Sermons

Mothering Sunday
Sunday 14 March 2010

David Paton-Williams

Readings: Psalm 127 v1-4, Luke 2 v33-35

"I can't come to Church on Sunday because it's Mother's Day."

That is the sort of comment that I have heard from time to time over the years, and it shows us how much Mothering Sunday has changed in recent decades.

Because of course Mothering Sunday was traditionally one of the days people did go to church. They gathered together in their Mother Church.

No doubt there was a celebration of human motherhood but it was first and foremost a celebration of the church as our mother.

The role of the Church is to be our spiritual mother.

- helping to bring people to spiritual birth
- helping faith to come alive and be real for people
- helping nurture that faith so that people can grow as Christians

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or born from above, (the Greek can mean either)

Just as there has been physical birth, and then, later on, moral and intellectual birth, so there has to be spiritual birth, - wakening up to spiritual reality and responding to God in a life-giving and life-changing relationship.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that this is God's work - the work of the Spirit but sometimes he uses human beings to help in that process
sometimes he uses the church - the community of Christians - to help in that process.

The church is called to be a life-giving community, as we live out and share our faith with others.

And once we come alive spiritually, there is the process of growing in faith and love and understanding. We need to be nurtured.

Sometimes a person can awaken spiritually at one point in their life and not really grow and develop and very easily they can so to speak fall asleep again.

Faith is not a badge that we wear, or a label that we carry, it is a journey, with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns, but it needs to be living, dynamic and changing if it is to be real.

It needs to engage with real life, with real issues, and with all the rest of our 21st century understanding of the world we live in.

We have a degree of personal responsibility in this - to attend to our faith so that it remains alive and vibrant.

But the church has a role to play in it too - through worship, prayer, teaching, group life, and so on.

The church is called to be a nurturing community as we help ourselves and others to move forward on the journey of faith - keeping it alive and growing.

But mother's do more than give birth and nurture their children.

At least sometimes, they serve to bring the family together.

Many a time it is the death of a mother that presents a challenge to the children about whether they will still gather together as siblings, because up to now it has been mum who has been the focal point of the family community, with children and grandchildren gathering around the table to enjoy a good meal, or whatever.

And mother church is called to bring people together from all different walks of life, from different social backgrounds
and across all the generations.

Mother church draws people together for worship but not simply for worship, also - to share food together, like two Sunday mornings ago, to pray - as in the Julian group to share faith and understanding (as in the "May I call you friend" course, or the ways of praying course) to work together in a common cause for the sake of others - as with the welcoming the stranger meeting, or the environment festival of a few years ago (and now REAP). Mothers can also be fiercely protective as well. We only have to think of how mothers in the animal kingdom behave. And many a meek and mild human mother has become a staunch defender of her children when she feels they are being threatened.

And mother church is called to a similar role in our defence of the vulnerable, the needy, the exploited, the neglected.

The church as a community of love is not to always be meek and mild. It is to be a community of protective love which goes out in active service of those who cannot protect themselves.

And mothers can suffer greatly as well. When we love we make ourselves vulnerable, open to being hurt open to the suffering of others, whether that is worry, anxiety, pain or grief.

And mother church, if it is to be a loving community, will be a place of compassion, where as St Paul said, if one suffers all suffer. It will be a place where we are open to the pains and problems of others, to share in them and support them through.

So the church is called to be Mother Church
- bringing people to new birth - helping them to discover the reality and love of God in their lives
- helping to nurture and sustain faith in the midst of the modern world with all its blessings and challenges
- providing a centre for community, because we can be and do more together than we ever could on our own
- working as protectors of the vulnerable - in society or the natural world.
- and being a place of compassion - sharing the suffering of others

No doubt there is much more that could be said about the nature of the church - but today it is good today to reflect on our call together to be a mothering church -

There are many people who find today a rather painful experience. Perhaps that is because we have put too much focus on human mothers. Perhaps the answer is to recover something of the traditional wisdom and give thanks for Mother Church, and commit ourselves to being a mothering church for others.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay