Mother’s day; Psalm 22, 9.10,11; Psalm 131 ; Psalm 139:13-15 ; John 17: 23-25

God’s maternal instinct?

A four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their Mom with a house plant. They had used their own money and she was thrilled. The older of them said with a sad face, “There was a bouquet that we wanted to give you at the flower shop. It was real pretty, but it was too expensive. It had a ribbon on it that said, ‘Rest In Peace,’ and we thought it would be just perfect since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest.” Friends, there are a lot of quotes about mothers. There are even quotes that tie mothers to God. Here is one from Abraham Lincoln: “No man is poor who has had a godly mother.”  Here is a Spanish proverb: an ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.”  That one makes you think. We know it’s Mother’s day today and we know we are supposed to be honoring mothers or rather: those with a maternal instinct.  We know mothers have sometimes been like God to us. We also know that in church on mother’s day we are supposed to be thanking God for mothers.  So you could say that we need God and gratitude to God to really understand mothers?  But is the reverse true?  Do we need mothers to understand God? Or rather: do we need the maternal instinct to understand God?  (Hewett:) When Robert Ingersoll, the notorious skeptic, was in his heyday, two college students went to hear him lecture. As they walked down the street after the lecture, one said to the other, “Well, I guess he knocked the props out from under Christianity, didn’t he?” The other said, “No, I don’t think he did. Ingersoll did not explain my mother’s life, and until he can explain my mother’s life I will stand by my mother’s God.” What he is saying is that God is showing him who God is through his mother’s life. Brooks Ramsey, a pastoral counselor writes:”  A few days ago I made a marvelous discovery. In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament the word for “compassion” comes from the root word, “womb.” The picture is of a birthing. Something new is being born. If I apply this in a human experience, it means that my compassionate acts always give the other person another chance. I do not hold past failures against them. I offer a “fresh start.” I want this for myself from others. Am I willing to give it to the other person? Such compassion will dramatically change the way we relate to each other.  Friends, we can see a connection here between God’s love and the idea of womb.  Taiwanese theologian C.S. Song wrote a book called: “Theology from the womb of Asia.” Again we see that connection.  Could we think of God as having a womb?  We hold on to this idea of male power and it is all through language. We translate the word Jesus uses to address God the Creator as “Father.” This limits us. Therefore we use he for God all over the Bible and all over our worship program (but not in this church anymore).  Ilion Jones concludes the following, “I ask you, who was greater, Thomas A. Edison or his mother? When he was a young lad his teacher sent him home with a note which said, ‘Your child is dumb. We can’t do anything for him.’ Mrs. Edison wrote back, ‘You do not understand my boy. I will teach him myself’. And she did, with results that are well known. (Hewett) Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny baby in her arms, when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination and when the blizzard had subsided, her body was found by searchers beneath a mound of snow. But they discovered that before her death, she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby. When they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had mounded her body over his and given her life for her child, proving the depths of her mother love. Years later that child, David Lloyd George, grown to manhood, became prime minister of Great Britain, and, without doubt, one of England’s greatest statesman. This is a great story and I hope it is completely true.  In one of the best programs on television “Call the Midwife there is always a little reflection at the beginning and at the end read by Vanessa Redgrave. At the end of a recent episode she reads:” there is a lot of love in people’s hearts that never gets spoken…” She is referring to the relationship of a bitterly hurt dying father and his bitterly hurt daughter who has just given birth to a son.  Look, friends, there are a lot of different mothers.  Not all of them are nice or kind or affirming all the time, but probably more of them are than fathers. We would all agree that there is something of the closeness and unconditional love that the idea of mother gives us that we do need to understand God.  If we keep thinking of a God as the stern Father who lightens up once in a while and swallows his anger, we miss the full picture of the love of God Who is everywhere.  In a mother’s approach the love often gets spoken more than in the father’s love even though it is just as much there in both.  Friends, let’s be grateful for God’s maternal instinct.