The Mothering Life

This sermon was preached on May 13, 2012 at Glebe-St. James United Church.

“The Mothering Life’                      1 John 5: 1-6

by Rev. Dr. Christine Johnson

There are a lot of ambivalent feelings when it comes to Mother’s Day.

That’s because we’re not all on the same page when it comes to the word “Mother.”

For some us, it conjures up amazing, loving images.

For others, it conjures up fear, anger and confusion. 

To get away from these fraught memories,

                we want to call this day, Christian Family Day.

We’re fearful of offending someone who objects to the celebration of Mother’s Day.

My answer to this is multiple.

As a Christian community, we can’t ignore the pain that has been suffered

                by children at the hands of their mothers.

As a Christian community, we can’t ignore the fact

that some children are never raised by female mothers.

Perhaps, a child’s mother has died, or a child is being raised solely by a father,

                or in the case of a same-sex marriage, by two fathers.

Perhaps, you are a child who was given up for adoption,

                and so “mother” is a difficult word for you.

You see, I believe that these are the very reasons

why it’s important to have a Mother’s Day

                and/or a Father’s Day.

By keeping them both, we get to examine both the positive and negative sides

                of these important roles.

When we tell the truth about the pain

that has been suffered at the hands of parents,

                then we can reflect on what causes that pain,

                and work towards right relations with our families and all families.

Our reading from the epistle of First John gives us some clues.

For when we examine the nature of love,

                we learn about ourselves and the actions we take.

There’s a lot about love in the New Testament

                because when it comes to this thing we call love

                we have to continually work at it. 

We often get sidetracked because our ego gets in the way.

When we become the sole centre of our universe,

children often become there to gratify our hopes and dreams

rather than their own.

That’s why it’s important to look at verse two closely.

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey her commandments.”

One older commentary on this verse (from 1599) goes like this:

“The love of our neighbour depends on the love with which we love God,

that this last must go before the first:

of which it follows, that that is not to be called love, when men agree together to do evil,

 neither that, when as in loving our neighbours, we do not respect God's commandments.”

In other words,

                    our love is not about self-gratification or simply getting along with the neighbours,

                    we love God’s children because we love God and follow God’s way.

In Christian theology, you cannot love without loving God.

If you love God, then you follow God’s commandments.

When we read a sign like “An ounce of mothering is worth a pound of preaching,”

                    we instinctively know that mothering and loving are almost synonymous.

For sheer love comes before handing out advice.

In the midst of trials, we know that the loving touch, or word, or embrace

                    goes much further than a lecture about from a well-meaning person.

So today is a great day to wrestle with the idea of mothering,

                    and try to articulate what it really means.

First of all, mothering signals a close relationship.

One of the most basic questions we all ask is “Are you my mother?”

Do you remember the children’s book by the same name?

In the book, a small bird hatches from his egg while his mother is off looking for food.

He falls out of the nest and starts looking for his mother.

He asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No."

Then he sees an old car, which cannot be his mother for sure. In desperation, the hatchling calls out to a boat and a plane, and at last, convinced he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an enormous power shovel. This machine, powered by a human, deposits the bird back into the nest.

I read this book so many times to my children I had it memorized.

But it points to a profound reality –

we need close, intimate relationships in order to help us define who we are.

When we lose our mothers, we feel disoriented and can spend a lifetime looking for them.

So it makes it doubly complicated, if we know who our biological mother is,

                but have been mis-treated by her.

Then, we’re always on the look-out for someone who can fill a healthy mothering role.

That’s why it’s important for all of us, men and women,

                to learn the skill of mothering. 

You never know when you might be called to be a mother for someone.

So, how do we define mothering, as opposed to being mothers?

I go to 1 Corinthians 13.

The treatise on love is a beautiful template for mothering,

                because it defines agape, God’s self-giving love for us.

If you replace the word love, with mothering, as I did in our call to worship, you get a beautiful picture.

Mothering is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Mothering never ends because mothering is love.

These are the basics.

But what is mothering about?

It’s more about a way of being, than a role that we assume.

That’s why anyone can live the mothering life.

Mothering is about taking care of us –

                feeding us, clothing us, getting us a drink of water when we’re thirsty.

Mothering is about listening to us–

                being open to our ideas, ready to give support and encouragement.

Mothering is about being honest with us –

                when we do things that are harmful to ourselves or others, we hear about it.

Mothering is about reveling in our uniqueness –

                seeing us as individuals and marvelling at who we are.

Mothering is about letting us go –

                when we’re ready to leave the nest, mothers help us along the way.

Mothering is about forgiveness and “non-judgemental positive regard” –

                even when a child does something that you don’t agree with, you love them anyway.

I’m not saying that mothers are perfection personified,

                or that mothering is easy,

                but if we all together in our own way and with our own gifts

                live the mothering life, all God’s children will benefit.

So I want you to hear this.

If you’ve been abused at the hands of your mother,

                well she wasn’t living the mothering life.

If you’ve been abandoned by a biological mother, or an adopted mother, or a guardian,

                then they were not living the mothering life.

If your mother was all about herself,

                and you couldn’t find your individuality in the midst of her issues,

                then she was not living the mothering life.

Don’t give up on the concept of mothering, just because one person was really bad at it.

Take this knowledge and find people who know how to live the mothering life.

They are the people that will give you the resources to live.

One of my best friends was adopted as an infant when her adoptive parents were both about forty.

At some point in her adult life, she sought out her biological mother.

They formed a positive, but somewhat distant relationship.

When her adopted mother died recently at the age of 92,

                her biological mother was in attendance at the funeral.

If my friend asked the question to each one of them,

                “Are you my mother?”, they both would have answered “Yes.”

So, I believe it’s possible to have more than one mother.

In Africa, many grandmothers and aunts and sisters and fathers have become mothers.

On Mother’s Day, we don’t just celebrate the person who gave us life.

We celebrate the mothering life.

The mothering life is a life of love, first given to us by God,

                and a gift we give to others.