Luke 13:31-35
Most pastors, if they are honest, will admit that Mother’s Day is not an easy day for preaching.
The trend within progressive churches is a sharp move away from celebrating Mother’s Day in worship, and with good reason. First, it is not a liturgical holiday. Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost – all of these are religious holidays, part of the liturgical year. Mother’s Day is not. So most of us pastors treat it as we do Memorial Day or Veterans’ Day, other holidays that are national and not religious. We mention the holiday and the related people in our prayers, and then we go back to the lectionary for our sermon. This is what I have done for years.
But the other reason for not preaching about motherhood on Mother’s Day is more complex. On any given Sunday, it is difficult to satisfy the needs of everyone present. Some people come to worship needing comfort and some people come needing challenge; some come searching intellectual stimulation and others want their hearts to be touched. No pastor can meet every need on every Sunday. But this task is especially difficult on Mother’s Day. Some come to church wanting a warm, inspiring message on the glories of motherhood. Others come hoping the pastor will ignore the holiday because it’s too painful.
I’m guessing there is at least one mother here this morning who has already had a long day. She was up at 2:10, and 4:15, and 5:45 this morning, and she’s already done a load of laundry, refereed two fights between her children, dug through the dirty laundry for something clean enough for her to wear – because the load she washed wasn’t for her – and planned her own Mother’s Day lunch. (Oh, and she already sent cards and gifts to her mother AND mother-in-law.) This mother is sitting here thinking, “If I hear one word about how wonderful motherhood is, I’m gonna scream!” And in the next pew there is someone thinking longingly, “I’d take it all.”
Others in the pews would rather not be reminded of their own mothers. Their mothers were not paragons of virtue, did not embody unconditional love and compassion, or didn’t have a maternal instinct in their entire bodies. The offspring of these women are sitting here thinking, “If I hear one word about how wonderful everybody else’s mother was, I’m gonna scream.”
And in the next pew there is someone who chose not to be a mother, and who is hoping nobody will imply that she’s less of a woman because of that choice. And next to her is a woman who chose to end a pregnancy and gets nervous every year for fear that she will be demonized for her choice.
Then there are those mothers who have difficult relationships with their children, or whose children are in trouble, and they secretly wonder if it’s their fault. And, of course, there are those who lost their mothers too soon, and my simply naming that loss is painful to them because they miss their moms so much.
Then there’s the fact that lots of churches, in their efforts to honor mothers, caused unintended pain to others. You see why it’s hard to preach on Mother’s Day? It’s much easier and safer to just go with the lectionary. Preachers calling on other preachers to not preach about motherhood on Mother’s Day were all over Facebook and the blogosphere this week. But there is a flip side, a different way of looking at the issue. One of my friends said, “I understand all the problems, but I like to meet people where they are – and where they are today is Mother’s Day.” Or to put it even more eloquently, another colleague wrote, “I understand that many churches handle Mother’s Day poorly. But part of worship is bringing our whole, broken lives into God’s presence together. If we cannot acknowledge this part of life–with a great deal of sensitivity and care – what other parts should be cut out, too?”
So with great trepidation, I left behind the lectionary texts for this morning. They just didn’t speak to me. And if I wasn’t moved by the scripture, I don’t know how to help you be moved by it. Maybe it’s because of my focus on motherhood right now, with a new toddler in the family.
Later this month there will be a court hearing, which we hope will pave the way for our adoption later this year. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what it means to be a parent, and the many different ways we become parents. The Department of Health and Human Services has a name for us: we are “fictive kin.” At first I was a bit offended – like we are a fictional family! But it means that to this little boy, we are a family that is not currently related by blood or by law, but by heart. Maybe that’s what we are in the church as well.
Anyway, with all my thinking about motherhood, I also have done considerable thinking about fatherhood. Although this little guy will have two loving parents, he will need strong male role models, and I am thankful that I am part of the church, because what a perfect place to find some!
With all this on my mind, I suppose it is only natural that my sermon today be more about parenting than usual. After all, I’m afraid my sermons are often about what God wants to say to me, and y’all just get to listen in. So when I couldn’t hear God speaking to us through the lectionary texts, I found myself looking again at the mother God images in the Bible.
