Return – Remember – Reach Out

Our message today on Mothering Sunday.

• Return to the source of love.
• Remember the people and communities who have shaped you.
• Reach out with that same nurture to others, especially those who feel forgotten or excluded.

A few years ago, I met a young woman who told me that she had “three mothers.” One was her birth mother, who gave her life. Another was her godmother, who guided her faith. And the third was an older neighbour, who taught her how to cook, how to plant flowers, and how to stand tall in the world.

She told me, “Each one mothered me in a different way — and without them, I wouldn’t be who I am.”

Today, on Mothering Sunday, we celebrate not only biological mothers, but all who have mothered us — in love, in faith, in courage, and in hope.

In our holy scriptures, God’s love is often described in motherly terms. Remember in Isaiah 66:13, God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” AndJesus, in Matthew 23:37, laments over Jerusalem, longing to gather its people “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

On this special day, these images remind us that mothering is not limited to gender or biology — it is a divine quality, a way of being that reflects God’s own nature.

Mothering is something that you do, not just something that you are.

And so, today we recognise and encourage mothers who are fathers – men who have nurtured with tenderness, mothers who are friends – companions who have stood by us in hard times, mothers who are communities — churches, schools, and neighbourhoods that have given us roots to grow and wings to fly.

We remember the teacher who notices the child who always sits alone and draws them into the circle, the neighbour who cooks a meal for someone who is grieving, the congregation that welcomes the refugee family and calls them “ours”.

These, and so many more, are acts of mothering — and they are holy.

Way back in the middle ages, Mothering Sunday was the day when traditionally, you returned to your ‘mother church’ – the church in which you had been baptised, where you had been nurtured in faith and from where you were sent out into the world. Over time the tradition of keeping mothering Sunday in the UK had almost died out when, in 1913, a woman called Constance Penswick Smith led a call for its revival. Constance was the daughter of a clergyman and she wrote a play about Mothering Sunday and a History of Mothering Sunday. By the time of her death in 1938, Mothering Sunday was again celebrated all over what was then called the British Empire. Constance advocated for Mothering Sunday as a day for recognising Mother Church, ‘mothers of earthly homes’, Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mother Nature. So, in the UK, in church at least we try to retain a sense that ‘mother’ is a verb, as well as a noun.

And that’s so important because for a lot of people, Mothers’ Day can be a very painful day in the year.

Some people grieve that they are not mothers and that was not by choice. Some are grieving the loss of a mother, some are reminded of mothers who were less than ideal, some are reminded of their own shortcomings as parents or mothers. Constance Smith never married or had any children. She was never a mother. So, this morning let’s remind ourselves that you don’t have to be a mother to mother.

You may have heard of Mother Julian of Norwich – she thought of Jesus as our mother. She was the first woman (that we know of) to write a book in English –The Revelations of Divine Love, which is an account of the ‘shewings’ or visions that she had while seriously ill in 1373.

Mother Julian lived through the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt and spent much of her life as an anchoress – she was sealed up in a cell attached to a church in Norwich and her life was devoted to prayer. Her texts remained obscure until the 19th century and then, once they had been translated into readable, modern English, she was given the recognition that she deserved.

In her writings, Mother Julian reflects on the Holy Trinity and the visions she had of Jesus’ passion and she describes Jesus as Mother.

Nowadays people have strong views about the gender and pronouns we use when talking about God and Jesus, but Julian was describing Jesus as our mother back in the fourteenth century.

But what did she mean by that?

She uses images of breastfeeding and birth. Jesus births us into our spiritual or eternal life: in the same way that mothers suffer the pain of childbirth to bring a baby into the world, Jesus suffers to bring us into his kingdom. The blood of his wounds nourishes us like a mother’s milk.

Jesus mothers us by allowing us to learn from our mistakes but he is always there to love and protect. Julian writes, ‘If we fall, he catches us lovingly in his gracious embrace and swiftly raises us.’

Jesus wants us to do as a child does: ‘When it is in trouble or scared, it runs to mother as fast as it can.’ God’s love for us encompasses all the joys, heartache, pain and hope that we associate with mothering.

One of Julian’s most well-known revelations is that of the hazelnut.

“…a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, in the palm of my hand and round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully and wondered, ‘What is this?’

And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made… It exists, both now and forever, because God loves it. …everything owes its existence to the love of God. In this ‘little thing’ I saw three truths. The first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God sustains it.”

Think of the vastness of the universe. Compared to the vastness of God’s love, it’s like a little nut in the palm of your hand.

Today is an opportunity to give thanks to the people in our lives who have mothered us in our faith, whoever they were and are. But also to reflect on our own calling to be mothers of faith to the next generation.

And so,

Return – Remember – Reach Out

• Return to the source of love.
• Remember the people and communities who have shaped you.
• Reach out with that same nurture to others, especially those who feel forgotten or excluded.

If God’s love is like a mother’s love, then our calling as we live in Her light is clear:

• To comfort those who are hurting.
• To protect those who are vulnerable.
• To nurture the gifts in others until they flourish.

And so who, in your life right now, needs to be mothered?

Who needs your patience or your encouragement?

Who is it that needs your fierce protection?

Return – Remember – Reach out!