Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
This was the gospel I chose from the lectionary for my sermon this Mothering Sunday. And this is the sermon I wrote but didn't preach. I will write up what I preached during the week.
Mothering Sunday sermon
The mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple are among those waiting at the foot of the cross – they knew what they were waiting for and they waited.
it’s waiting that we are going to think about this morning and especially the waiting that is part of mothering.
What is waiting?
- The action of staying where you are or delaying action until a particular time or until something else happens.
Can you wait?
Are you good at waiting?
What do you wait for?
And what is mothering?
- loving
- caring
- guiding
- waiting
Who can mother us?
- mums
- aunts
- grans
- godmothers
- friends
- dads?
- God?
Do they love? Care? Guide? Wait?
Yes, they do, they love us and care for us and guide us and wait for us, they mother us.
So how do mothers wait?
Any ideas?
- before we even arrive our mothers wait for us to be born and that can take a very long time
- then we wait for you to wake up, wait for you to eat and then wait for you to go back to sleep
- when you get a bit bigger we wait for you to learn to crawl and then walk
- then we wait for you to go where we want
- we wait for you to speak and to listen to us
- by the time you go to school we wait for you to get your shoes on in the morning
- and we wait for you to come out if school at the end of the day
- when you get much bigger we wait for your hair to be done and we wait for you to come home in the evening
- even when you're an adult we wait for you to ring or visit or share your news
We wait
We wait a lot
Waiting is part of the natural cycle of things – we are waiting for spring and the warmer weather to arrive – the last few days have been sheer bliss. We have to wait for nature, we cannot hurry them.
We especially wait when you're ill we wait for you to get better.
And that wait can be with lots of worrying, its not easy to wait then.
Jesus mother waited.
She waited for him to be born, waited for him to grow up and waited with him at the end of his life at the foot of the cross.
She waited.
It can't have been an easy wait.
And Mary didn't find something else to do to help the waiting go quicker, she just concentrated on waiting.
Mary knew that there was sometying special about waiting.
Waiting comes from loving and caring.
Waiting is part of the growth of that love and care – it provides the space and the opportunity to realise who we are in relation to the one we love and care for.
And this is particularly so when it comes to God and ourselves.
Our God is one who waits – the parable of the prodigal son is among other things about a father who waits.
God waits for us because he loves us – just as all that waiting is part of the loving and caring of mothering.
And what better place to wait with God than here in His church, mother church, where we can hear from God and He can hear from us. He can mother us and teach us how to mother others.
God wants us to care and love others as He loves and cares for us. He wants us to guide others to God. God mothers the grandmothers and mothers and all of us so we can mother those we love.
Jesus asked Mary to keep on mothering his disciples and so we are all asked to mother those we love. To wait and care and love others.
Look around this church now, right now. I can see 4, 5, maybe 6 people who mother me with care and love and patient waiting; who can you see who mothers you? And who do you mother?
What a blessing mothering is.
Amen.
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