Mothering Sunday - Lent 4

Psalm 23     John 9: 1 - 17 

Today we recognise that it’s Mothering Sunday and we’ve heard our readings of Psalm 23 and the healing story from John’s gospel. If there is one phrase that links those things it is this  -  “You are loved”.

I know Mothering Sunday is not everyone’s cup of tea – there is perhaps too much of a tendency to talk about mothers in a way which feels a bit over the top.

I prefer the term ”Mothering Sunday” over “Mothers’ day”, because it widens out our understanding of what we’re celebrating. Yes, we might be lucky and be able to show our appreciation of our mother today. But we can also celebrate others who do ‘mothering’ – who care, who provide, who love  – we can even celebrate our  ‘mother church’ on this day – as medieval servants and apprentices used to do. Wherever someone helps a person know they are loved, we can celebrate that on Mothering Sunday.

I hope this mothering Sunday you know  You are loved.

We might be so used to the words of the 23rd Psalm that we forget that it uses the metaphor of a shepherd to talk about God’s loving care for us.

If you read it in The Message version – a fairly recent version of the Bible from a biblical scholar – it might strike you in a different way. It sounds less like a passage about caring for sheep, and more like a description of God’s mothering love.

God, my shepherd!   I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
    you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,  you let me catch my breath
    and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through Death Valley,
I’m not afraid when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six-course dinner
 right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me
    every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
    for the rest of my life.

 

God cares for all his people like a shepherd caring for his sheep; God’s love for all God’s children is like that of an amazing mother.

The Psalmist is trying to tell us You are loved.

And you are loved not just by your family, or your friends, or the people around you… you are loved by God – loved with an amazing and overwhelming love that is enough for the whole world.

We have been travelling through Lent, and thinking about all the ways in which Jesus reveals God’s love to people, even as he is travelling towards his death on the cross.

The amazing love of God shown in Jesus is prepared to give to the utmost – Jesus will willingly lay down his life to show that even death cannot defeat him. Yet this loving and giving of Jesus is not new – he shows it through his whole life.

As we travel towards the cross with Jesus, we heard in Matthew’s gospel about Jesus battling temptation, and then we have been heard from John’s gospel about the conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus and then with the woman at the well. In all these events we see and hear Jesus explaining quite how he is God’s love made human.

 

Today’s story is about the healing of a man blind from birth.

It is wrapped around with lots of questions about why the man is blind, whether he is a sinner, why Jesus heals him on the sabbath, and who Jesus is, to heal like this.

 

But at the heart of this story there is the lovely simple character of the man who was blind.

When he is asked what happened he says

'He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see'.

And when he’s asked who he thinks Jesus is he says

'He is a prophet'.


For this man, the truth is simple. He was blind, now he sees, Jesus healed him.

The man is healed because Jesus has the power to help him – and then he does it. In actions, if not in words, Jesus says to the man You are loved.

And if you read on in John’s gospel, you’ll find that this man comes to believe in Jesus is the son of God, and he worships him.

Jesus helps him to see – and when he sees Jesus he knows he is the one come to tell the world You are loved.

Like so many people I am struggling to know how to pray for the world as the wars in Iran and Ukraine and Palestine continue. I found myself wondering this week whether world leaders would be different if they knew they were loved. It seems that so many of the struggles for power are about trying to prove that a leader has worth and value – they want to gain land, or influence, or even adulation.

So this week I will try to pray for world leaders that they may know You are loved.

You may have your own ideas about who most needs to know and trust that they are loved – but Jesus tells us and shows us that God’s love is for the whole world.

I pray today that you know You are loved and that the message of love might reach those who most need to hear it.

In the name of Jesus, who loves you.  Amen.

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