Sermon - 10 May 2026 - Mother's Day

I

This past April 13, Pastor M told the church council that she would be

taking a week of vacation—from May 3 to May 10. And here we are today, on May 10, the last day of her vacation. I know we are all hopeful that Pastor has had a restful week, and that she comes back renewed. Pastor M is an authentically prayerful and spiritual person. We are lucky to have her.

So on April 14, our council president MS texted me and asked if I would be willing to lead this morning’s Service of the Word. Now, you all know it’s not easy to say no to the council president. It’s especially tough when the council president is MS.

So I read the readings and over the next three weeks put together a sermon on idols—which we just heard about in our first reading.

And here’s a spoiler: idols are not good. Christian folks should avoid them.

But then MS reminded me this past Monday that today is Mother’s Day. 

And this reminded me. In a way that only MS could remind someone.

And I got to thinking. I’m not dumb. I usually know the right answer if I’m told. And MS has told me. And the right answer is for me to talk a lot less about idols and more a lot about mothers.

So that’s what we are going to do.

II

I have actually been thinking about mothers a lot lately.

You see, god willing, my daughter, AK, will be a first-time mother, hopefully in late July. I text and facetime with her about every two or three days to check on her.  Truth be told, I do this because I’m worried about her.  Because pregnancy has proven difficult for her before.

But here is the thing: as difficult as her pregnancies have been, and as difficult as the world can be, AK still has this incredible desire and hope to be a mother. Where on earth does this hope come from?

Now one could mansplain this situation and say that pregnancy is designed this way—that hormones are the chemical source of this desire and hope. In other words, this hope of Kate and mother like her is actually an artefact of biology, an evolution that caused a happy accident and thus carries the species on… I am sure there is some truth in this.

But it does leave us with a deeper question: what kind of “accident” is capable of producing such love and such hope?

Perhaps the answer is that the hope that comes with motherhood has the touch of the divine in it. I can’t be certain of this, but that’s what I’m thinking.

III

In fact, perhaps the relationship of mother to her child is one of the best analogies we have for God’s relationship with us. Perhaps motherhood reveals something to us about the nature of God. Now we certainly know the metaphor of God as father and us as his children, but this idea of God mother is perhaps even richer.

The God who dares to hope in new life, but to invest in it, despite all the hurt and suffering in the world. Does that sound like a mother?

The God whose love grows and increases, gestates and then brings forth. Does that sound like a mother?

The God who forgives, despite the hurt we cause. Does that sound like a mother?

And finally the God who endures pain and makes sacrifice. Does that sound like a mother?

And not only that… when this cycle is over—the cycle of daring, hoping, investing, growing, increasing, forgiving, protecting, sacrificing—when that cycle is over, does not God begin it again, just like a mother?

IV

Mothers participate with the divine in the miracle of our incarnation.

Perhaps the Psalmist is right—that we are known by God before we are even conceived.

Yet I suspect that each human life is also something profoundly new, utterly unique in the history of existence.

At conception, we first encounter our mothers, and it is as though we are falling into being itself—and our mother’s catch us. Before words, before memory, before any conscious thought, there is this first human relationship: silent, intimate, and saturated with love. Our mothers accompany us across the threshold of being, from nonexistence into embodied life.

We are here, alive in this moment, only because we were born of our mothers. That may sound obvious, but it is in fact deeply profound. Aristotle might have said that motherhood is ontologically prior to our existence—not merely preceding us in time, but preceding our very being. Mothers are not simply the beginning of our story; they are the condition that makes our story possible.

Fathers, by contrast, contribute their genes, but once conception occurs, their role is, well, focused on support. Mothers remain present from the very beginning: carrying, sustaining, nourishing, and bringing forth life itself.

In this sense, this is the way that mothers are a different metaphor for God than is a father.  In fatherly images of God , God operates in linear fashion, step by step.  He creates and then he separates: he creates the light and then separates from the darkness.  He creates the heavens, separating them from the earth.  He creates dry land, separating it from water.  But in maternal image of God, what is created comes forth from the very being God.  in its own time and rhythm.

Just so, a mother’s mystery has always been evident, though the modern West often seems uneasy with mystery—as if everything sacred must first be reduced to mechanism before it can be believed.

Biology can describe how life develops. It can explain cell division, hormones, and the first stirrings of a heartbeat. But description is not the same as meaning. To explain the physics of a sunrise does not diminish—or fully convey—its beauty. In the same way, explaining the biology of motherhood does not explain away its wonder.

V

And thus as a mother carries each and every child into the world, she is also carrying new hope into the world.

And perhaps this is why Paul says that “all creation groans in labor pains.” The whole cosmos, according to Paul, strains toward new life. Creation itself is pictured not as a machine, but as a mother—travailing, suffering, waiting, and bringing forth.

VI

But perhaps motherhood also teaches us something else.

Because before any woman becomes a mother… she is first herself. A daughter. A child.

A person with her own becoming, her own longings, fears, gifts, and calling. And this too is holy.

We sometimes speak as though motherhood is the completion of womanhood—as though a woman’s life only finally arrives at its meaning when she bears a child. But that cannot be true. Because no child should be asked to give a woman her existence. Mothers are not born from their children. Mothers are women before motherhood ever begins.

And this matters. Because if mothers catch us as we fall into existence… who first caught them?

They too were once carried. Once protected. Once hoped for. Once forgiven. Once loved into being by others. They too entered this world not first as mothers, but as human beings made in the image of God.

And perhaps that is why motherhood can become such a profound reflection of divine love: not because it replaces womanhood, but because it grows from it.

A mother does not cease being herself when she bears a child. If anything, motherhood reveals something already present — the deep human capacity to nurture life, to make room for another, to endure suffering for the sake of love.

But these things are not owned by motherhood alone. They belong first to personhood. To womanhood itself.

And that is important to remember before we say anything more.

V

But if we are going to speak truthfully about motherhood this morning, then we must also say something more.

Because if motherhood reveals something true about God—then it cannot be the only way that women reflect the divine.

Because the love we are talking about this morning—this daring, hoping, sacrificing love—is not confined to childbirth. It is present in childbirth, but is known in other ways as well. In women who never become mothers. In women who choose not to become mothers. In women who cannot become mothers.

And so we must be careful.

Because the moment we say that a woman’s value comes only from motherhood… we have taken something sacred—and made it smaller than God intended.

In God’s eyes, women are more than virgins, wives and mothers. They are also astronauts and prime ministers, employees, friends, mentors, pastors, presidents of church councils. We are thankful that women are mothers, but we also know that women are free to choose their own vocations.

And how do we know this? Because God does not love us out of necessity. God loves us freely. And if motherhood reflects something true about God, then it must reflect that same freedom.

Which means this: women are not called into motherhood by biology and obligation alone—but, like God, they are capable of choosing. And what makes a mother’s choice meaningful… is that it is free.

And so if motherhood teaches us anything about the divine, it is this: that love is meaningful because it is chosen.

Which means this— to honor mothers rightly, we must also honor women’s freedom. Their freedom to become mothers. Their freedom not to become mothers. Their freedom to live, to choose, to become.

Because what makes a mother’s love holy is not that it is required—but that it is given.