Mothering Sunday

Colossians 3.12-17; John 19.25b-27

It being Mothering Sunday today we usually talk a lot about our mothers. They'll be acknowledged and thanked all day and many of them more than once. So whilst we say thank you to our mothers in our worship today in the time honoured ways, I'd like to think more about our spiritual mother, Mother Church. We call God our Father and it's been the custom and tradition in the Christian Church down the centuries to refer to the Church as our Mother Church. I know there's the reference also to the cathedral being the Mother church of the diocese, but I want to focus on that spiritual mother we have, the mother which is the Church.

Jesus grew up in a family and being the first born to the family he was dedicated after his birth to God, which was the custom and tradition of the family's religion. He was nurtured in the faith by his parents and St. Luke gives us insight a couple of times of the consequences of that. We read of him on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and of his going astray in the Temple on the return home. That was when he was about 12 years old. Then later as he begins his ministry St. Luke again tells us that going to the synagogue on the Sabbath was Jesus's custom. So he'd been brought up in the faith and obviously that early nurture had resulted in his faith becoming valuable to him because of that. His faith which he practised week by week in external ceremonies and rites became something that was embedded within his heart, mind and soul, because of that early nurture. His parents bore some of that responsibility but it was also borne by others he would have encountered at school and in the synagogue.

One of the great 'gaps' these days in our childrens learning and faith development is often that early nurture in the faith, notwithstanding that many children are still baptised as babies and come to be confirmed as they come into their teens. Many parents these days haven't been nurtured in the faith by their parents or, sadly, at school and so now their children are similarly lacking. And we see the results of that when families come for a baptism and they haven't got a clue about what it is they are doing, what they are coming to and what is going on when they get here. And this, for me, is where Mother Church has a part to play and ever more so these days.

I think we need to remember that it is us, you and I, that are Mother Church. This building is nothing on it's own, it is simply a collection of artefacts and pieces of art and funiture. It only comes alive when we are in it. It only has any real, tangible meaning when people are joining together in worship in it. This building is not the Church, it is we that are the Church. We are Mother Church, each and every single one of us a part of it. And as such, we have a responsibility to the children who come here to nurture them in the Christian faith just as our mothers nurtured us. When we think of our mother or an ideal mother what do we think of? I would guess that somewhere in our thoughts would be - unconditional love; unending forgiveness; encouragement; protection; meeting of our physical, psychological and spiritual needs, whatever they are. As Mother Church, we have the responsibility of providing those things for the children who come here, especially their spiritual needs, the building in them of a faith that will see them through a lifetime here on earth and beyond.

Several of us have been taking that responsibility more seriously over recent months and have begun to talk to the children themselves to ask them what their wants and needs are in worship and to ask ourselves where we are lacking in that provision, where we are failing our children by not meeting our responsibility as Mother Church to them. That conversation has led us to put our children right at the very heart of the church and to show them we value them by treating their needs seriously. And we've given to them one of our principle worship times each month, on the second Sunday each month to give expression, in worship here, of what God and their Christian faith means to them. And we are journeying alongside them to support and encourage them and to provide for them what they need for their journey, as Jesus's parents did for him on their yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover and every day in between.

Now I've heard already of adults amongst us who are saying that when that service takes place they don't need to be here; that it's for children. Well, on the contrary your presence is even more needful. Yes, there are those mothers who, sadly, abandon their children because their own needs are too great to allow them to give to their children what they need. But most don't abandon them, most bring to them all I mentioned a few moments ago. We are doing nothing for the children if we don't come and encourage them and give them our support because even just our presence here says to them yes, you are valuable to us, you are precious to us, we love you. If you don't come, as you would every other Sunday, you are simply abandoning them.

Our work with our children and our support and nurture of them in the Christian faith shows us being truly, Mother Church. And the Church is Mother to each and every one of us in the same way as it is to our children. Each week we come to Mother Church to receive that love, forgiveness and nurture we need constantly to continue our Christian journey. So that new service will be 'worship for children with adults in mind', because we will join with them and we will learn from them too, for what parent doesn't learn and relearn from their child.

So today, this Mothering Sunday is a day to remember the responsibility we all have, each one of us, to the children in our midst for their Christian faith and nurture in that faith and indeed, to commit ourselves once again to that responsibility and to do our very best for our children and for one another, now and in the years to come.