In the Old Testament we have at least ten instances of female images for God, including God being described as a mother bear (Hosea), a mother eagle (Deuteronomy), and a nursing mother (Isaiah). Deuteronomy refers to “the God who gave you birth” and Isaiah says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”
When we read these passages we are reminded that God is the one who gives us life, who holds us close and feeds us with love. I like this image of God. God is a mother eagle, ever present, ever watchful, incubating the eggs and then feeding the young. I like this image of God, too. God is a mother bear, protecting her babies – us – willing to use those claws and teeth against any enemy. I especially like this image of God. I want a Mama Bear God protecting me. You don’t mess with Mama Bear.
And then we have our story with the imagery of Jesus as a mother hen. You know, those fierce mother hens who stand six feet tall, with their sharp claws and jagged teeth. And of course they’re fearless because they can breathe fire. OK, so chickens aren’t fierce. Or scary. I’m sure they can cause some pain with their pecking, but if I had to choose between a mother bear to protect me and a mother hen, I’m pretty sure I would go with the mama bear. But Jesus chose the hen, an adult female chicken. O Jerusalem. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.
Why were the people not willing? Because they didn’t trust him? Because they didn’t believe that he was who he said he was? Or was it because they wanted someone fierce? Maybe they wanted a mama bear, or the lion of Judah – that’s a good strong often-used image in the Old Testament. Maybe they didn’t feel comfortable with a messiah who was a chicken, a messiah who was without defense. If so, well, they weren’t the only ones.
Rev. Mark Driscoll used to be the pastor of Mars Hill Church, a megachurch in Seattle, Washington with fourteen branches in four states. Pastor Driscoll “was named one of the 25 most influential pastors of the past 25 years by Preaching magazine in 2010, and his audio sermon podcast [was] regularly #1 on iTunes’ Religion & Spirituality chart. . . . His hour-long sermons received 10 million plays and downloads in 2011, with another 5 million views of his sermon clips on YouTube and other channels.”[1] The Mars Hill Church is also the third fastest-growing church in the country. Driscoll resigned last fall after many charges of using verbally abusive language, and intimidating the leaders under him with his domineering attitudes.
But here is what Pastor Mark had to say about Jesus a few years ago:
“There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”[2]
The pastor of the third fastest-growing church in the country, who preached to some 13,000 people each week, cannot worship a guy he can beat up. Then Pastor Driscoll better ignore this passage. Because Jesus didn’t look over Jerusalem and say, How often have I desired to gather you together to fight off your enemies like a prize fighter. Jesus didn’t look over Jerusalem and say, How often have I desired to gather your children together like a general gathers his troops. Jesus didn’t even look over Jerusalem and say, How often have I desired to gather you together like a bear protecting her cubs.
No, Jesus chose a chicken, a hen, an animal with few if any weapons against the foxes of this world. We may have a mama bear God, but we have a mother hen Jesus. Our Messiah will not go to battle for us. Our Christ has no claws.
That’s a good thing, although it doesn’t always feel like it. After all, wouldn’t you kind of like to have a Christ who will take your side in every argument? How about a Christ who will kick some butt and take some names (of your enemies)? How about a Christ who will respond when we sing “God Bless America” not as a prayer but as a demand – or worse, a warning? How about a Christ who will endorse the right candidates? Or will, at the very least, keep silent when we vote for our own well-being instead of God’s will? How about a Christ who will come into our schools and put the bullies in their place? Or, please Lord, at least keep the crazy people out? Wouldn’t we rather have a Jesus who has some teeth to him? Or at least a little roar?
A mother hen, gathering her chicks under her wings. This is what Jesus longed to be 2000 years ago, and what Christ still longs to be today. The offer is still on the table: come gather under the wings of Divine love. Those wings will not protect us from every bad thing that can happen in life; but they will keep us warm and dry and they will keep us close to one another.
We’re all just baby chicks, little balls of energy, who think all our pecking and scurrying around is so important. We’re just baby chicks. But we’re Christ’s chicks, male and female, young and old, those who celebrate today and those who struggle today and those who mourn today. We’re Christ’s chicks, nestled under those great arms of love, fictive kin. Accept the embrace.
[1] http://marshill.com/pastors/mark-driscoll
[2] As quoted on http://www.inhabitatiodei.com/2008/05/09/who-can-mark-driscoll-worship/