Church of the Holy City

Only a Mother’s Love

Only a Mother’s Love . . .
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 12, 2013

Isaiah 66:6-14 John 2:1-11 Psalm 71

Only a mother. Only a mother knows her children so well. Only a mother cares so dearly for her children. Only a mother is right there with her children in all the circumstances of their lives, lending her support to her children.
The word “mother” appears 395 times in the Bible, in the Revised Standard Version. But many of these references are very brief–sometimes only one line. There are indeed some powerful stories of mothers, though, such as Sarah and her son Isaac. Or Rachel and Leah and the 12 sons of Jacob. There are some in the New testament, too, such as the birth stories of John the Baptist and of Jesus. There is the story of Mary finding Jesus in the temple when He is twelve years old, and the scolding she gives Him for staying behind the family in their trip from Jerusalem. But these powerful stories are few in relation to the whole Bible.
Then there is the story of Jesus turning the water into wine, that I selected for this morning’s reading from the New Testament. I chose it because Jesus’ mother, Mary, figures prominently in it. And she acts as a present-day mother would. Mary knows her Son’s abilities, and basically goads Him into performing His first miracle. The Holy Family is at a wedding feast, and the host runs out of wine. Mary, Jesus’ mother, intervenes. She comes up to her Son, and says, “They have no wine.” We have an interesting picture of the young Jesus here. Jesus doesn’t want to get involved, apparently. He says, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” But Mary knows her Son’s abilities, and disregards His statement. She says to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Jesus is going to help out regardless of what He says, due to His mother’s prompting. This is Jesus’ first miracle, and He turns the water into wine. This story shows how a mother knows her child’ potential, and often brings out this best in her children.
Through the many turns my life has taken, my mother has always been on my side and supportive. When I had just graduated from high school, and was considering college, she saw way back then that I was destined to become a minister. I thought that I would make a good electrical engineer, and enrolled in an engineering university. My mother knew that this was a bad fit for me. But as I had saved up money for my first couple years of schooling, she didn’t say anything to discourage me. After two years, it became clear to me that engineering was a bad fit for me–something my mother knew all along. Then I flirted with the notion of becoming a musician, as I love music and enjoy performing. Now I actually scared my mother. For mothers often want their children to take music lessons, but no mother wants their children to actually become a musician! Probably looking after my better interests, my mother wouldn’t support me in this venture. But when it became clear to me that I was best suited for ministry, my mother breathed a sigh of relief and supported me fully.
Mothers support their children throughout their children’s journeys in life. When a child is struggling with employment, as so many are today, a mother will open her home to her child until they get back on their feet. Robert Frost captures this feeling very well in a poem called The Death of the Hired Man. The poem is about a farming couple. A hired man returns to the farm after being away for a while. It becomes clear that the hired man has come back to die, and that he wanted to be around familiar faces, as he had no other home. The husband in the poem grumbles, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” His wife responds in a motherly way, “I should have called it/Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
We don’t need to deserve our homes. We don’t need to earn our place there. They are there for us regardless of our successes or failures. This can be frustrating at times. For if our mothers love us regardless of our successes or failures, then our successes don’t matter all that much. I was pretty proud when I got admitted to Harvard University. But my mother didn’t seem fazed at all. This didn’t make her more or less proud of loving toward me. I was her son and she would be there for me regardless of success or failure. Later in life I wrote my dissertation for my Ph. D. at the University of Virginia, and that didn’t seem to change my mother’s attitude toward me. But a school counselor said something about a mother’s love. She told me that only three people will read my dissertation: me, my dissertation director, and my mother. And that was true. Later still I published a few articles and a book and felt pretty full of myself. But my mother remained the same in her unconditional regard for me. But she did buy a copy of my book for all her children and all my relatives. But none of these accomplishments changed the way my mother regarded me. Had I continued to work in the factory I was hired in just after high school, she would have loved me just the same. That is the glory of a mother’s love and the frustrating aspect of a mother’s love. Home is very much that place you don’t have to deserve.
There is a special bond between a mother and her children. I think it is perhaps the strongest bond of love. Or at least equal to any other bond. The love a mother feels for her children is unlike any other love we feel on earth. And when the Bible wants to talk about God’s love for humanity, it turns to maternal imagery. In this morning’s reading from Isaiah, God’s love and care for Israel is compared to a mother caring for an infant:
you shall be carried upon her hip,
and dandled upon her knees.
As one whom his mother comforts,
so I will comfort you;

And when Jesus shows His love and sorrow over Jerusalem, He uses the image of a mother hen:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! 38 Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:37-39).
Our mothers have a special connection to us. We have had their very blood flowing through us. We have been nourished by the very food they ate; and they feed us still after birth with their own bodies. Perhaps it is due to this visceral connection that mothers are that symbol of God’s divine love for humanity.
In Swedenborg’s theology, women correspond to love. I made that remark in a job interview for a teaching position. And the dean of the school, who had it in for me from the get-go, made the following statement, “I like to think that I love my children as much as their mother does.” What shall we say? Of course fathers love their children, too. But is it expressed in the same way as mothers express their abiding love for their children? Look at elementary school teachers. What is the ratio of men to women when it comes to educating children? I have worked in the mental health field, and almost all the social workers and counselors were women. Carol works with special needs individuals and all of her co-workers are women. Of course men care and nurture, too. Of course men are counselors and social workers, too. Of course men are elementary school teachers and special needs workers, too. But what is the ratio of men to women in these fields? I think that these nurturing roles are filled by women because care and nurturing are qualities in which women excel. I think that Swedenborg was right in saying that women correspond to love’s expression.
Only a mother. Only a mother knows her children so well. Only a mother cares so dearly for her children. Only a mother is right there with her children in all the circumstances of their lives, lending her support to her children. It is mothers that make a house into a home, into something you somehow don’t have to deserve. Today, and every day, it is right and fitting that we celebrate the mothers in this world.