Mother God Comfort Us!
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
May 10, 2020
Proverbs 1:20-33 (MSG)
Lady Wisdom
20-21 Lady Wisdom goes out in the street and shouts.
At the town center she makes her speech.
In the middle of the traffic she takes her stand.
At the busiest corner she calls out:
22-24 “Simpletons! How long will you wallow in ignorance?
Cynics! How long will you feed your cynicism?
Idiots! How long will you refuse to learn?
About face! I can revise your life.
Look, I’m ready to pour out my spirit on you;
I’m ready to tell you all I know.
As it is, I’ve called, but you’ve turned a deaf ear;
I’ve reached out to you, but you’ve ignored me.
25-28 “Since you laugh at my counsel
and make a joke of my advice,
How can I take you seriously?
I’ll turn the tables and joke about your troubles!
What if the roof falls in,
and your whole life goes to pieces?
What if catastrophe strikes and there’s nothing
to show for your life but rubble and ashes?
You’ll need me then. You’ll call for me, but don’t expect
an answer.
No matter how hard you look, you won’t find me.
29-33 “Because you hated Knowledge
and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-God,
Because you wouldn’t take my advice
and brushed aside all my offers to train you,
Well, you’ve made your bed—now lie in it;
you wanted your own way—now, how do you like it?
Don’t you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots?
Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.
First pay attention to me, and then relax.
Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”
Good Morning, Friends and Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers watching! This morning I hope you will find this message filled with hope in these difficult times
As I have pondered the emotions of this week and the ongoing stress of this pandemic. I have thought a great deal about the role of mothers during this time, and the extra stress on those who seek to nurture and care for children, elderly parents, spouses, and loved ones.
In my first virtual sermon during this pandemic, I spoke about Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and that mother-like moment when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and wishes that he could gather the people like a hen gathers her chicks.
I don’t know about you, but I need that image of God more than ever right now. I believe we need a nurturing Mother God to wrap her comforting arms around us, draw us in, and remind us that all is going to be well.
As I prepared for this week’s sermon, I was glad that as Quakers we are not afraid to imagine or characterize God with female qualities and descriptors, as well as, the typical male ones.
As Quakers, our understanding of God is shaped by personal experiences, and different people use a variety of descriptors to help them find meaningful ways to connect to the Divine.
Even when we talk of that Inner-Light we do not ascribe it a gender, most of our gender descriptors actually come from the Bible.
The patriarchal world of the Bible often limits us only to male descriptors of God. Yet there is the personification of God as Wisdom in a few places in the Old Testament which utilizes female descriptors.
Take for example the scripture that Beth read from Proverbs 1 – I love Eugene Peterson’s translation of the personification of wisdom – which he labels “Lady Wisdom.” Giving us yet another female interpretation of God.
Lady Wisdom goes out in the street and shouts.
At the town center she makes her speech.
In the middle of the traffic she takes her stand.
At the busiest corner she calls out:
More significantly the Apocrypha (the books of the Bible that were not considered cannon but were accepted as historical) often utilize the female descriptors for the wisdom of God. Sadly, for most of our history (and still for many faith communities today), a female version of God seems threatening, demeaning or even heretical.
Let’s be honest, I sense in most eras this was misogyny alive and well, as it sadly still is today.
Just listen to how one of the Apocryphal books - the Wisdom of Solomon personifies the Wisdom of God.
There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy…loving the good…humane…steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle. …For she is a breath of the power of God…in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets; for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with Wisdom. (7:22b-30)
As Quakers who call themselves, Friends, that one line should stand out and be quoted often – “She passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God.” That, to me, is beautiful.
Pastor Chris Glazer says the following about this passage from the Wisdom of Solomon,
“If you saw all these qualities in a personal ad or on a resume, you just might want to meet this person! I say “might” because this is a list so awesome many of us would feel intimidated. This is a description of Sophia, Greek for Wisdom, and in Jewish wisdom literature, you could say she was the feminine side of God, the counterpart to God the Father. This scripture was written by a Jewish mystic deeply influenced by Greek philosophy who lived around the time of Jesus…
In another text it is said that Sophia was with God from the beginning—without Wisdom nothing was created that was created. If this sounds familiar, the mystical Gospel of John takes as its prologue a similar assertion, that the Word, or Jesus, was with God from the beginning, and without Jesus, nothing was made that was made.”
