Reflection

Mother’s Day May 12^th 2024, St. Andrews on The Terrace

Mother’s Day!  Its origins go back into Greek and Roman history when the ancient Greeks and Romans held festivals in honour of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele.  However the modern Christian precedent for mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday”.

Once a major tradition in the UK and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their ‘mother church’  –  the main church in the vicinity of their home – for a special service.

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday and children would present their mothers with flowers and other token of appreciation.  This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

I thought today it would be a good time to reflect on 2 biblical narratives involving Mothers – Jochebed, mother of Moses, and Mary, mother of Jesus.  Then we can look at the context of modern motherhood.

There are several traditions woven together in the Hebrew Bible, often woven together or placed alongside one another.  The story of the birth of Moses is one from the “E: tradition – traced because the name used for God was Elohim.

These traditions are invariably Patriarchal – women are usually barely visible in the stories, and only pop up when they are essential to the narrative.  A lot of the family stories are of very dysfunctional families – for example – Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau.  These family stories are often used as examples of the dysfunction of the nation Israel – the state of the family paralleling state of the society – an interesting connection which maybe we could apply today!

However the story of the birth and survival of the baby Moses does highlight the ingenuity of the women – from the midwives, to the mothers of the babies, to the sister, even to the Pharoah’s daughter – all of whom collude to save the Israelite babies and Moses in particular.  Neither mother nor sister is actually named in the story though – although their names are included later in the book of Exodus – Moses mother is Jochebed, his sister is Miriam.

The Pharoah had a problem.  The slave underclass were breeding too well – how could he keep them under control – that’s it – kill off all the baby boys – the important ones the potential leaders! 

Imagine the midwives Shiprah and Puah – faced with the edict of the Pharoah to kill all the baby boys!  Their work was about helping mothers give birth – but then they were to drown the baby!  They very quickly found an excuse – these Hebrew mothers gave birth so quickly and easily – they didn’t always get there on time!

And Jochebed (mother) and Miriam (sister) – what ingenuity!  To float the baby down the river to where they must have hoped a compassionate Princess of Pharoah’s household would rescue him.  And to get Miriam to stand by and suggest a wet nurse!  And so the beginnings of the mighty Patriarch Moses were established, right in the middle of the royal household.  Who was going to notice an extra baby among the wives and concubines of the mighty Pharoah!

So why did I choose a Christmas birth story in the middle of May? Famous leaders must have had special beginnings.  The birth story of Jesus, now seen as the Messiah by the Jewish Christians, had also to have a special birth story.

Egypt?  Sounds familiar?  Mary and Joseph flee from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the wrath of an angry King Herod.  Egypt, the setting for an angry Pharoah ordering the killing Hebrew baby boys in the Nile.  The term ‘midrash’ comes from Hebrew and means ‘to chew on” or to think over.  Midrashic texts are often fictional compositions that expand upon existing biblical narratives or explore hidden meanings within them.  The writer of Matthew is Jewish, writing to Jewish Christians giving them links back to their rich history of stories of Moses and Joseph.  Scholars put the birth stories as being added at the end of the 1 C.

Back to Mary as mother of Jesus.  According to Marina Warner in the book “Alone of all her Sex, the myth and cult of the virgin Mary”, Matthew’s birth story makes at least 5 links to a prophecy in the Old Testament. 

Mary is a barely visible figure smiling in the background.   Uta Ranke-Heinemann – the first woman Professor of Catholic theology in Germany at the University of Essen.  in her book “Putting Away Childish Things” has some forthright things to say about the birth stories, which only appear in Matthew and Luke.  They are legends.    But the description ‘infancy narratives’ is incorrect because we never learn what sort of child Jesus was – was he lively or quiet?  What sort of mother was Mary?  She would have been very young,

However this young mother must have made a good job of it, if the adult Jesus is an example of her upbringing, even if she doesn’t get much credit for it.  Mary – the invisible mother – the icon of Catholic tradition – the impossible to emulate virgin mother!  The feminine in the Godhead.  We do get the story of Jesus staying behind in the temple when he should have been headed home – the neglectful parents initial thought he was with the other families.   I do like to imagine Mary yelling to her children – “get out of that vineyard now, dinner is ready”!

