A Role Rarely Easy
Humorist and essayist Erma Bombeck said famously and with painful
accuracy, “Growing old isn’t for sissies.” Neither is being a mom! I once had a
choir director named Bruce. He described a mother’s job as imagining the worst
possible scenario in any situation and then making plans to prevent it. Talk about
a tough job.
I’ve watched almost no basketball this year. The Sixers stunk and I’m no
longer much interested anyway. Now the NBA season is over and the playoffs are
in full swing. The center for the Oklahoma City Thunder is named Kevin Durant.
Just this week he was named as the league’s most valuable player. In part of his
emotional acceptance speech, he thanked his mother. He told how hard she
worked to support her family as a single mom, and how many nights she went to
bed hungry so her children wouldn’t have to. I’m sure he’s taking good care of
her now. Sometimes there is a reward for sacrificial love. Meticulous care and
self sacrifice are at the heart of our faith.
On this Mother’s Day we could settle for mushy sentiment and Hallmark
schmaltz. We could trot out some trite phrases of appreciation and gratitude.
But let’s not! Let’s try to go a little deeper. You see moms were made in the
image of God. Relax dads; I’ll get to you in about a month when Father’s Day rolls
around.
I think it’s fair to say that the dominant metaphor for speaking of God in
scripture is God as Father, but there is ample material that speaks of God’s
motherly and feminine characteristics as well. Of course we know that God is
neither male nor female, that our notions of male and female reveal aspects of
God’s character which encompasses and goes beyond all of our metaphors and
symbols and similes as all of our language about God is strained to the limit. The
reality of God is so majestic it defies description by us. The creator defines the
creature, not the other way around. When creatures think to define their creator
using words or images or objects, we call that idolatry, which the Bible always
condemns.
The best way I know to pay special honor to mothers today is to relate
motherhood to the nature and character of God. Take the passage I just read
from Isaiah 49 for example. Israel has been in bitter exile in Babylon for a long
time, drinking to the rancid dregs the experiences of captivity. It’s been so bad
for so long that worship has turned to lamentation. “The Lord has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.” God’s answer comes through the prophet in the form
of a question: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for
the child of her womb?”
God anticipates that people who feel God forsaken and God-forgotten may
be in such despair that their answer would be “yes”. Sometimes human mothers
can be that wounded, can be so damaged, that they cannot even love her own
children very well. There may be abuse, neglect, even abandonment done by a
mother who is personally damaged. There may be a few of you today who have
endured the pain of such brokenness from a severely wounded mother. It can
happen.
God anticipates this answer and goes further: “Even these may forget, yet I
will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” God
uses one of the most powerful images of love possible among human beings, the
love of a nursing mother for a child, the child of her womb, the life that was
conceived and carried within her own body and brought into the world through
the travail of childbirth, to illustrate the depth of love God has for God’s people,
even in their darkest hours. The travail of our souls is the travail of God’s own
heart. We are now inscribed on the palms of Christ’s hands by nail scars. Those
scars were not erased after the resurrection. Think of “doubting Thomas” and his
encounter with the risen Christ. He demands to see and touch the wounds of
Jesus and Jesus obliges him. Jesus bears them still for all eternity as a
proclamation of his undying love for each of us.
Almost every mother that ever lived knows what it’s like to keep on loving
through wounds of love and the scars they leave behind. Every mother alive
knows that to love and raise a child is expensive and demanding. It requires
persistence and patience. It involves being misunderstood by their children as
they grow up. Children don’t always understand what mom’s are up to, what is
their agenda, what’s the plan. They don’t always comprehend the mother’s
wisdom and the whys of her discipline. Just like God’s kids, mom’s kids sooner or
later want to do what they want, to go their own way, and do their own thing.
The desire to please mom recedes into the background and the desire to please
self moves to the fore.
In some ways this is natural and healthy. We call it cutting the apron
strings. A wise mother knows enough to let go in a timely way. But when it
comes to the life in the Spirit moving away from God is going in the wrong
direction. It is healthy to differentiate ourselves from our human mothers but it is
not healthy to try to separate ourselves from the motherly love of God. Paul
writes in Romans 8 that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God
through Christ Jesus our Lord.
