Lent 4, Mothering Sunday,
Ex 2.1-10, Col 3.12-17, Jn 19.25-27

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Today, contrary to what you might think, is not mothers’ day. Call me a pedant if you like, but mothers’ day is an event that takes place in most other countries usually on the second Sunday in May to make it easy for greeting card companies. In the Arab world, it is celebrated on March 21st, the first day of spring. Here we celebrate the 4th Sunday in Lent, not as Mothers’ Day but as Mothering Sunday and its foundation is much more historic and Christian-based. Mothering is altogether a much deeper concept and something that is more inclusive, whether somebody is actually a mother or not. 

Of course, we also want to celebrate all that our mothers have done for us, and to thank them, and perhaps give them some treats. That is all fine and good, but it can also feel a bit intimidating as well. There are all these perfect examples of motherhood, and we have to recognize that not only is no one perfect, or a perfect mother, not everyone is a mother, not everyone wants to be a mother, some mothers have lost children, some mothers have died, and others are separated from them by geography, illness or have a difficult relationship with them. Not all images are positive. Right now, the image of Mother Russia is hardly a positive one. 

So this can be a tough day for some people but as we think of it in these broader terms of mothering, and the good traits which we associate with that, all of us can celebrate those, all of us can exemplify them as well, men as well as women, but let’s start with the historical context. 

It goes back at least to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the NT reading for the 4th Sunday of Lent, which was from Galatians 4, ‘the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all’. That Sunday also became a celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother, the annunciation to whom we celebrated only on Friday, 25th March, precisely 9 months before Christmas. Lent 4, however, varies with the date of Easter by about 6 weeks so the fact that it is close, this year is simply a coincidence. 

Anyway as a result of all this, it became the custom in some parts of England to allow servants to go home to visit their mothers and it also became the day on which congregations from daughter churches visited the mother church and particularly the Cathedral. So, a particular welcome to you if you are visiting us today from another church. It is a good and holy tradition! 

[In the readings, we heard in the Old Testament the story of Moses birth from Exodus Chapter 2, but we didn’t hear the context in which that all happened. At the end of the book of Genesis we had the story of Joseph and his brothers and how he ended up as Pharoah’s right had man and had saved them from starvation through the interpretation of a dream, and he became a great leader in Egypt, trusted by Pharoah, and well regarded.  

In Exodus 1, after he and all that generation had died, that all changed and we were told that ‘the Israelites were fruitful and prolific, they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.’ So many were they that they began to outnumber the Egyptians. The answer of Rameses, the new king of Egypt, was to force them into hard labour, and he then instructed the Hebrew midwives to kill the boys and spare the girls, but they failed to obey him. Finally, Rameses instructed his own people to ensure that every boy born to the Hebrews was to be thrown into the Nile.  

Perhaps in this incident we can see the connection with the later Passover of the first-born, that led to the death of the Egyptian firstborn and eventual release of the Israelites but what we learn here is why Moses’ mother hid him in the bulrushes in the first place. Without that, it would all be very strange. 

What we learn here is about the power of a mother’s love, that special bond between a mother and her child, that in this case led Moses’ mother to carry out the letter of the law but not the spirit. Initially she managed to keep him. Now as anyone with children knows, you cannot keep a baby hidden for very long until someone notices the screaming and crying. In most cases that’s about a second after they are born and doesn’t stop until they are three or possibly 23. This is of course completely normal. A few people seem to be blessed with especially quiet children, who sleep for hours and eat anything, and perhaps Moses was one such child. We were not amongst them! 

Anyway, the time shortly arrived when she could hide him no longer and she placed him in a specially constructed basket, carrying out Rameses order, but giving him a chance for life. 

It is easy to miss this, but we then heard about the key actions taken by Moses’ clever older sister. The sister stood at a distance watching what would happen. When Pharoah’s daughter, always unnamed, discovered him, his sister steps forward and offers to find ‘a nurse from the Hebrew women’ for her and of course fetches her mother. So not only does she get her son back, but she also gets paid for it. How canny is that? And furthermore, he is effectively adopted by Pharoah’s daughter and therefore protecting him from further harm. Whether we should deduce anything from Pharoah’s daughter’s willingness to disobey her father, is an interesting question, if hard to answer with any certainty. 

What an interesting but also useful start in life. We know that he was well aware of his Hebrew origins, and furthermore borne to two Levites, the priestly line. While it is unlikely he would have had much contact with the inner court, he would certainly have gained an insight into its workings and the way that the Egyptians thought, that would have helped him enormously in his later dealings with them as God’s emissary for the people of Israel. So, God did not simply give Moses a bunch of useful miracles to perform later on, he also gave him the best possible relevant experience, that he was going to need to fulfil his role as leader of the people of Israel. All this arose from the selfless act of his mother giving him up for adoption.  

In that very short gospel reading, Jesus who would, I am sure, have been breaking his mother’s heart at him being on the cross, speaking to her of the beloved disciple, ‘Woman here is your Son’, and to him, ‘here is your mother’. This too was an adoption, one which was not about replacing him for his mother but ensuring her protection and economic survival.] 

The adoption theme is particularly interesting and important and that is not just because I was adopted myself. In the New Testament, St Paul repeatedly talks about adoption as the means by which we all became members of the household and family of God. In Ephesians, Paul says ‘he’, that is God, ‘destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ’. In the same way that the beloved disciple effectively became adopted by Mary, we are adopted by God as his children. And, just as for the beloved disciple, that comes with responsibilities. Those are well expressed in the NT in passages like the hymn to love in 1 Cor 13, and in the passage, we heard from Colossians where Paul exhorted his audience and by extension, us, to be clothed with ‘compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’. 

Those might be traits we associate with motherhood, with mothering but they need not be limited and must not be limited to them. We can all seek to display those things and exemplify them in our lives. Whether we have good associations with our mothers or not, we can all celebrate those things which show motherhood at its best. 

As we need more people with those traits as those coming here as refugees from Ukraine, will need motherly care from the traumas they have experienced. This diocese has just agreed to be a strategic partner with Citizens UK to host at least 50 out of 1,000 Ukrainian refugees, that they will be bringing over in the next few weeks and months. The details are still being worked out but further information will be available in due course on the diocesan website. So there is mothering work to be done there. 

We have now reached the middle of Lent. That is why today is also refreshment Sunday, and we can relax from our Lenten fasts, but we cannot relax from those traits in Colossians with which St Paul calls us to be clothed. Those continue.  

[So this Mothering Sunday, we give thanks for our mothers, whether living or dead. We can give thanks also for our holy mother the Church, and the nurture she has given us throughout our lives. We give thanks for this our Cathedral and mother church of the diocese.  

And let us also give thanks to God, whose mothering of us, the compassion, caring, loving, embracing and adopting of us all, goes far beyond anything we might imagine or understand, and who gave us Jesus his Son, to suffer, to die, but also to rise again for us.] 

Amen.