Wow! Personally…during this pandemic and especially on this Mother’s Day, we need more than ever to identify with this feminine side of God. Those qualities and descriptors are desperately lacking in our world and leadership in this present moment.
Maybe it would do us good to find comfort in scriptures that emphasize these aspects of God, such as:
Isaiah 66:13 – “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you,” God declares through the prophet Isaiah.
Or again, Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37 – “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”
Or as the Psalmist in Psalm 131:2 gives us that comforting goal of resting in God:
“I hold myself in quiet and silence,
like a little child in its mother’s arms,
like a little child, so I keep myself.”
During this ongoing isolation, I continue to hear people say they miss the personal touch, the hugs, the handshakes, the comfort that physically being with other people brings.
Just maybe, during this time, embracing a Mother-God-understanding would help us sense more accurately how God wants to interact in our life during this time.
It reminds me of back in my doctoral work when I studied the people known as the Dessert Mothers and Fathers. Unlike us, they chose to go into isolation and quarantine by heading out into the wildernesses of the Middle East to pray.
An interesting part of their theology was that they did not believe Jesus came to save only Christians—rather, they believed that Jesus could save the whole world from its excesses, its materialism, prejudices, hatred, self-absorption, violence, and cruelty.
In many ways, I consider the Dessert Mothers and Fathers the first real Quakers. Like us they believed that God speaks to everyone, but that in order to hear God’s voice, one must learn to be still and actively listen for it.
Their focus was on the interior life that later, Quaker founder, George Fox would label our Inner Light.
Along with their inward journey, just like us Quakers, there was also an outward expression as well. The Mothers and Fathers labored to create self-sustaining communities that could welcome and feed the stranger, the refugee, the pilgrim, and those escaping mistreatment and injustice, including women.
Mary C. Earl in her book specifically on the Dessert Mothers, or “Ammas” as they were known, shared this about what they taught her, she said…
“…the ammas have taught me to set aside time for quiet. There are so many pressures that lead us to be fragmented. The tradition does not deny the pressures. The ammas tell us that God is present even in those daily struggles. I can remember that more readily if I have taken time for quiet.
She also says,
“…the ammas take me back to basics. We live in a time in which so much polarization has happened in both the national political arena, and within the church. The ammas invite us to look beyond all the divisive fussing — not to deny it, but to see it as surface reality. They invite us to gaze more deeply, especially in the most tensive of circumstances.”
And lastly, she says,
“…the ammas tell me that from the beginnings of the life of the Church, women have been initiators of new patterns and teachings, opening the way for knowing the wholeness that God offers in Christ. When I am reading the stories and sayings of the desert ammas, I am struck by their utter confidence that no matter what, this world belongs to God, is loved by God, and that each person, each creature, each aspect of the created order, is an expression (some would say a theophany, a showing) of God’s love.
Just maybe, during these difficult days of forced isolation we could take time to embrace and gravitate to the qualities and attributes of our Mother God, to sense her nurturing love and seek her wisdom. Allow ourselves to be wrapped in her safe embrace and comforted by her care.
And as the Dessert Mothers and Fathers, maybe we too should take this opportunity to turn to prayer and our inner life.
To begin to seek how during this pandemic we can turn to Jesus to help release us from our excesses, materialism, prejudices, hatred, self-absorption, violence, and cruelty.
And once more, as the Ammas or Dessert Mothers remind us, during our quiet and alone times this week, we should try and make time for acknowledging the pressures, polarizations, and tensions that we are experiencing – all while remembering no matter what this world throws at us - Mother God is always with us and ready to embrace us with her love!
As we now take a moment to enter waiting worship, I ask that you ponder the following queries:
1. How might embracing the qualities and attributes of a “Mother God” help me during this difficult time?
2. What inner spiritual work do I need to do in my times of quiet this week?
3. Who do I need to reach out to with a nurturing word of love and hope, today?