Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC)

Mother God, I Need You

Rev. Vickie Miller

May 24, 2009

Ps. 131, Isaiah 49:13-16 & Matthew 6:24-34

Topic: Motherly images of God and inclusive language portray a full, accurate picture of God who is loving and nurturing.

I. Intro

When I first started coming to an MCC church, I just could not get the whole inclusive language stuff. In fact, I remember feeling quite shocked about it. When the lector read the scriptures and God was referred to as our Father-Mother, it was just so foreign to me. I mean from my tradition, if the Bible said God was “He,” then God certainly did resemble the white haired, elderly gentleman that my childhood taught me. But, because I liked so many other things about MCC I tolerated this inclusive language business and started getting used to it.

One thing about MCC is that it really opened my mind to new ways of thinking. The next challenging thing with which I had to deal was when my church received an offer from an artist in Tampa who wanted to donate a painting to the church.   There were three different choices. There was one with Mother with Child, similar to the painting which is on the front of your bulletin, except this one was more in the Greek icon style.   One of the paintings was of the prophet Isaiah and third was of John the Baptist which I liked. Attached to John’s garment were these real long feathers! Another member agreed with me, except she said that she did not think it was too appealing with the decapitated head lying on the ground. So I was out voted and the Board chose the third painting which was Madonna with child. If you ever attend the Sarasota church you will see it hanging prominently in the front of the church. It took me a long time to get used to that painting.

II. If you grew up in a catholic or orthodox religion, paintings with mother and child were common. I grew up in a protestant tradition which was entirely void of any female images. Paintings like this confused me. I was told that they elevated Mary – that they made Mary into a god.

III. However, since my early MCC days, I have been enlightened and grown in my understanding. I am glad the church chose the Mother with Child. I agree that she was a good choice. I have since learned that this image of mother and child was one of the earliest Christian expressions of God’s love for humanity. In early Christianity, the cross was still too closely associated with a shameful, criminal death so mother with child became a loving image for God.

You have often heard me mention our vacation to Rome. One of my favorite sites was when Carol and I toured the catacombs. In these hidden underground burial chambers we saw the artwork of the earliest of Christians. In the midst of their secret worship spaces, hiding from authorities who persecuted Christians and fearful for their lives, there was feeling of the presence of these earliest Christians. And there on the walls were their images, from as early as the 1^st century! On the walls, I saw symbols of fish, and bread and wine, but interesting, no crosses, no crucifixion scenes, but yes, mother with child…a symbol of God nurturing and caring for her people.

In reality, the image of God as mother has existed for centuries, well before Jesus was born. In the Hebrew scriptures, from our readings today, we hear from the prophet Isaiah: “Can a woman forget her nursing child? God says, I will never forget”, and from the Psalmist, “Like a baby content it its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content. Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!”

Most of us can personally relate to this motherly image of God. If it wasn’t our mothers, maybe a grandmother or a kind and nurturing female in our lives on whom we depended emotionally and physically.

IV. Likewise, people throughout history have depended on God for their very survival. In former days people often suffered from malnutrition, they lived in war-town countries, they experienced diseases such as the plague. Reliance upon God’s care, like that of a nursing mother, was a daily need. As the Gospel reminds us, God was known as the One who feeds and cares and clothes us.

V. It is hard to imagine that it was just one year ago this month when a devastating earthquake hit China, killing 80,000 and leaving 5 million homeless. It was an emergency situation that immediately created thousands of orphans. Hundreds of babies were left in desperate need for a mother’s milk. Some had no mothers at all. Others had mothers who milk has stopped producing due to the trauma they had experienced.

CNN reported about one young mother, Jiang Xiaojuan, who had her own 6-month old, but took it upon herself to breast feed nine different babies. One mother of a baby said this, “We walked out of the mountains for a long time. I hadn’t eaten in days when we got here, and my milk wasn’t enough. Jiang saved my baby. I thank her so much.” Another mother said, “I am so touched because she has her own baby but she fed the disaster babies first. If she hadn’t fed my son, he wouldn’t have had enough to eat.”

Jiang became a celebrity and hailed on the front pages of newspapers as “China’s Mother Number 1.”

VI. A nursing mother, this beautiful image of God, was unfortunately lost over the years.

It reminds of something George Jefferson said in the 1970’s sitcom, the Jefferson’s. His wife, Louise, and George were having an exchange.

Louise Jefferson: “You’re supposed to say three nice things about me, George.

