Like a Child Quieted at Her Mother’s Breast

Transcribed from the sermon preached May 12, 2013

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

 Scripture Readings: Isaiah 42:1-14, Luke 15:1-10

 Define sweater: something you have to wear when your mother feels cold.

Why do mother kangaroos hate rainy days? Kids have to play inside.

 

On this mother’s day Dave Barry wrote giving advice to men on giving gifts to women:

 

I once worked with a guy named George who, for Christmas, gave his wife, for her big gift – and I am not making this up – a chain saw. (As he later explained: “Hey, we NEEDED a chain saw.”) Fortunately, the saw was not operational when his wife unwrapped.

 

The mistake that George and my dad made, and that many guys make, was thinking that when you choose a gift for a woman, it should be something useful. Wrong! The first rule of buying gifts for women is: THE GIFT SHOULD NOT DO ANYTHING, OR, IF IT DOES, IT SHOUD DO IT BADLY.

 For example, let’s consider two possible gifts, both of which theoretically perform the same function:

GIFT ONE: A state-of-the-art gasoline powered lantern with electronic ignition and dual mantles capable of generating 1,200 lumens of light for 10 hours on a single tank of fuel.

GIFT TWO: A scented beeswax candle, containing visible particles of bee poop and providing roughly the same illumination as a lukewarm corndog.

 

Now to a guy, Gift One is clearly superior, because you could use it to see in the dark. Whereas to a woman, Gift Two is MUCH better, because women like to sit around in the gloom with reeking sputtering candles, and don’t ask ME why.

 Read more here: http://www/miamiherald.com/2001/04/15/612227/a-real-giving-kind-ofguy.html#storylink=cpy

 What we are asking this morning is why we are so accustomed to exclusively masculine images of God? In the scripture passages this morning, we find feminine references to God.  Speaking of God as feminine may be a bit shocking to our worldview, but it has been there, in our sacred texts, in our soul, in God’s call to live up to the true meaning of our Christian creed.   Elizabeth Johnson, in She Who Is, writes that as the “early church became acculturated in the Greco-Roman world, it gradually shaped itself according to the model of the patriarchal household and then to the model of the empire.  The image of Christ consequently assumed contours of the male head of household or the imperial ruler, a move correlated with similar ideas of church office.  Christ was viewed as the principle of headship and cosmic order, the ruling king of glory… whose heavenly reign sets up and sustains the earthly rule of the head of the family, empire, and church. Obedience to these authorities was obedience to Christ; disobedience to them called into question one’s allegiance to Christ himself.  Thus co-opted, the powerful symbol of the liberating Christ lost its subversive, redemptive significance.” (p.151)

The maleness of Jesus is as intrinsic to his historical person as his familial, ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural particularity; it is part of his incarnational nature.  In a just society and a just church, Johnson says, it would not be an issue.  The problem arises when the maleness of Jesus is used to reinforce a patriarchal image of the Divine, and when his maleness is thought to imply there is something of particular honor in male sex since God chose to become male.

Now it is clear from Buddhist and Hindu cultures that feminine deity does not necessarily lead to equality and safety for girls, women and mothers.  But to the degree that God has been used to reinforce cultural stratification, violence and injustice against anyone, then we must question whether or not our image of God has done an idolatrous injustice to the Mother of all life herself. 

When you have done it to these, Jesus said, you have done it to me.  When we have been mean or kind, just or unjust to our sister, daughter, mother, wife, or any woman, we have been mean or kind, just or unjust to God. 

As male imagery for some is deeply imbedded in our culture and the church, and culture is a part of all of us, it may be just as strange for a woman as a man to hear God referred to as “She.”  It is so strange that I had to question bringing up this topic on this feel good day.  Do I want to risk shaking people up on Mother’s day, when we so much enjoy flowers, pretty spring dresses, beeswax candles and brunch not cooked by mom…for once.     

But it was my mother and not my father who gave me the gift of speaking with righteous outrage. It is like the police recruit who was asked, “What would you do if you had to arrest your own mom?” Call for backup. When I first read the metaphor of God as mother bear, I understood. Since there has been so much outrageous tragedy for women in the news, I decided to follow mom’s lead.

When women are raped on buses or at parties, girls are kidnapped and made slaves, when songs rap with pride about disrespect, when poor mothers and their children are left without food, education and health care, when mother earth is being used and abused rather than loved and respected, while others accumulate wealth endlessly and grasp it as if it is their divine right, I suspect the feminine nature of God may be crying out in travail.  She has, held her peace, kept still and restrained herself, yet is crying out now as a woman in travail, and will grasp and pant.

Rescued kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart said she understands why some human trafficking victims don’t run.

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum. 

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum; nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you know longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

I suspect that while your mother as mine hoped that we would have a safe childhood, and would mature and meet a kind and thoughtful mate before we took on the serious responsibility of sexual relations, they also taught us the intrinsic value of life of each and every human being. We are as it says in Genesis, both male and female, made in the image of God.

My mom didn’t know that the word for Spirit in Hebrew Ruah and Greek Sophia were feminine, but she told us in English that the Spirit of God is within us, and nothing, not our class or race, our looks or our brains, nothing we do, and nothing that anyone says or does will change that.

You may have heard these stories, but I am telling them again anyway.  As if six kids weren’t enough, mom expanded our home to include single, pregnant teenage girls.  Over the years there were four different girls, each loved and respected like one of her own children, and each of us received a true lesson in Christian family values and a feminine embodiment of the Spirit of Christ, Sophia. 

Mom was asked to go on the board of the local orphanage, and soon noticed that the day the children came into being was not recognized.  So she set the precedent of throwing sixty birthday parties that year, one for each child. Isaiah 49:15 proclaims, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the child of her womb?  Even if these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

It is strange that we men come from women; we owe our very existence to women and yet manage to mess up our relationships with you so badly.  Perhaps it is out of jealousy and competition that we create an idol god in our own image, and proclaim our creative force precedes your creative force. Whatever it is, most of us have some serious repentance to account for; personally, collectively and historically.  We have uncomfortable work to do. Even though the Devil is a dude too, and heterosexual men are clearly many strides ahead in the race to evil, we don’t hold a monopoly on hurting others, messing up and making mistakes.

Jesus, in this morning’s passage paints a picture of God as a woman searching for a lost coin.  She is not hanging around in fear, hording the other nine coins she has left.  The coin she is searching for has not lost its value.  It remains precious to her.  She goes searching for it, and when she finds it she call her friends to rejoice.

So even with the bad news of getting lost, there is the good news to follow it. We can rest assured as the call to worship tells us. We do not have to be gods after all, nor turn the world over in one day. There is grace along the way in the process of transformation.  Mother Sophia calms and quiets our soul.  So in grace and peace, comfortable in the loving arms of God, we gather together to share stories of lessons learned, love shared, and give flowers and beeswax candles, wear spring time dresses and eat brunches mom doesn’t have to cook.