|
LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
|
| The God Who Mothers Deuteronomy 32: 9 – 12a & Luke 13: 34 – 35 May 13, 2007 Mother’s Day I was on the staff at First Methodist Church of San Diego for ten years. It was a large church with five ordained ministers on staff. And being a large church we received a new class of members every month. So, I was perusing the list of new members when I came to a name I recognized as that of a professor at Point Loma College. I knew the name because it was the same as his fathers who was one of my professors when I attended the college twenty years earlier. I was curious because I knew that generally the teachers at that Nazarene college were members of the Nazarene church; that sort of loyalty was expected. I knew that for him to move his family to our more liberal Methodist church was done at some risk to his standing at the college, even to his career. So, I asked him about it and his answer was simple and straight forward. He said, “One of the pastors on staff here is a woman. She preaches and consecrates the sacraments. I have a nine year old daughter and I want her to see that.” The Methodist church has been ordaining women for a hundred years. Fully half of the people currently enrolled in Methodist seminaries are women. In this conference, our bishop is a woman. Any church that excludes women from pastoral roles immediately eliminates half of their talent pool. The Roman Catholic are complaining about not having enough priests; I know how to fix that. It was Pope John Paul II, everyone’s favorite candidate for sainthood, who said that women couldn’t be priests because they were “not sufficiently in the image of Christ.” He said that at a time when the image of what it meant to be Christ-like was being set by Mother Teresa. So, on this day on which we honor mother’s I wanted to honor the mother images of God in the Bible, of which there are many, the fact that the Bible is a patriarchal document, notwithstanding. It was Carl Jung, the psychologist who first noted what he called “the psychological impoverishment resulting from the lack of female images of God.” There are in fact lots of them; they just get buried under all the masculine emphasis in scripture and the prejudice of its interpreters. For example, everyone knows that story in Genesis about Eve being made from Adam’s rib, a sort of divine after thought. But often overlooked is the story in the first chapter wherein it is stated that God created both male and female in God’s image. Look at our lessons for the morning: first from the book of Deuteronomy, one of the most important books of the Jewish scriptures, the last book of the Torah. God is pictured as a mother eagle, fluffing up the nest, caring for and protecting the young. If you have a computer you can go on line to an eagle cam and watch that. In the gospel, Jesus uses similar imagery for himself; except he chooses a mother hen rather than an eagle. In verse 18 of that same chapter in Deuteronomy, God identifies God’s self as the one who gave them birth. Jesus told Nickademus that he needed to be born again. It has become one of the favorite metaphors for salvation in our time, especially among the evangelicals. Some insist on identifying themselves as “born again Christians” to differentiate themselves from the rest of us. I find it ironic that those who prize that metaphor the most are also the ones who would cringe at the notion that God is a mother as well as a father. The last time I checked, giving birth was still a female function. There is more. Hosea describes God as being like a mother bear protecting her cubs, exploding the notion that to be feminine is to be delicate or weak. In our common vernacular we tend to ascribe the feminine gender to things of grace and beauty – like ships. But just because they are sleek and graceful doesn’t mean they aren’t powerful. Just ask any one who ever served on an aircraft carrier or a destroyer. The only male ships are tug boats and there only function is to push the real ships away from the dock. The Bible acknowledges the strength of women from the description of the woman in the last of the book of proverbs to Mary Magdalene who, according to John, was the only one with the courage to go to the tomb on Easter morning. Femininity is tough. It has been observed that if men had to bear the babies the population would be smaller. The name we lovingly apply to this rock upon which we live is “Mother Earth.” She takes lots of abuse from us humans and keeps on going all the while purifying herself. Then there is Mother Nature, anything but demure – just ask the folks in New Orleans or Greensburg, Kansas. The Germans call there homeland the fatherland. East of there lies another country which is Mother Russia. In the 1940s they engaged in a family feud and the mother won. Polio was eradicated because of what was called the Mothers’ March, and don’t forget Mothers Against Drunk Driving, pushing more legislation through congress than most lobby groups could imagine. In fact, Mother’s Day began as an activist movement. