During the past weeks we explored how the Gospel points to the physical, and yet mysterious resurrected Christ – he who is present bodily, yet not subject to the limitations of the physical world. How ours is a religion of the body and a spirituality of the wound, that the physical world, our physical world, matters.
And today, in our world, it is Mother’s Day. We must, however, not simply celebrate mothers, but also celebrate those mothers who have lost children, those who are estranged from a child, those women who cannot, but desperately wish to, have children and those women who mother animal companions or birth works of love and justice in the world.
So, inspired by Mothering, we will re-read part of today’s Gospel with a slight change:
27 [Jesus said], My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Mother has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Mother’s hand. 30 The Mother and I are one.”
It is amazing the difference one word can make. While we call this change “slight”, we know it is also a huge, a fundamental, change.
It is a slight change because when Jesus speaks of ‘the father’ he is not referring to a biologically gendered old man God in the sky. The ultimate uncreated One, who creates all that is, has no gender, is beyond and before all concepts of gender. We all know this, and so our standard, limited, biologically based image of a loving God – the father – should be able to broadened by use of another limited, biologically based image of a loving God – the Mother.
We know this… and yet …
And yet, it is a fundamental change because our version rubs against a tradition where the divine is only referred to in masculine terms: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (gendered as male) … and tradition matters.
Of course, we are not trying to change Holy Scripture – certainly not as a new parish priest without rector status.
What we are doing is bringing into focus a tension that exists between tradition and the divine, between interpretation of scripture and the Gospel of Christ.
Tradition is always limited, as it is formed from our human response to the divine, and we are limited. Any tradition is a work in progress, part of an ever-expanding exploration of unlimited divinity. This is acknowledged in the Anglican tradition by the principle of semper reformanda, ‘always reforming’, meaning the church and church tradition should always be in a process of reform, growth and renewal.
In our Gospel we hear of the holders of tradition “the Jews” gathering around Jesus. Let’s not skip over the antisemitism here but own it and see it clearly – part of our own bounded and limited Christian tradition. “The Jews” can function as a lazy, messy and harmful symbol for those – and that within ourselves – which seeks to impede the unlimited love of God.
In contrast to those bound by tradition and precedence, is Jesus. Being one with the Father, one with the Mystery we label as “father”, he is unlimited.
Our text points out two important things: it is the Festival of the Dedication, commemorating the rededication of the Jewish temple; and that Jesus walks in the Portico of Solomon, who built the first Temple. The temple was really, really important – it was not only the symbol of the Jewish covenant with God, but it was also the physical embodiment of that covenant, the dwelling place of God on earth. John’s text focuses our attention on the sources of the temple, physically and spiritually.
And then there is Jesus – not taking not an innocent stroll, but a walk of declaration. Jesus is showing in body prayer, through physical action, that He will become a new temple, a new focal point of worship, a new way to God. He is showing that a human body, flesh and blood, is greater than the Temple.
And so – because of this, “the Jews gathered around him”. Again, this is not innocent. This is not like a footy team rushing to gather around the captain after she kicks the winning goal. The Greek also has the sense of to ‘encircle’ and ‘besiege’. The gathering is an attempt to contain and limit Jesus, to trap him into blasphemy so they may kill him.
Of course, as our Gospel later recounts, they fail – and as we celebrate every Sunday, even when Jesus is killed, he is not contained. He returned, and he always returns.
Like Christ, we are called to question our traditions, transforming those that limit the love of God or limit the sharing of that love.
We are highlighting one of those, often unquestioned, traditions today – the gendering of the ungendered divine as exclusively masculine. It is fitting then, that we highlight this today, on Mother’s Day, celebrating that we all are here, physically, having life because of our mother. Every mother has given of herself, bodily, physically, and brought forth new life, a new body, just as God gives of herself and brings forth new life.
Mother’s Day then, whether celebrated secularly like today, or within some church calendar’s as Mothering Sunday, is a tradition of deep importance.
Now, it used to be tradition that only men could be priests. That changed in the Perth Anglican Community 33 years ago. The reason it changed was, in some ways, simple. People, regular people like us, could see that the old tradition was harmful and limited women expressing their love and service to God, and also denied the Church the service offered by these women.
It is still tradition within our Church that marriage is only between a woman and a man. It used to be tradition within our country, but that changed eight years ago. The reason it changed was simple. People, regular people like us, could see that the old tradition was harmful to those in love with people of the same gender.
Throughout Australia, back then, love won. Love will always win.
Love wins through us - the Body of Christ. Love wins when we, like Jesus, encircled and besieged by those who would limit the love of God, speak up and declare that God, whether seen as Mother, seen as Father, seen as the eternal One, loves all people.
Love wins when we assert – when we tell others – that all people in our church, regardless of their gender, gender expression or the gender of who they love, should be able to marry or become a priest or a bishop as called by and in the love of God. Love wins when we love,
In the Name of Christ, Amen.