God our Mother
By Jenny Shultz
February 27, 2011
On December 17, 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire in protest of the social injustices incurred by himself, his family members and the thousands of others living under the oppression of the Tunisian autocratic regime. Bouazizi was slapped in the face, spat upon, beaten and humiliated by a female municipal officer and her aides who had confiscated his scales and overturned his food cart simply because they had the power to do so, claiming that Bouazizi needed a permit to do business in the market. We now know from the head of Sidi Bouzid's state office for employment and independent work, that no such permit was needed to sell from a cart.
Bouzizi’s protest and death, nonetheless, became the catalyst for the Tunisian revolution, leading then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down after 23 years in power. This was only the beginning of what some are now calling the great Middle Eastern Revolution. Concessions have already been made in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Berhain, Libya, and Yemen, with the most significant taking place on February 11, 2011, with the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, ending his 30-year reign as the president of Egypt.
When reading through these famous words of Jesus, “Do Dot Worry about tomorrow” and the inferred rhetoric “Just believe, and God will take care of you.” I imagine what these words of Jesus, spoken on the mountain that day, would have meant to Mohamed Bouazizi contemplating his life before setting himself aflame... He might have wondered how and when this mysterious provision of God was to be revealed? How tomorrow could possibly be better than today, or yesterday? How Jesus could dare ask him to trust in God’s provision when his only means of receiving income, allowing him to care for his family was sabotaged day after day. And Did the words of Second Isaiah demand a hearing from this man? When would the mountains move and when would the roads to freedom to be illuminated in his lifetime? When would the darkness turn to light and when would the shackles bound so tightly around his soul come crashing to the floor paving the way for freedom for his people? What Freedom?! Where was this God upon whose palms was written his very own given name? How could this God really care for him? When? Today was the day of salvation, but where was she? How could he find her bosom upon which he might lay his head? As Zion lamented for her lost soul, he too probably felt forgotten...
The reading we heard a few moments ago from Matthew is not unique to this gospel text, but was modified from the Q source appearing in both Mark and Luke as part of Jesus great Sermon on the Mount. We have heard several sermons from this teaching over the last couple of weeks, about being the salt of the earth & the light of the world, about covenantal relationships, about loving our enemies and today we will hear more of Jesus’s words promising God’s provision for God’s children” and about “God’s desire for our complete devotion”. We will also hear a truth deeply imbedded in Jesus words echoing the promises of God through the prophet in Second Isaiah and uniquely accompanied by the voice of the psalter in Psalm 131 who is calmly familiar with the maternal instincts of a God caring for her beloved children.
I think it is easy for us to hear the words of Jesus as he teaches his disciples and those gathering around in terms of what we should hear and what we should do and how we should live, and equally how we should respond to the commands,
“Do not worry”, and “serve God not mammon”.
It does not seem so easy, however, when we hear these words in our current global context: when 17% of the world’s population is starving, when dictators are slaughtering their own people, when genocide is a leading cause of death in the developing world, when our own members sit among us as refugees from a land where freedom was taken away, when 27% of the world’s adult population is suffering from mental illness, and when the most powerful and lucrative nation in the world is liable to the debts of their nation’s wealthiest and greediest consumers. When greed and pity are accustomed to defining the tendencies of this country’s leaders and when we, the Church, are scrambling around for answers...it is not easy.
As we hear Jesus’s teaching in conjunction with the prophet’s exilic exhortations of comfort, hope and return there is a unique opportunity within hermeneutics to creatively interpret the metaphor’s implications here. Jesus may simply want us to hear this message in it’s literal form and resolve to leave our anxiousness at the foot of Christ, setting aside our yearning for material possessions and illegitimate fears and replacing them with devotion to the one who can bring us ultimate peace. I believe this is true, that Yes, Jesus wants our complete devotion, full trust, wants our unbridled hope and benevolent compassion for others to supersede our selfish desires, our fears and worries.