George Jefferson: How 'bout this? Your mother's dead, your mother died, and your mother ain't living no more!

VII. That’s sort of what happened to the motherly image of God. Historians say that over time, the image of God as a nursing mother died and was replaced with crucifixion scenes that, by the Renaissance period, consisted of more and more graphic depictions of violence and suffering.

What does that say about us as a people? Maybe we don’t need the image of a nursing mother because we have become so self sufficient. Maybe our society is drawn to violent depictions representing God’s love because it justifies humanity’s own violence and mistreatment of others.

VIII. In reality, we know that God is unnamable and unspeakable, as stated by Gregory of Nyssa in the 4^th century. There really is no earthly image that accurately reflects the vast nature of God. Yet, diverse images of God, both male and female and genderless images, help us to expand our experience of God, which is the ultimate goal. Repeat: to expand our experience of God is the ultimate goal.

Whatever vision or image of God helps you to experience God is what is important.

Elizabeth Johnson said that we should allow people to express God in adaptable and flexible ways.   And, the symbols and language that we use for God is SO important because “what is at stake is the truth about God”. MCC’s by-laws state that we should use balanced language for God, not so we don’t offend the feminists, but because, “what is at stake is the truth about God.”

Likewise, Johnson says that if we don’t allow people’s express God in ways that are adaptable and flexible, then ultimately people will no longer experience God. We’ve seen that happen too much already. We’ve seen people in our own community abandon God because our God was portrayed as either too masculine or too war-like or God as too judgmental or God as too homophobic. As a result, people have left church and people have left God. Here in MCC I believe it is our calling to rescue the image of God as One who portrays many images, both male and female and at the same time neither male nor female.

MCC adopted inclusive language for God in 1981 when a by-law was put on the floor at General Conference. I spoke with Rev. Delores Berry who served on the Task Force who presented it. Our Moderator, Rev. Nancy Wilson, was also there to witness it so maybe this will bring back memories for you.

Delores said that it was a major battle. To hear her discuss it sounds a bit comical. When the issue came for debate on the floor, Rev. Delores said that people came to the microphone sobbing in protest, people came yelling against the motion. A Texan clergy man got so angry that he stomped on a committee member’s foot with his cowboy boot. Rev. Elder Jeri Ann Harvey, in her butchest approach possible made her way to the microphone and said, “I don’t care what you do, but don’t take my Jesus away from me!” And the house roared and applauded.

Looking back on it all, Rev. Delores says that what she thinks was so difficult for some people was that by changing the language for God with which they had been born, made them change their ways of thinking about God. People had overly identified with the image of their youth rather than with the true experience of God.

IX. By using balanced language for God, I believe that we are returning to Biblical faithfulness. In scripture, God has many names. In the Hebrew scriptures, one of the names for God, Elohim, means mighty one, God as El Shaddai is the breasted one who nurture and provides. In scripture, God is a rock, the wind, light, love. Jesus refers to God as a mother hen but also as a father who accepts the penitent prodigal son.

Likewise, we need both the image of the cross, to remind us of Christ’s great love that endured death to the end, and we need the image of the motherly God who provides and cares for us in our most vulnerable moments.

X. Ultimately, the goal is not only to speak correctly about God, but like Gregory of Nyssa said in the fourth century, to leave behind all conceptions of the Divine and seek to experience God, to gain ecstatic union with God.

XI. Last year I completed an internship at Hospice and each week I was inspired patients who are trying to experience God.

One of my patients, Nina, who was battling cancer, started bleeding after a couple of weeks, and it gave her a great amount of stress and anxiety. She reminded me of the woman in the Gospels with an issue of blood who just needed to touch Jesus’ garment. Nina began reaching out for her mother. She said, “I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about my mother, and I know I will see her again.”

So I read this passage to Nina from Isaiah, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget,” says God, “yet I will not forget you,” and Nina and I prayed together and asked for God’s nurturing care to be with her in this time.

How do you experience the Divine? In what ways does God come to you and in what forms do you relate to the God who assures you?

Rabia of Basra, an Islamic saint from the 8^th century, wrote this poem:

It Works

Would you come if someone called you by the wrong name?

I wept, because for many years (God) did not enter my arms; then one night I was told a secret.

Perhaps the name you call God is not really (God’s), maybe it is just an alias.

I thought about this, and came up with a pet name for my Beloved I never mention to others.

All I can say is – it works.

Contact: gmail.com@trinitymcc
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