Homily Easter 5 – Mothers Day

Today is a day that here in North America, we celebrate the gift of mothers. 

My most recent encounter with a mother (and a father) for that matter comes off a website that one of my parishioners sent me.

I’ve included the link on the bulletin board in the hall for you to take a look at.  If you go into it, it will bring you into a live feed of a camera that is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week photographing a nest with a pair of bald eagles and their two babies.  Throughout the world anyone with access to the internet, can log on and watch this.

When I got the link, I phoned my sister in Ontario and told her to check it out.  So there we were on the phone, both of us watching live, this mother eagle, feeding her babies, primping and cleaning the nest, and grooming the babies – the eaglets as they’re called. 

In one instance one of the babies grabbed a piece of meat with a bone still attached that was far too large for the eaglet to handle, and the mother took it back, and gave him a smaller, more manageable piece of food. 

It’s not the first time I’ve ever seen wildlife caring for its young, but I am always in awe that they know what to do without having to be taught. 

Scientifically, we know this as instinct.  In fact, it’s so normal and commonplace that with the exception of people who study these kinds of behaviors, we ourselves often overlook the extraordinary miracle that it is.

Intrigued by what I was watching, I went online later, where there was a forum discussion with the environmentalists who had set up the camera.   

Somebody had read that 40% of the fledglings don’t survive their first flight, and wanted to know if this was because the mothers pushed them out of their nests. 

I learned there that this in fact is not true  – the mother never pushes the baby, the fledgling, out of the nest.  Instead, she coaxes and encourages it, and flies around to demonstrate flight, but waits until the fledgling decides on it’s own to take that “leap of faith” if you will.

A few years ago, I saw a picture of a mother cat in the newspaper, nursing baby rabbits, which I understand are also called kittens.  More than simply cute, it was an example of predator and prey in a different kind of life relationship, --- life fostering life. 

And I thought to myself, a mother, is always a mother no matter what.  Well, there must be millions of examples throughout the world.  Of course in the non-idealized human and animal kingdom, not all are equally good at mothering – but God love’em.  Most try their best.

I remember my own mother, waking up every day, expressing how glad and amazed she was to be alive.  She never took waking up in the morning for granted.  She always talked about the sun shining and the birds singing, and the fact that it happened again as though each day were truly a new miracle.

It’s only in recent years that I realized what a deeply spiritual side she was sharing with us when she talked about that, and how much that shaped my own spirituality – one of her many gifts to me.

 My mother was also someone who would leave the dishes unwashed after supper, so she could take the time to sit and play with us or sing and read.

More than anything, she couldn’t stand to see someone go hungry, and I must have been no more than five or six years old when I realized she would feed the devil if he came to her door and said he was hungry. 

Most of you won’t be aware of this, but I had a younger brother who passed away nine years ago.

He was autistic like as a young child, with the exception that he was cuddly (how could he not be, he had two older sisters who were always grabbing and smooching him) and he was a chatterbox.  As a family, we were never quite sure how to deal with David’s spiritual needs, and they were quite a challenge, because he heard so many horrible and outlandish things from other kids about God, as he grew up.

And this frightened him and made him angry at times.

Things like, if you had a bad thought, it would turn your heart black.  Or if you did something wrong, God would punish you or strike you down.  And who can forget, a thought is as bad as a deed. 

On an impressionable young mind, that perceived and processed things somewhat differently from the average, this was no comfort.  And it certainly wasn’t good news.

As he got older and heard our responses over and over, to his deep searching questions, he internalized a different message.  God is love.  God shows mercy.  God forgives.  God cares. 

And so he came to the conclusion, and stuck with it through the rest of his life, that God was a woman and specifically a mother, not a father.  Now, that’s not a political statement and it’s not a heresy. 

That was the personal relationship one human being had with God. 

Having grown up being nurtured mostly by his mother and the women in his family, he aligned those nurturing, loving characteristics we know of God, with a feminine image.

Although we pray “our Father” and refer to God in the masculine “he” – we are reminded in our Gospel today of two things that just about everyone is agreed upon:  God is invisible and God is love. 

We must also remember that some of how we understand God, is going to be shaped by the limitations of our own world and our own life experiences and that feminine or masculine attributes are just that, -  attributes.

Father or mother, God is both and more without being compromised or diminished in any way.

On this Mother’s Day, we remember that like a mother who delights in her children, God delights in God’s children. 

Like a mother who watches over her children, God watches over God’s children. 

Like a mother who comforts her children, God comforts God’s children.

Like a mother who sits up with her sick children through the night, God sits up with God’s sick children through the night.   

Like a mother who is patient and slow to anger at her children, God is patient and slow to anger at God’s children. 

Like a mother who will wipe away the tears of her children, God wipes away the tears of God’s children. 

Like a mother who encourages her children to walk, God encourages Gods children to walk.  

Like a mother who may not like what her children does, and loves them anyway, God may not like what God’s children do, but loves them anyway. 

Like a mother who grieves, God grieves.

Like a mother who loves, God too loves. 

                                                                   Amen