I also believe that Jesus wants us to find sole comfort and security in the love of God who has promised to care for her children. I’ll say that again, Jesus wants us to know, as he wanted the disciples and the crowd to know that day gathered around the mountainside that God’s love is enough for us.
Barbara Brown Taylor shares a story about the re-discovering our security in God alone, in her book The Preaching Life. She writes, “Not long ago I took part in the blessing of a friend’s home. It was not her home, really. It was a small yellow brick bungalow with a “For Sale” sign in the yard, a house lent to her by the owner while she was between jobs. The real estate agent thought the house would “show” better with someone in it, and my friend was that someone. Unsure how long she would be able to stay, unsure where she would go when the house sold and she had to leave, and fundamentally unsure about her ability to make her own living, she moved her things into the house and invited her friends to supper.
Everyone brought a dish, or a fistful of flowers, or a small gift, and after we had all eaten well we gathered in the living room to begin the celebration. The prayer book we used suggested several readings for the blessing of a home, and out of these we chose two. First we read the story from Genesis about Abraham’s hospitality to the three strangers who stopped by his tent under the oaks of Mamre, and after that came a reading from the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel.
It was somewhat shocking, under the circumstances. We had just gotten our firend settled. We had just put the books onto the shelves and hung the curtains on the windows and lined up the cans in the cupboards. We had just achieved the semblance of a home for her, even though we all knew it was no lasting home, and it would have been nice to hear a gospel lesson that saiad in effect, “You are safe now” You have a place to live and everything will be all right now.” That is not what it said.
You know what it said. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or hwat you will drink, or about your obdy, what you wil wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more htanclothing?” The words fell like stones in deep water. No one coughed or cleared a throat as Jesus preached to us, assuming that we believed him, assuming that we took God’s providence for granted. He was telling our friend that she was safe, but not because she had a roof over her head and a key to the front door. “You are safe,” Jesus told her, “because the God who made you will not abandon you. That is your home, which nothing and no one can take away from you”.
What I hear in these texts today is a message from God, who is a loving mother, not only instructing us on “what to do or not to do”, but telling her children, Jews and Gentiles alike, those who are scattered about and who will come from all corners of the earth, that “I want to the move the mountains for you”, and I “will bring the rain that you might have food, I will create a clear path for you, and I will shelter you in the palms of my hands”. Fully vulnerable and undisguised she has imminently exposed herself as a caring, nurturing mother ready to provide for her children. In the manner of full disclosure she has relinquished the most human-like characteristic that will deliver, that will stand up, that will give us the faith we need in God to find strength enough to stand amidst the flames, find faith enough to protest in the streets, and fight for justice & equality for all peoples. God wants to open wide the doors inviting us to come home, to find our home in the one and only sustainable & renewable source that exists, the source of all life...the love of God, of a mother for her children.
We are not traditionally as accustomed to the maternal identity of God, who is called Father, Lord, Abba, King, ...among other terms, most referencing a male or paternal God. In scripture it is actually quite rare to find such poignant metaphors as is revealed in the Isaiah passage, highlighting God as a nursing mother. Both Second and Third Isaiah use female imagery for God more frequently than any other Old Testament body of literature. We find a similar depiction of God through the voice of the Psalter in Psalm 131 calling herself the weaned child of God her mother. Isaiah 42:14 presents God as pregnant and giving birth; 66:12-13 portrays God as nursing and comforting the newborn.
The historical context from which Isaiah is prophesying is Israel in exile, or shortly thereafter, and the people are presented as "barren" (49:21; see 54:1), that is, unable to bring about their own future. Terence Fretheim, Professor of OT at Luther Seminary in St. Paul MN says, “Only God can make that future possible and the image of God as mother is used to emphasize this point. The result is described in the larger context of this passage (49?21), "I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away—so who has reared these? I was left all alone—where then have these [children] come from?" And the point is that God is the one who is responsible for birthing all these children and, as a result, the land is full of them. God has enabled Israel to thrive.
