God, our Mother
- davidwperk
- Dec 15, 2023
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Friday, December 15, 2023
The week of the second Sunday in Advent
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
37‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38See, your house is left to you, desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”’
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 937)
AM Psalm 31; PM Psalm 35
Haggai 1:1-15; Rev. 2:18-29; Matt. 23:27-39
Today we celebrate the Feast of Wulfstan of Worcester. (See below.)
David's Reflections
It is easy to look at a completed narrative as a reader and second-guess the characters in the story. "How dumb of the ancients to ignore the warnings of the prophets. Had we been in their shoes, we'd have listened." At least, that’s what Jesus’ contemporaries thought. And, we wonder, "How could Jesus’ people reject their own Messiah? We would have received him.” Yet, our lives might be writing a narrative with a similar rejection plot while we second-guess the same or a similar plot line from what we read in the Gospels..
Jesus' woes against the Scribes and Pharisees continue in today's Gospel. Words that feel strident and negative stand in tension with the ending, where Jesus compares himself to a mother hen, desiring to draw her chicks under her wing to shield them from danger. He saw Jerusalem and Judea on a collision course with Roman military power, with the embers of resistance and resentment against Rome simmering and threatening to burst out into a raging flame.
The inevitable outcome of such military foolishness, the devastation of Jerusalem and Judea, Jesus foresaw and grieved in advance. He joins with the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea before him; they had foreseen similar disastrous outcomes to rebellion against the Assyrians and Babylonians and counseled the way of peace.
He saw his people struggling with issues of evil and oppression and incapable of breaking free. He had been a peripatetic teacher, prophet, and healer for several years and had been grieved by the profound poverty of spirit among his people. The self-righteous pride and obstinate resistance of the religious leaders in response to his ministry had been ample evidence of that.
The image of Jesus feeling like a mother hen touches me regarding my own relationship with God. How easy to think of God as father, because of the language of Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet, how challenging that proves for many, given the dearth of feminine images for God in our language and worship. How different and stretching of the imagination to think of God as mother, desiring to protect and spare her children. Can we imagine God troubled, stirred, torn by our vulnerability and our blindness? That is the picture I see of God in Jesus' lamenting the plight of Jerusalem.
The Bible itself offers often subtle images about the Divine that can be missed easily. The Old Testament is replete with mother images of God. Someone counted forty, some of which lie beneath the English translation in the semantic fields of the Hebrew language. The New Testament has similar content, some of which lies hidden in the English renderings.
Our language about God brims with figures of speech. Each image can only capture just so much about God. To attach to some to the exclusion of others feels like linguistic idolatry. The father and mother metaphors capture different aspects of the divine personhood, yet both are exactly that, figures of speech. We do well to look beneath all our language about God for what it expresses about God without getting so attached to one or more than we reject others.
The fourteenth century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, in Showings, the longer version, reflects at length on divine motherhood in sections 59-60. The last paragraph of 59, bridges the reflection that 60 contains by affirming that the entire Trinity is mother to us.
I understand three ways of contemplating motherhood in God. The first is the foundation of our nature's creation; the second is his taking of our nature, where the motherhood of grace begins; the third is the motherhood at work. And, in that, by the same grace, everything is penetrated. in length and in breadth, in height and in depth without end; and it all one love. (LIX)*
God as mother hen and us as scattered chicks. Can you hear the call to be drawn underneath her protecting wings? Can you hear the call to seek to bring others with you? Jesus did. Join me in listening for that oft ignored but unceasing divine inner voice, a voice that might awaken to an outer stimulus— Jesus’ appeal to us, coming through another or through a word in Scripture, a poem, or a song.
*Julian of Norwich, Showings. Translated with introduction by Edmund Colledge and James Walsh. Preface, Jean Leclercq. (New York: Paulist, 1978), p. 297.
Collect of the Day, Second Sunday of Advent
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 211)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Wulfstan of Worcester, bishop (died 28 May 1023 CE)
Collect of the Feast of Wulfstan of Worcester
Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son led captivity captive and gave gifts to your people: Multiply among us faithful pastors, who, like your holy bishop Wulfstan, will give courage to those who are oppressed and held in bondage; and bring us all, we pray, into the true freedom of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
A Collect for Fridays
Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (BCP, 123)
In the Order of Worship for Evening
Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)
A Collect for Mission
O God of all the nations of the earth: Remember the multitudes who have been created in your image but have not known the redeeming work of our Savior Jesus Christ; and grant that, by the prayers and labors of your holy Church, they may be brought to know and worship you as you have been revealed in your Son; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 257)
Daily Office Gospel, Matthew 23:27-39
27‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 31Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?
34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. 37‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38See, your house is left to you, desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”’
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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