To Be Mothers of God
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the
knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” – Hosea 6:6
“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not
sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” - Matthew 9:13
Faith. It has been suggested by Frederick Buechner, faith
is better understood as a verb than a noun. As a process rather than a
possession. “It is on-again, off-again rather than once and for all. Faith is
not sure where you are going, but like Abraham, going anyway. A journey without
maps. Tillich said that doubt is not the opposite of faith, but rather is an
element of faith ... Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it
awake and moving.” (Wishful Thinking, (Harpers, San Francisco: 1973 – pp. 20,
27)
It is by faith that Hosea suspects there will be a way out
of Babylon, and that it will be led by YHWH, and that the people of God will
make it back to Jerusalem despite having no Temple in which to make sacrifices.
Rather, steadfast love and knowledge of God will suffice.
The Psalmist concurs in Psalm 50 since the God of Creation,
the God whose intentions are marked by mercy, compassion, and forgiveness
desires of us only a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and that we honor our vows, our
covenant relationship, with our God.
Saint Paul reminds us that God’s promises depend on our
faith being like that of Abraham’s which honors and trusts the God who gives
life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist – things
beyond even our hope and imaginings!
Sin. Look at Jesus who shares a meal around a table
of tax collectors and sinners. Sin, as understood in the New Testament, is not
about whether we have been naughty or nice, but rather implies those who accept
and even participate in systems and structures of oppression, those powers that
seek to oppose God’s will that nature be allowed to exist in harmony and
abundance; that people be allowed to live with purpose and dignity in joyful
communion with others; that people have life, and have it abundantly, all
people, everywhere, all the time. Sinners, then, are those who collaborate to
exploit nature, deny the dignity of all persons, and who, through systems of
greed and acquisition, deny the basic elements of abundant life for others. All
others.
The tax collectors, and presumably everyone at the table,
collaborate with the Roman occupation of Israel, assisting Rome to strip Israel
of all its resources, property, and powers of self-determination. The
holier-than-thou Pharisees are astonished and ask his disciples “how on earth
can your master sit with all these sinners?” Jesus overhears and answers them: “Go
back and re-read Hosea, and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not
sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Suddenly, there is a story of a young girl who is dead, and
a woman who has had a flow of blood for twelve long years. Women ranked only a
little ahead of children and slaves. Young girls were not considered of much
value by their fathers. Yet, surprise, a leader of the synagogue kneels before
Jesus and begs Jesus to save his daughter who is dead. As they head to his
house, there is an interruption: the woman with the flow of blood, which
renders her ritually unclean, unable to participate in the ritual life of her
people, and is certainly not expected to touch a man in public, believes if she
could touch Jesus she may be healed, restored to life in the community that has
rejected her for over a decade. Madeleine L’Engle lets her tell her own story:
The Lightning
When I pushed through the crowd,
jostled, bumped, elbowed by the
curious
who wanted to see what everyone
else
was so excited about,
all I could think of was my pain
and that perhaps if I could touch
him,
this man who worked miracles,
cured diseases,
even those as foul as mine,
I might find relief.
I was tired from hurting,
exhausted, revolted by my body,
unfit for any man, and yet not let
loose
from desire and need. I wanted to
rest,
to sleep without pain or filthiness
or torment.
I don’t really know why
I thought he could help me
when all the doctors
with all their knowledge
had left me still drained
and bereft of all that makes
a woman’s life worth living.
Well: I’d seen him with some
children
and his laughter was quick and
merry
and reminded me of when I was young
and well,
though he looked tired; and he was
as old as I am.
Then there was that leper,
but lepers have been cured before –
No, it wasn’t the leper,
or the man cured of palsy,
or any of the other stories of
miracles,
or at any rate that was the least
of it;
I had been promised miracles too
often.
I saw him ahead of me in the crowd
and there was something in his
glance
and in the way his hand rested
briefly
on the matted head of a small boy
who was getting in everybody’s way,
and I knew that if only I could get
to him,
not to bother him, you understand,
not to interrupt, or to ask him for
anything,
not even his attention,
just to get to him and touch him…
I didn’t think he’d mind, and he
needn’t even know.
