A Tale of Two Mothers
For many of the British among us, today is Mothering Sunday, a day when
we celebrate women who raised us and gave us life. It feels right, then, that
today’s passages contain mirroring stories of sacrificial motherhood. Two
stories at vastly different times, where God asks a follower to give up her
greatest treasure, her child, to God’s will.
I wonder how they felt in these moments? The mother of Moses, unsure if
she would see her son again, attempting to save him from death by giving him
up? Mary, the mother of Jesus, consecrating her firstborn to God, told that a
sword would pierce her own soul, too. God would ask her to give him up, too.
It’s easy to see from where I sit that God was faithful to these mothers
and their sacrifices. Each of them was used to save the people of God! And yet,
I feel cold sweats coming on as I think about what God might ask me to give up
from my treasures. One of my children? My partner? Dreams? Career? Stability?
I wonder if you’ve been holding back something you need to give up to
God’s will. It’s a dangerous thing - we lose control of what we give up. We
might not recognise what comes back to us. It or they might look less like us
and more like God. It could feel unsettling, scary, unsafe.
And if that does happen, I wonder how God might meet you there?
Natalie Jones
Alternate Collect
God of compassion,
whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,
shared the life of a home in Nazareth,
and on the cross drew the whole human family to
himself:
strengthen us in our daily living
that in joy and in sorrow
we may know the power of your presence
to bind together and to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen
The
Finding of Moses, Alexander Francois Loemans, 1870, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, MA, USA.
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