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” was a virulent peace advocate and issued what she called a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” urging women to fight for peace. In 1858 a preacher’s wife named Anna Jarvis started “Mothers Work Clubs” and during the Civil War, they spread out over battlefields tending to both Union and Confederate soldiers. When the war was over, Jarvis called for the establishment of a “Mother’s Day for Peace.” In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson formally declared a special day called “Mother’s Day” but by then it had lost most of its activist roots. I Googled “Mother’s Day” just for fun and got a web site all in pink with flowers and butterflies and a poem that began, “M is for the many things she gave me…” Mothers are tough. This would be a good time to turn “Mother’s Day” back into what it originally was, “Mother’s Day for Peace.” There is so much more: Isaiah describes God as being like a mother with her child. Jeremiah refers to God as the Queen of Heaven – imagine that. If I were to refer to God that way in a prayer, some of you would bristle, but it’s in the Bible. In Proverbs, wisdom is personalized: Sophia in Greek. Wisdom is described as a person to be sought after and wisdom is decidedly feminine. And in ninth chapter of that book she serves her subjects bread and wine, a communion of sorts with the feminine side of God. The theologian, Alfred Whitehead suggests that since the Bible was produced in a patriarchal time, the writers made allusion to the feminine characteristics of God in subtle ways. Hear this quote, “They used images that lend themselves to emphasis on the feminine without insisting upon it. God is divine patience and tenderness, one who suffers with us, one who keeps us safe: the comforter, the one who gives birth.” By the way, in the Greek where nouns have gender, spirit is a feminine word. Remember that the next time you receive a blessing in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. So, why does all this matter? It’s a lesson I learned from my daughter. There are lots of times when she wants me and will say so, “Daddy, I want you.” They are mostly times when she wants to play rough, pillow fight or tickle tag. She wants me to go out to the yard, ride the bike or swing her on the swing. But at night when she awakens from a bad dream, she wants her mommy. There are times in life when you want more from God than that which is offered by exclusive masculine images. You want tenderness, comfort, and nurture that are the natural characteristics of motherhood. You want a God to cradle you in her arms and say everything is going to be okay and you believe it because she is strong enough to make it so and she loves you with the ferocity of a mother bear protecting her cubs or a mother eagle who bears her children up on her powerful wings. Some like to say that God is neither male nor female. But, there is a theological axiom that the Creator cannot be less than the created. So, it is more correct to say that God is both male and female and infinitely more. Remember when you call upon God that God is everything you want from the ideal Father and the perfect Mother. If you have in your heart the image of what the ideal father is like and the ideal mother, then you have a pretty good notion of what God is like. An anonymous poet said it this way: “I know what mother’s face is like, though it I cannot see: It’s like the music of a bell, it’s like the way that roses smell, it’s like the stories fairies tell, it’s all of these to me. I know what father’s face is like, I am sure I know it all: It’s like a whistle in the air, it’s like a step upon the stair, it’s like his arms that give much care, and never let me fall. And so I know what God is like, the God whom no one sees: he’s everything my mother means, he’s like my very sweetest dreams, he’s everything my father seems, but greater still than all of these.” I like to characterize hymns as love songs to God. “Joyful, joyful we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.” Given the emphasis of today sermon, there are lots of love songs that could easily be directed to God. I conclude with this example from Billy Joel: a song not to God but about God. “She’s got a way about her. I don’t know what it is, but I know that I can’t live without her. She’s got a way of pleasing. I don’t know what it is, but there doesn’t have to be a reason, anyway. She’s got a smile that heals me. I don’t know why it is, but I have to laugh when she reveals me. She’s got a way of talking. I don’t know why it is, but it lifts me up when we go walking, anywhere. She’s got a way of showing how I make her feel. And I find the strength to keep on going. She’s got a light around her, and a million dreams of love surround her, everywhere. She comes to me when I’m feeling down, inspires me without a sound; she touches me and I get turned around. She’s got a smile that heals me. I don’t know why it is, but I have to laugh when she reveals me. She’s got a way about her. I don’t know what it is, but I know that I can’t live without her, anyway.
As always you can get a DVD of this sermon. Contact the church office.
|
|||
|
.................................................................................... Friends | |