Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, October 29, 2006, at the 9:50 and 11:10 am services.
The Phoenix Affirmations: # 9
The Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers are continually discovering and rediscovering that they — and all people — are loved beyond their wildest imagination, and they determine to live their lives according to this discovery. We find in this discovery and surrender the very essence of salvation, which is a process, not an end point, within an eternal journey.
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
12No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and divine love is truly in our hearts. 13God has given us God’s own Spirit. That is how we know that we are one with God, just as God is one with us.
It is hard to understand what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” really means. This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. The word “within” is unnecessary. The Kingdom of Heaven is you. What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is the Creator’s Kingdom?
29Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But your divine Parent knows when any one of them falls to the ground. 30Even the hairs on your head are counted. 31So don’t be afraid! You are worth much more than many sparrows.
Twenty years ago, when I was in college, my friends William and Ernest lived together as a couple. Their apartment had two bedrooms, theirs’ and the guest room.
One night William’s mother invited herself to dinner at William and Ernest’s home. The problem was, William wasn’t out to his mother!
They did what semi-closeted young couples have done since the earth cooled — they hid all evidence of their intimate relationship and claimed that the guest room was actually Ernest’s bedroom. You might say they “straightened up” the apartment.
Mother comes for dinner, a lovely time is had by all and Mom leaves.
When William and Ernest are doing the dishes that night, congratulating themselves for having pulled the wool over Mother’s eyes, Ernest notices that the gravy ladle is missing. He asked William, “you don’t suppose your Mother took the ladle for some reason, do you?” William said, “I don’t know why she would, but tomorrow I’ll call her and ask.”
The next day, William calls his mother and says, “Ma, I don’t want to sound as if I’m accusing you of anything, but did you for some reason take my gravy ladle home with you last night?”
And Mother replies to William, “Son, I don’t want to sound as if I’m accusing you of anything, but you’d know where your ladle is if Ernest had slept in his bed last night.”[1]
A mother knows. There is a wonderful image of God in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 32.10-11 says, “In a desert land God found them…and shielded them and cared for them and guarded them as the apple of God’s eye, rather like an eagle that stirs up her nest and hovers over her young and spreads her wings to catch them and carry them on her feathers.” I love that image of God as a Mother Eagle, stirring her nest as a way of teaching her young that they have the power to soar, all the while staying near to catch them if they don’t get it right the first time — providing that wonderful balance of challenge and security. This is only one of many maternal images of God in our sacred texts, but it is my favorite.
In the 13th chapter of Luke, Jesus says, “What can I say the Commonwealth of God is like? It is like a woman who bakes bread, adding yeast to the dough until the whole loaf rises.” That passage conjures for me memories of my Grandmother, whom I adored, baking her delicious rolls and teacakes and corn bread and ranger cookies and biscuits and sticky buns…the smell of those delicious treats was the smell of love. Those rolls rising in the oven and steaming on the dining table and melting butter instantly…that’s a memory worth treasuring. What is God’s Realm like? Like a grandmother lovingly making delicious treats to feed her cherished grandchildren.
Also in the gospel of Luke Jesus is remembered as sharing a trilogy of fictional stories about the nature of God. The first is the story of a shepherd who won’t let a single sheep stray. The third story in the trilogy is about an unwise son who demands his inheritance early and then blows it on petty excitements and pleasures. When he returns home in disgrace he thinks he will have to beg his father’s forgiveness just to get some charity. Instead he finds a loving parent who is thrilled that he chose to come home and he doesn’t get mere charity he gets the best that the parent has to offer. In the middle of these two stories is a story of a woman who loses a coin and she tears the house apart, frantically, looking for that coin. It was more than money, it was probably a coin that dangled from a headpiece. It might have been given to her as an engagement present. It had enormous sentimental value and losing it was not an option. So when it rolled away into some unlikely place, she takes a broom and she cleans every nook and cranny of the house, turning furniture over and looking under clothes and in pots until she finally finds it. And then she is so relieved and thrilled that she invites the neighbors in to celebrate her joy with her.
God is the shepherd who will not lose a lamb. God is the loving father who will never reject his child. God is the woman who cannot imagine existing without her prized coin. God is the loving One who relentlessly pursues the object of her love and will not let it go, ever, for any reason, no matter what anyone ever says.
The prophet Isaiah speaking for God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” One of the names for God in the Hebrew scriptures is El Shaddai, which means the almighty breasted one. It’s a mothering image, an image of a nursing mother who gives life to her children by feeding them from her very own body.
In Genesis we read about the creative spirit hovering over the waters of life. The spirit in Hebrew is called “Ruach” and she is feminine. The life-giving spirit of God hovers over the waters of creation to give birth to all life, according to one of our creation myths.
Well, time won’t allow me to expose every name and image in the bible that is maternal. To call God mother is not an invention of contemporary feminism; it is the ancient witness of our scriptures, though patriarchy and misogyny have too often prevented us from noticing and appreciating that witness. Of course our bible also compares God to a father, and to a Rainbow, and to a Castle, and to a Wind, and many other images, male, female, both and neither. But the images I want to bring to your consciousness this morning is that image of God the loving mother, the life-giver, the nurturer, the one who knows you, the one who brought you forth from her own being and who sustains you with nourishment from her own being. This is not a lesson on inclusive language or even on the diversity of thought that can be seen in our bible. This is a lesson of how repeatedly the bible writers gave witness to the loving, nurturing, life-giving reality of God — the God who is like a loving mother who knows her child inside and out and who loves that child unconditionally and eternally.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God — that’s what the writer of 1 John tells us in our first reading this morning. And our Phoenix Affirmation sums up all of this so beautifully, “The Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers are continually discovering and rediscovering that they — and all people — are loved beyond their wildest imagination...” This IS the Good News. Amen.
[1] A joke reportedly read at the funeral of humorist and drag performer Charles Pierce (modified for this sermon)
God is love.
God heals my body.
God blesses my relationships.
God guides my affairs.
God prospers my life.
God celebrates who I am.
I love God, others, and myself.
And so it is!
