Mothering Sunday 27th March 2022 “When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.’ ‘She put the child in it.’ Such simple words. So easy to do. But what overwhelming heartbreak. To give up a child in the uncertain hope of saving his life. Can we even begin to imagine the horror of such a situation? And here we are. Mothering Sunday. On a day where we traditionally celebrate our mother church, motherhood and the joy it can bring. Yet we read about suffering and heartbreak. Pain and loss. Strength and faith. And the courage of three unnamed women who preserve the life of the one who will lead the people of Israel out of slavery into freedom. That, is celebration indeed. These three woman are the main characters in this story. The mother, the sister and the princess. We don’t know their names at this point but what they did in the face of prejudice, violence and oppression was incredible. But where is God in this narrative? He is neither mentioned nor visible. His presence may not be explicit but it is palpable as he sustains and blesses the people of his promise by enabling and equipping the powerless, including these three women, who act to protect Moses and help to bring down the greatest Kingdom, Egypt. Our creator God has blessed the earth, to create abundance and flourishing of life. He promised to make his servant, Abraham ‘exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.’ But Pharaoh stands in defiant opposition to God’s plans for creation and beauty resorting to any means to maintain control. Even to the decimation of an entire people group. All Hebrew baby boys were to be cast into the Nile. Pharaoh represents oppression and violence. He exploits slavery causing misery and famine. Who will have the courage to stand up to him? Not warriors, nor kings, but a weak and vulnerable Hebrew child. This is no ordinary baby. He is the one destined for the future salvation of Israel. This story is driven by the need for his preservation and it is motherly compassion that ensures Moses’ survival. God uses the weak to put the powerful to shame. God’s workings in this story maybe more subtle and indirect but there are some interesting parallels with the story of creation that indicate God’s handiwork here in the midst of death and oppression. Despite Pharoah’s royal decree that the Hebrew boys should be killed, the births continue. The Hebrew midwives explain in the previous chapter, that they had been unable to intervene as the Hebrew women (unlike the Egyptian women) are ‘vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.’ The births continue and Pharaoh cannot stop this continual new act of creation. When Moses is born, the words used in Exodus to describe him are: ki tov, or ‘very good’ (translated as ‘fine’ here) which are the same words used in the creation story when God looked at he world and said ‘how good’ or ‘ki tov’ it looked. Moses is now referred to in the same words as the new creation. Again, the word for ‘Ark’ in Hebrew is ‘tevah’ the word used in the story of Noah and the flood. Moses is saved in a new ark: the basket symbolising the one who will lead God’s people into a new life. The basket becomes the means through which God provides protection from death. It is placed in the reeds at the edge of the Nile (the term here for reeds is also used in the Exodus narrative to name the waters through which Israel came to liberation.) Thus freedom was actually through the Sea of Reeds, and not its mistranslation: the Red Sea! And so we come to the second woman who plays a key role in preserving this baby’s life: Pharoah’s daughter. What does she do? She knows of her father’s diktat. Does she seek to kill? No. She sees the baby as the mother before her had seen him. She hears the babe’s cries and ‘she took pity on him.’ She knows this is a Hebrew child, she knows exactly what she is doing and still saves him. A child from the Hebrew slave community, under a death sentence and she spares his life. Even the daughter of the powerful Pharaoh provides glimpses of God in her maternal instincts of justice and mercy. Then it is Moses’ sister who plays her part. She had been watching from a distance and after she sees Pharoah’s daughter pull him from the reeds offers to find someone to nurse the child. Who does she find? His own mother. So the story so far is driven not by the presence of God but by the presence of women. We perceive through the work of the midwives, Pharoah’s daughter and Moses’ mother and sister how God’s agency aligns and intertwines with human agency to accomplish salvation. I love this reading because it really challenges what it means to be a family. It’s the story of a group of people, related or not, trying to create family arrangements appropriate to their context. It’s about strength, courage and faith in the most painful of circumstances. And I can’t help but see huge resonances with our situation today. Families being separated, communities displaced as they flee violence and terror. And I’m not just talking about the desperate people of Ukraine but the hundreds of thousands of refugees, those who are constantly in transit in the search of a safe, secure environment. Never before have we seen such numbers of people on the move. In need of help and support. Never before have we been so acutely aware of the dangers and violence that threatens them day by day as we turn to the continual rolling news and films of events as they actually happen. And we realise, these are people just like us. These are people who want the same things as we do. These are our brothers and sisters. They are part of our family. God’s family. Yet, faced with constant traumatic images of war, I do see hope. Hope in the people at the train stations in Poland,Germany and elsewhere, who have welcomed Ukrainian families. In the collection and distribution of aid and emergency equipment. In the financial giving providing relief and assistance. We may not all be in the position to offer a room, but we are in a position to offer hospitality, a welcome, kindness, a listening ear, help, advice, and together as a community perhaps we can really show what it means to love our sisters and brothers by welcoming the outcast, the marginalised, the refugee into our family. The tradition of Mothering Sunday originated in the 16th Century when workers were given a day off to go home, to their families and to their ‘mother church’. We are a church family and so it feels right that we give thanks for all those now being embraced and taken care of in new families as we are all in the motherly embrace of God and the Mother Church which holds us. And it feels right that we extend that embrace to all who arrive in our community and hold them close and help them to feel a part of a new family. Amen
From Sunday 5th September our service times will be as follows. 8.00am - A service will be held every week - sometimes it will be a Eucharist service and sometimes it will be Morning Prayer which may be lay led 9.30am - Eucharist service will be held every week 11.00am A family service will be held on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month. The service on the 3rd Sunday will include baptisms. Please see poster for further details
