Luke 2:19

Well, it's not a great rendition of the infamous Mother's Day Hymn, but it's the only one I know. And that's how we often think of mom - constantly giving. Whatever happens, whatever we've done or not done, mom is the one who is always there, always giving, always helping - whether we are two months old or seventy-two years old. It doesn't matter.

The ancient Israelites mainly used the masculine gender to describe God, mostly for important theological reasons - they were competing with other religious cults that, like some in our own time, saw humankind s being birthed out of the same order of things as every creature, and the gods were part of that process. The gods they worshipped were like people, who expressed themselves - not always appropriately - in sexual ways. But the Israelites didn't see things that way. So they didn't want their God to be confused with these female gods. God and the creation are two very separate entities. We are not born out of God, but created from dust.

Yet, although we often call God Father, it is many of God's motherly characteristics that mean so much to us: patience, kindness, longsuffering, hope, God's willingness to accept hurt rather than to give it, to bear wrong rather than inflict it. Put it all together, and it spells, "LOVE."

Actually, the Israelites did have a female counterpart to God - they called her, "Wisdom." Through Wisdom, God created everything, gave birth to the world, brought life into being. This Wisdom was enfleshed in the person, Jesus Christ. This Wisdom which breathed over creation, which brooded over creation, God's ruach, his pnema, his breath, his Spirit, which lovingly, tenderly still broods over us, which tenderly holds us, which never lets go of us, which remembers his dream for us and which keeps us in that dream. His Spirit which takes root in us, in our baptism, and lives in us, and takes the shape of Christ in us.

One of my favorite bits that Garrison Kiellor does is the one about, "Mother Spit." He says that there is a great difference between mother spit and father spit, and he explains it this way: when you first went off to kindergarten, or on your first date, or on that first job interview, Mother was always the on to get hold of you just before you went out the door. She'd straighten your clothes, brush her fingers through your hair, and give you a few gentle admonitions. Then, before you were quite able to get away, she would always take out her handkerchief, and wet it a little with Mother Spit, and gently rub away the little smudges, all the little imperfections, before you felt to face the world. And you could go anywhere with confidence, because you knew you were protected by Mother Spit.

Father Spit couldn't do that. If dad got out his handkerchief, you probably wouldn't want to be touched by it anyway, because you never knew where it had been or what it had in it. And if he spit into it and touched you with it, it was liable to leave a brown stain that wouldn't come off easily.

Mother's admonitions, which she gave while she was gently wiping away every imperfection, were fair and gentle - reminding you whose child you were, reminding you of her love for you, reminding you to always treat people carefully, courteously, reverently. Dad was more likely to tell you about the brakes, to remember to fill the car with gas, and perhaps on certain occasions he might even take you downstairs for a little chalk-talk about birds and bees, and you were always surprised that he even knew about such things.

Mother would wipe away all of your imperfections - she could do it with just a few wipes of her handkerchief and a little Mother Spit, and send you on your way - her perfect child. That is grace. That is how God sees us too. He knows our imperfections. He knows our weaknesses. He remembers that we are but dust, and sometimes it tends to gather right behind our ears. Yet his grace hold us, as he remembers us with his motherly heart. And when we get banged up and bruised up by the harshness of the world, and the harshness of life, he takes out his handkerchief, spits into it, and gently - oh so gently - washes us in the gently waters of our baptism, cleanses us, speaks sweet promises to us, makes us whole again, perfect in his sight - no matter how glaring our imperfections may appear to us or to others. To him, they are simply washed away. They do not exist.

It is said that, "Love covers a multitude of sins." It also covers a multitude of brokenness and hurt. And when we are children that only a mother could love, God does just that, continuing his love to us, loving us even as no mother could love, through all of our imperfections and in spite of our sin and brokenness, and whispering into our ears that vision of ourselves that we would never otherwise have a chance to see - a vision of ourselves as whole, complete, and perfect. "You are my child, after all," he gently whispers. "Remember that. You are always in my love."

Our text says that, after all these things happened to Mary and Joseph and their baby, Jesus - that "Mary kept these things, pondering them in her heart." I wonder what it was that she pondered. Did she think of the fact that she was so young - too young to have a family? Or that she was the object of ridicule of so many who thought Joseph got her pregnant, that she was a very foolish girl, and a little loose, who thought this story of God making her pregnant was more than a little crazy? Did she think of the long ride to Bethlehem, or the hardship of the stable, the smell of the animals, the pain of childbirth? Is that what she held in her heart? I don't think so.

Or did she gaze into the eyes of this small child, so helpless, so trusting of her - and hold his tiny fingers in her hand, and count every one to make sure they were all there; and then marvel at the grace and mercy of God, who would entrust this great miracle to her? Did she look upon his ruddy little face, and see the miracle within him that no one else but God knew?

Any mother who ever has had a child, who has had a chance to look into the face of her own child that way, immediately knows the answer to that question. What a gift it is to live in that kind of love. And what a grace it is to have experienced that gift, to know that quality of love through our own mothers.

Today, on behalf of all those not old enough nor eloquent enough, who struggle sometimes to find the words to say all that is in our hearts, and in behalf also of the God who mothers us, and has given us motherhood so that we can know at least something of his own love for us; in behalf of all these: "Thanks, mom. We love you." Amen.