Exodus 2:1-10 First Presbyterian, Pasadena John 19:25b-27 May 13, 2018 A MOTHER S LOVE James S. Currie Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis born in Culpeper, Virginia on September 30, 1832; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 9, 1905 at the age of 72 years. Daughter of a Methodist minister, and married to the son of a Baptist minister. Gave birth to at least twelve children over the course of 17 years, only four of whom survived to adulthood. Such diseases as measles, typhoid fever, and diphtheria epidemics claimed the lives of the others. Concerned with the health and sanitary conditions in her region, Ann Jarvis organized Mothers Day Work Clubs that provided assistance and education to families in an effort to reduce disease and infant mortality. In the midst of the Civil War she and her Mothers Day Clubs took care of both Union and Confederate soldiers, feeding and clothing soldiers from both sides who were in the area. They also tended to their wounds, particularly when typhoid fever and measles broke out. When the war was over, she continued her work to bring reconciliation between those who insisted on continuing the conflict. She taught Sunday school in the Methodist Church for the next 25 years. She lectured, spoke, and wrote on a variety of subjects throughout Virginia. When her husband died in 1902, she moved to Philadelphia where her daughter lived and took care of her for the final three years of her life. Jarvis was the inspiration for the creation of Mother s Day, an effort that was led by her daughter, Anna. While many states celebrated such a day, it was not until 1914 that President Woodrow Wilson made it an officially recognized holiday. 1
The special passion, compassion, and tenderness for life that characterized the life of Ann Jarvis can also be found in Scripture. Moses mother (whose name, by the way, we do not know), through the intervention of her daughter with the Egyptian pharaoh s family, is able to nurse and care for her son. In this way, providentially, the baby boy had been saved because the pharaoh had commanded that every newborn boy should be thrown into the Nile River while every girl would be spared. Then there s Hannah who had prayed and prayed to have a child. When she finally was able to do so and gave birth to Samuel, she kept her promise to God and took him to Eli, the priest at Shiloh, to raise him in the temple. Before both Moses mother and Hannah, we remember Abraham and Sarah and how they were told that in their old age they would become parents and indeed not long thereafter Sarah gave birth to Isaac. There seems to be a special bond between mother and child. After all, it is the mother who carries and gives birth to the child. While similar bonds can exist between fathers and their children, and while fathers can and should share the responsibility in raising the children, the emotional connection between a mother and her children seems to be something that is different than that between a father and his children. Of course, this is not universally true, either for all mothers or for all fathers, but in general it seems to be the case. In art we see such maternal compassion in Mary, the mother of Jesus, both in the nativity scene following Jesus birth and at the foot of the cross, the account of which we read this morning in John s Gospel. Michelangelo s Pieta in which Mary holds in her 2
arms the body of the crucified and dead Jesus captures the pathos of a mother for her child. In her book Death of Innocence Mamie Till-Mobley recounts the life and death of her 14-year old son, Emmett, in rural Mississippi where he was kidnapped in August 1955 and tortured to death before being thrown into the Tallahatchie River. That event has been seen as one of the flash points that intensified the civil rights movement. Imagine the sense of loss that that mother experienced or any mother would experience in losing a child. Human language is limited in its ability to describe God. While we know that God is neither male nor female, but a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it (Q & A #4), traditionally God has been described in masculine terms. Even in describing God as a Spirit, the Catechism cannot avoid using the possessive pronoun his in in his being. The problem, of course, is that, knowing the limitations of language, there is, with the use of masculine pronouns, the subtle suggestion that creeps into our mindset that somehow God is male. And while some people tire of having that inaccurate depiction pointed out, it is helpful, I think, to be reminded of the inadequacies and shortcomings of language in describing God. No doubt, you have heard the story of the little girl who was sitting in art class. Walking around the class surveying her students at work, the teacher stopped at this girl s desk and asked what she was drawing. I m drawing God, she replied. Oh, the teacher said, but no one know what God looks like to which the girl responded confidently, They will when I m through. 3
God is neither male nor female. But because, whether intentionally or not, we tend to think of God in male terms, it may be helpful to think, occasionally, of God in female terms. Nicodemus asked Jesus how a person could be born again, or born anew. Can one enter a second time into the mother s womb and be born he asks (John 3:4). Jesus responds The wind (or spirit) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes (John 3:8). So, giving birth is an attribute of God. The passion God has for creation and for God s people, the kind of passion a mother can have for a child gone astray can be seen in the prophet Hosea: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me;... Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them (Hosea 11:1-2b, 3-4). It is probably inappropriate to talk about God in either masculine or feminine terms, but if God is personal, how do we talk about God in a way that maintains both God s intimacy with us and God s uniquely other-ness? At least in the English language that is difficult, if not impossible, so we use both masculine and feminine descriptions, as inadequate as they are. On this Mother s Day when we give thanks for mothers and the gifts they have and share with others, it is appropriate to acknowledge the attributes of God that we normally associate with mothers. The hymn following our Affirmation of Faith tries to do that. The words are: Mothering God, you gave me birth in the bright morning of this world. Creator, source of every breath, you are my rain, my wind, my sun. 4
Mothering Christ, you took my form, offering me your food of light, grain of life, and grape of love, your very body for my peace. Mothering Spirit, nurturing one, in arms of patience hold me close, so that in faith I root and grow until I flower, until I know. Because the tune is new and unfamiliar, this time we will sing it to the suggested alternative tune which is more familiar the tune to O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee. The good news is that God is mystery and beyond anything we can imagine or describe. But the good news also is that God is with us, whether we think of God as the father who welcomes home the prodigal or the mother who weeps with us in our grief and laughs with us in our joys. Whatever we can think or say about God is never enough. God cannot be captured or grasped, but this God s love and grace is more than enough to capture and grasp us. Thanks be to God! 5