oppressors.
Tragically, there is some compelling evidence for this possibility.
The verses in the epistle which immediately follow today's reading
order wives to submit to their husbands and slaves to obey their
masters. Passages like those reflect the cruel hierarchies of the
Roman empire, not the freedom of the Gospel, and have helped perpetuate
shameful evils like slavery and domestic violence throughout the
centuries. But I would still dare to argue that the heart of today's
readings, and of Christian faith as a whole, is a healthy and liberating
spirituality. I invite you to travel with me thousands of years
into the past, to the worlds where these scriptures were first written.
Let's listen carefully to a prophet speaking to Jewish exiles in
Babylon, and an apostle writing from prison to new Christians in
Colossae. They introduce us to a God who cares passionately about
all aspects of human life, who heard the cries of despairing captives
and brought them home to freedom. They urge us to believe in a God
who became a crying infant pushed from a woman's bleeding body,
and a criminal suffering a messy and painful public execution. They
sing praise to a God who calls all of us to join in Her labor of
nurturing and mentoring and justice making--a mother of fierce and
tender compassion.
In the first reading, we hear words of comfort spoken by the prophet
Isaiah to people who thought their God had abandoned them. God had
freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and brought them into
a promised land. But then the mighty empire of Babylon snatched
them away from their country to endure seventy years of homesickness
and despair. As time wore on without deliverance, the chosen people
began to bury their elders in an alien land, and to raise children
to whom Israel was just an unbelievable story. How often they must
have cried out in anguished prayer, "The Lord has forsaken
me! My Lord has forgotten me!" So Isaiah speaks God's word
to them: "Prisoners--come out!" "Those in darkness--show
yourselves!" He promises that God will bring them home,
that like their ancestors being led out of Egypt they too will be
given refreshing springs of water and a safe path through the lonely
desert. And when they can't believe him, when the years of suffering
have worn them down to the bitter conviction that God can't possibly
love them, Isaiah plays his trump card: "Can a mother forget
her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?"
You can't remember how God freed our ancestors, he challenges them,
or the good times we knew in our own land? You call to God for help,
and wait, and wait--and hear only silence in response? You see your
oppressors enjoying blessings you are denied, and wonder if it would
be worse if there were no God, or if God existed only to torment
and betray you? Then remember a time when you were sick, or hurt,
or afraid, and your mother held you close and sang to you in the
night. Remember when you watched your wife brave agony and danger
to bring your son into the world. Remember when you rushed joyfully
home to your daughter's embrace, because your breasts were tingling
and overflowing with milk, and you needed her as much as she needed
you. Feel the love of these memories in your heart, Isaiah says,
and know that God is not just a judge and a king, not just a nurturing
father, but also a strong and gentle mother, who utterly delights
in you.
If your life feels cramped and lonely and hopeless, try to believe
that your dark dwelling is not just a prison cell, but also a womb--a
safe and holy place in which an unseen God surrounds you, and grieves
for your pain, and labors to bring you forth into freedom. Even
the Hebrew word used here for God's compassion, rachamim,
comes from the root word rechem, which means womb. God speaks
though Isaiah to the Israelites and to us: "My love for you
is womb-love, the love of the one who gave you life and cares for
your always. I am your faithful mother; I will never forget you;
I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands."
And here we find the connection to our reading from Colossians,
for it describes a God in whom we are hidden as in the womb, and
a savior whose love is inscribed on the palms of his wounded hands.
Chelsea spoke God's word to all of us in the children's message
this morning when she said, "Jesus is like a mother."
This wise young girl follows in the footsteps of great mystics throughout
the ages, like Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena, who said,
"Look at Jesus! His death on the cross is labor pains to give
us life. His presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist is
sweet breastmilk to feed us. He gently teaches us, as a mother does
her child. Christ shows us that God is our loving Mother."
Like the Jewish exiles in Babylon, we all face suffering in our
own lives and those of others, and perhaps the most overwhelming
anguish comes in the fracturing of intimate relationships. Every
day throughout the world, mothers bury their children--through illness
and accidents and hunger and violence. Every day throughout the
world, children are hurt by their mothers--through the ordinary
mistakes of imperfect human beings, or the tragic betrayal of ongoing
cycles of abuse. This suffering can make us question, and
despair, and cry out, "The Lord has forsaken me! My Lord has
forgotten me!" And in the letter to the Colossians Paul relays
to us God's answer. It goes beyond delivering us from suffering
from afar, to the deepest form of compassion--entering every kind
of agony with us. In Christ, the glorious and invisible God was
clothed in human flesh to share with us, and mysteriously transform,
and someday fully conquer evil and death.
Did you notice how often in today's reading Paul uses this image
of clothing to describe the Christian life? "You have stripped
off the old self with its practices," he reminds us, "and
have clothed yourselves with the new person, being renewed in the
image of God the creator." "As God's chosen ones, holy
and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, and patience." "Above all, clothe yourselves
with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
This is a perfect image for God our Mother, because so much of a
mother's time is spent clothing her children. Dressing infants and
toddlers; working to buy the clothes; shopping for the clothes;
washing them and mending them and--for those more talented than
myself--even custom tailoring them. Clothing is a sacrament, an
outward sign that makes present and visible the inner reality of
a parent's love.
When I was seven years old my mother made me a flower girl dress
for my aunt Cele's wedding. It was crafted of plush, blossom-covered
blue velveteen, with short puffed sleeves and a bow in the back;
I felt like a princess as I walked down the aisle of Transfiguration
church. After the ceremony Mom shortened the dress for everyday
wear, and because she turned up a very large hem and repeatedly
let it down, I got to relive that feeling of being honored and special
over and over for the next three years. Can you remember a lovely
outfit that incarnated your beauty, and God's love for you, through
the care of the one who provided it?
Matt and I chose the last verses of this Colossians passage to
read at our wedding, because it described our dream for letting
God's love shine out through our relationship, our parenting, and
our life in the community. In the fourteen years since that ceremony
we have experienced great joy, and huge challenges, and tragedy
beyond imagining. The strain of those things has sometimes overflowed
into our hearts and made Paul's call to all these incredible virtues
seem an impossible dream, a difficult task set by a harsh
God. But we find new hope when we remember the real God, who is
clothed in compassion and peace and reconciliation, and who clothes
us with these qualities as my mother clothed me with my flower girl
dress. Sometimes the most important thing that overworked mothers
and fathers and friends can do is to first receive the love of God
for the self, in whatever way is right for each person. Do something
to feel that love today. And as that rachamim, that womb-love,
that crucified and risen love soaks into your being, it will clothe
you and flow through you to others. You will be dressed in radiant
wedding garments that show forth to all who see you the endless
gentleness of our miraculous God.