I pushed through the crowd
and it seemed that they were
deliberately
trying to keep me from him.
I stumbled and fell and someone
stepped
on my hand and I cried out
and nobody heard. I crawled to my
feet
and pushed on and at last I was
close,
so close I could reach out
and touch with my fingers
the hem of his garment.
Have you ever been near
when lightning struck?
I was, once, when I was very small
and a summer storm came without
warning
and lightning split the tree
under which I had been playing
and I was flung right across the
courtyard.
That’s how it was.
Only this time I was not the child
but the tree
and the lightning filled me.
He asked, “Who touched me?”
and people dragged me away,
roughly,
and the men around him were angry
at me.
“Who touched me?” he asked.
I said, “I did, Lord.”
So that he might have the lightning
back
which I had taken from him when I
touched
his garment’s hem.
He looked at me and I knew then
that only he and I knew about the
lightning.
He was tired and emptied
but he was not angry.
He looked at me
and the lightning returned to him
again,
though not from me, and he smiled
at me
and I knew that I was healed.
Then the crowd came between us
and he moved on, taking the
lightning with him,
perhaps to strike again.
We might notice that Jesus does not do a thing. It is the
faith of the woman with the flow of blood that saves the day. When he gets to
the leader’s house, the professional mourners are already celebrating the girl’s
death. Jesus dismisses them and says she is only sleeping. They laugh and scoff
at Jesus’s absurd assertion. Jesus simply takes the girl by the hand and she rises,
alive and well. Her father’s faith in Jesus saved the day.
These stories are meant to inspire us – to inspire us to
examine our own faith, and our own doubts. Are we like the woman, who by faith
risks everything, breaks all social codes, and persists in getting to Jesus by
any means possible? Are we like the father who kneels before Jesus and begs him
to please come home to our house and restore my little girl’s life? Are we like
Jesus who willing to sit down with those who collaborate against all freedoms
and dignities God wills for all people, and to share a meal, and share ideas
and opinions, and listen to one another to reconcile and disperse the power of
Sin, capital “s”, that threatens us all? Do we find ourselves among the
professional mourners, laughing and scoffing at the power of Christ, the power
of God, the powers of mercy, compassion and forgiveness that wait for us all to
one day to repent, to turn around and walk in the ways of the Lord? Can we,
like Jesus, be as concerned for the outsiders like the sinners, tax collectors,
the little girl, and the woman with the flow of blood, as we are for family and
friends? Do we value women and children the way Jesus does? When Jesus calls
us, do we get up and leave everything and follow him, the way Matthew the tax
collector does? For these are just some of the questions we are meant to
address in ourselves when we hear these stories read.
Mothers of God: Thirteenth Century theologian,
philosopher, and Dominican monk, Meister Eckhart once said, “We are all
meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born.” Jesus
bore the intentions of God his Father in all that he said and all that he did. Jesus
spends time with tax collectors and sinners; stops to recognize a woman who had
suffered for twelve years; takes the time to restore the life of a little girl;
all of which was endlessly baffling to those who thought they were the arbiters
of faith in his day. Just as his mother, Mary of Nazareth, bore the Son of God
into this world, so we who are created in the image of God are called to be “Mothers
of God,” for God and God’s compassion, mercy, forgiveness and love always needs
to be born into the dark corners of this world. This is as true today as the
day Meister Eckhart said this. The power of Sin may never have been as
prevalent at any other time in history as it is today. These stories, and so
many others, call us to be those people who bear God and God’s mercy,
forgiveness, compassion, and love to those whom society and leaders of all
stripes push aside to the margins of life. God needs to be born today, and tomorrow,
and the next day, that lives consigned to endless suffering my one day see the
light of faith. That we may become Mothers of God every day, in all that we do
and all that we say, may God help us! Amen.