In Luke 13:34-35, Jesus is on the brink of being arrested and executed
because his own people would clamor for his death. He laments over Jerusalem:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are
sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is
left to you.”
Sometimes a mother’s lot is lamentation. Israel in Jesus’ day had been
home from exile for a long time. The city that was to be the Holy City is described
by Jesus as the place where the prophets and sent ones of the Holy God go to die.
The people are likened to a brood of chicks, running here and there, insensible to
the dangers all around them. They are vulnerable. They are easy prey to any
enemy passing by. Jesus likened his desire to that of a mother hen who would
gather the chicks under the protection of her wings, but the chicks are unwilling.
So Jesus says in effect, “Have it your way. Your house is left to you. You are
doomed to lose sight of me until you learn to praise my name.”
Perhaps you are a mother today who knows of this pain, the pain of seeing
the danger and longing to offer protection but being rebuffed by a child who
thinks they know life better than you. It’s not an easy place to be. In the words of
the pop singer Billy Joel, “You may be wrong for all I know, but you may be right.”
If you are right about the danger and the protection is refused, there may be
broken hearts and broken lives all around. A mother’s heart that reflects the love
of God is a heart of protection. It is also a heart open to anguish.
Finally, look with me briefly at this little gem about the kingdom of God.
The parable about the woman and the lost coin is tucked neatly by Luke between
the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the prodigal son.
In the former, Jesus asks, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and
losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after
the one that is lost until he finds it?” A sheep owner would never say, “Oh well,
it’s only one of hundred. It’s a loss but I can live with it.” Jesus is teaching them
what God is like. God is not willing that one should be lost. God wants not even
one to perish. So too, each child is precious to a mother!
In the latter, we see a father dealing with two lost sons, not just one. The
first is lost in the pig sty of his own sin but returns home at last. The older brother
is lost out back in resentment, bitterness, and jealousy. We’re not told whether
he ever relented and came to the party. The decision lay open, so that the
Pharisees and other opponents of Jesus might be able to see what was going on
and accept the invitation to celebrate salvation with all the rest of the redeemed.
The same decision confronts every mother’s son or daughter sooner or later. Will
I say yes or no to the saving knowledge of Christ which a Christian mother most
certainly has tried to pass on to her children.
In today’s text lying between a one in a hundred story and a one out of two
story, we hear Jesus likening the kingdom of God to a woman who lost one silver
coin of the ten she had. The woman searching for the lost coin represents God.
The lost coin represents a child of God. She lights a lamp. Let there be light. The
light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it. She sweeps
the place, getting rid of the clutter, removing anything that would hide the
presence of her treasure. She searches carefully. That’s what God is doing in
Christ, searching diligently for that which was lost, for us. Once found, let the
rejoicing begin. Saved people are cause for all of heaven to throw a party.
Sometimes a mother has to keep the light on. She has a lost child who may
yet look up searching for a beacon light showing the way back home. Sometimes
a mother must sweep out the dust of her own life, deciding what matters and
what doesn’t. It can happen that inconsequential things can pile up in a mother’s
soul until she loses sight of what’s important. When a child is lost, mothers need
both light and clarity. They need wisdom to order their priorities aright.
Sometimes mothers are conscripted by love to a careful search, a search that, like
God’s search, may end in much sacrifice. A good mother will say it is worth it.
So let’s review. Motherhood, like God-hood, involves hard work, selfsacrifice, loving through wounds both large and small. It is expensive and
demanding, requiring great patience and persistence. Mothering will be often
misunderstood by the mother-ees. Effective mothering knows and assents to
eventual separation as the child becomes mature and in health must differentiate
his or her life from the mom. All the while the mother imagines the worst, sounds
her warnings, and makes plans for protection. Sometimes things go from bad to
worse. Sometimes there is nothing for a mother to do but cry. Then through
tears she begins to search, to turn on the lights of faith, hope, wisdom, and love.
And yes, when the story comes out in God’s way, there is rejoicing. It’s party
time! Now if I can just figure out how to put that in schmaltzy doggerel, I’ll make
Jean a Mother’s Day card.