When we consider mothers in the context of the family it is interesting to see the different ways in which the family is defined.  For young Moses the family would have been composed of primarily many women – the wives, and concubines of the Pharoah.   Family stories in the Hebrew bible often feature wives plural –  Tribal leaders have at least a couple of wives.  During the Exodus communities would have been small, Nomadic tribal – groups wandering in the desert – still patriarchal, polygamous, and often learning about their god/s.  Gradual awareness of  ONE God – moving towards monotheism (The God of Abraham AND  Isaac AND Jacob now linked together)

 In Jesus’ time, family households would consist of what we would describe extended family – brothers and their wives, multi-generational. When the head of the household became Christian, the whole household was baptized.   In the early church, marriage was not considered that important – it was better to marry than burn, but?????? 

It was the Protestant Reformation that elevated marriage.  The husband was the head of the household and women were to bear the children and look after them, reinforced by Pauline passages.  Work was largely a ‘cottage’ industry, men and women worked from home – in fields or at a loom. 

The industrial revolution separated work from home.  Depending on what class of society a person was born into, men, women and children worked in the factories, the mines and the shops.    Upper class women had nursemaids, and Nannies, but led very restricted lives with little education and very circumscribed roles.

Two World Wars had profound effect on family dynamics.  The men went off to war – the women did the work at home as well as nurturing their families.  When the men returned, women were sent back to the home and a tidy home, and well brought up children were set as the ideal – the nuclear family was the norm.

My mother ran the household in that era.  She cooked nutritious meals, cleaned, managed the household finances, stayed at home to supervise myself and my sister.  She was intelligent, witty, humorous, sarcastic, secretive, strict, respectable working class – never had chance to further her education.  Interestingly enough although she thought School Certificate level was a good qualification for her daughters to attain; both of us went on to University, myself as an adult.  She died at the age of 49 of a brain tumour.  I was sad I never had the chance to develop an adult relationship with her and she never met her grandchildren, whom she would have loved. 

My own experience of motherhood was set in the 70’s and was hard at times. I had the privilege of being able to be at home with our babies.  However, with my growing learning about  feminism, I recognised the low status of women in general and in the low value given to women and child care.  What did it mean to be a mother, wife (especially a Minister’s wife!) in the 1970’s and 1980’s?  I found some women with whom to study Christian feminism – what a revelation!  My studies in sociology and social work enlightened me.   I graduated with a degree in Social Work at Massey University.  One of my graduation photos was of me in cap and gown pegging out the washing – what irony!

And now, mothers live in a variety of contexts and relationships.   Some great mothering goes on in the family context – children may have a variety of loving parents and experiencing mothering from two Mums, or two dads.  Grandparents live longer, and provide a lot of care.  Unfortunately also with relationship breakdowns, family violence, relationship separations and not all mothering relationships are easy or good.  We need to build good societies in which children and adults thrive.   That means good housing – sometimes large housing for extended family household, high quality childcare, and support when things go wrong.

Bonding and attachment are important  for a child to grow.  Researchers found there is a hormone called Oxytocin which is released in reponse to social contact, especially skin to skin contact with a baby.  It was referred to ins the Contemporary reading. Mothers get a big boost after birth, but fathers and other caregivers also experience this and the presence of this hormone creates a desire for further contact. 

While this is the day to honour and appreciate our own mothers, we should also note –

• it takes a village to rear a child
• It takes a whanau, hapu to raise a child
• It takes an aiga to raise a child.
• If we want to honour motherhood today and care for our children we need to build and nurture a society where mothering is affirmed and valued and the raising of the next generation is given high value.

Audio of selected readings and reflections

Audio of the complete service