Again, We may not be fully comfortable with or always recognize the Maternalism of God in our own relationships with her or even the usage of female images for God in our liturgies or interpretations of scripture, but for centuries Rabbis have equated the God of the Exodus with a Mother providing for her children. Stating that the mother/child relationship, was extremely influential in terms of their view of and relationship to God.
In her book, The God Who Feeds, Dr. Juliana Claassens, Associate Professor of Old Testament at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, shares, “Throughout the centuries, God’s gracious gift to Israel has captured interpreter’s imaginations such that it has been the inspiration for innovative theological reflection. One of the most intriguing moves was made by rabbis who introduced creative imagery to describe manna and its significance. For instance, several texts make a connection between manna or food imagery and nursing imagery when nursing langauge is used to describe God’s provisional care. It seems they thought that the metaphor of a mother nursing her baby provided a fitting description of God’s complete care in the wilderness, expressing the fullness of life people experienced during this time. A baby drinks every day from the mother’s breast, which completely satisfies his or her nutritional needs. Similarly, every day Israel had enough manna to eat in the wilderness and was completely dependent on God’s protection. What better way to express this absolute reliance on God for food than the relationship of a child with his or her mother?”
Later she speaks to the Song of Moses, in Dut. 32:13-14 to demonstrate that God’s care for Israel included, as we hear in Jesus’ words from the gospel of Matthew, care for everything they needed. She says, “In the midst of the food imagery, one finds the female metaphor of God nursing Israel, “with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock. The term to nurse points to the absolute reliance of a baby on his or her mother as well as to the absolute sufficiency of the provision. Also, the terms honey and oil serve to emphasize God’s amazing care for Israel. Both honey and oil were regarded as middle eastern staples. Particularly, oil had a multipurpose value, being used for food (I Kings 1712), cosmetics (Eccl 9:7-8), fuel for lamps (Exd 25:6), and medicine (Isa. 1:6). Oil thus served as testimony of God’s blessing. The fact that both honey and oil could be produced without human cultivation contributed to the development of oil and honey as symbols of God’s care for the people of Israel.” pg. 6
Do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear.
Again, we still see and know hungry people, we still have stressful lives, ourselves, with high-pressure jobs, family illnesses, college tuition, depression and addiction, we are not unlike those dessert wanderers looking for our daily bread, milk to drink and oil as a valuable resource.
What we may not see, and yet what we cannot live without however, is the relationship, of child to mother. You may feel like Mohhammed Bouzazi whose lament was deeper than the sorrows of those petitioning against him, like Zion who cried back at God in contempt, “The Lord has forsaken me, My Lord has forgotten me...can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb?”
The answer is “Yes.” A mother has forgotten, a mother has refused to feed, refused to love, refused to care...a mother has even killed her own child. When we look to the things of this word to deliver us, to set us on the right path... when we depend on the intellect of our own minds and the schemes of our brightest and noblest... when we champion a cause to save the world, even in the best of interests... when we decide that “we do not need God”, the answer is yes... a mother will always forget.
But, how truly amazing it is, that when we open our hearts, devote our allegiance, surrender our broken and homeless souls to the Mother who can deliver us, who has given life to us, who has nursed our infant bodies, we will never be forgotten. She said, “I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. You cannot be forgotten. You are my Beloved Child. As the Psalmist quietly sings the song, we too can be quieted by the love of a Mother weaning her child.
Bouazizi experienced life as death and death as life, but today it is with the hope we have in God, who will deliver us, who brought us out of bondage into freedom, that we can surrender ourselves to the giver of life and trust in God to go before us and with us as we face the complications of our lives. In order to receive this Mother’s gentle touch, however, we must relinquish the illusion of control, the belief that we are safe in our big houses, safe with our big bank accounts or safe amidst all the great and wonderful things we do each day. Even as Christians, committed advocates to bringing about justice in the world and working for peace and equality, giving and sharing...we too can shield ourselves from our mother’s cradled lap. With milk and honey for the journey, all we need to do is reach out for the hand that will hold us, sit before the feet of the one who will guide us and find our home in the shelter of the caring mother. Amen.
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