Mother God
It’s only because of an ancient patriarchal culture that most of our biblical references to Holy Mystery are stereotypically masculine, phallic, and filled with testosterone. Father. Warrior. Pillar of Strength. Son of God. These pictures came from cultures whose highest ideal was of masculine conquest. For so many in western culture, it has been hard to imagine that the most sacred image of Power could be anything but stereotypic male. In this standard biblical paradigm, Power is gained at the expense of another life. Winners only win when losers lose. In this paradigm, God is Sovereign, able to change history with a twitch of his finger. In this paradigm, God is Conqueror, able to smite anyone who challenges his point of view.
But what if we dared to see Power as the breaking open and giving away of life that our mothers offered when bleeding out pain in childbirth? What if we dared to see Power as the way that mothers pour out themselves for the success of their children? Mothers who choose to work part-time at low-paying jobs so that they can be home when the school bus arrives. Mothers who sacrifice sleep and sit up worried nights because they have given a child the free will to honor a curfew. Mothers who mother in very imperfect ways, who get extremely emotional when disappointed by children, who scream very loudly when scared or worried. What if we dared to see Power as utterly relational? Such Power grows larger only when shared, when given away, when risked, when given up for the life of another.
This kind of Power all sounds a bit like the Jesus I know. I’m surprised that he was the Son of God, not Daughter. Perhaps the Jesus story, with a sacrificial gift of love, is a signal to us that gender is not as fixed as we would make it to be. Perhaps, as the man named Jesus bled for the life of others, he was honoring his mother. For certainly he entered and exited this world as Divine Mother, his arms open wide.
Dear Mother God, I ask for no bouquets of flowers on this Mother’s Day. Brunch is nice, but you know as well as I do that many mothers today don’t know where they will get the cash to feed their children breakfast. So on this Mother’s Day, I ask that you feed children who are hungry. I ask that you shelter immigrant children who are separated from their families. Please, please open some law-makers’ hearts to fund schools and daycare centers. But more than anything else, please teach us to bleed out ourselves as Jesus did so that others may live. Amen.
