Sermon: Mothers' Union Lady Day 2014

Preacher:

Dianna Gwilliams

Date:

Monday 24th March 2014

Service:

Festal Eucharist

Readings:

Isaiah 7:10-14

Hebrews 2:14-18

Luke 1:26-38

The Mother’s Union is a force to be reckoned with.  I don’t need to tell you all that, but it may still be news to some.

In most of the Anglican world the Mothers’ Union is THE organisation which gets things done.  When governmental agencies, aid agencies and others are caught up in red tape and procedure the Mother’s Union gets on with work of education, health care, resourcing churches, urban regeneration in our country and lasting change for the poorest in the developing countries.  The Mother’s Union courageously led the drive for the removal of stigma from those affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa, leading to reduction of unnecessary deaths and to the improvement of health and education for thousands.  And while in Britain and Ireland men may be members of the MU that is largely not the case in most of the rest of the world. 

The Mother’s Union is courageously leading the way towards the equality of educational opportunities for girls or for the provision of education for all children.  We don’t take for granted either, the authority which those who lead the Mother’s Union put at the service of others.  Jacky, and no doubt other Diocesan Presidents, will tell the confusion they cause in Africa by NOT being married to the Diocesan Bishop.

I was at the last Lambeth Conference – at which there was some tension in the air, to put it mildly among the Bishops and those who were behind the scenes facilitating the Conference.  By contrast, I felt, as an observer, that the Wives’ Conference was full of life and optimism, colour and yes, power.  The power was not based on political strength but on a conviction that the good news of the gospel of Christ brings freedom from all manner of bondage.  The Mama Bishops from Africa, in particular were the Diocesan Presidents of their MU, and each spoke so movingly about their work for the gospel.  Each meeting of the wives brought more inspiration.

What would Jesus’ mother make of all this activism? Of refusal to be told ‘it (whatever it is) can’t be done’?

Don’t we think she’d be thrilled?  Don’t we think that the young woman who sang, ‘he has exalted the humble and meek and filled the hungry with good things’ would be thrilled?  For me, each time I hear, say or sing the Magnificat, Mary’s song, I recall her ancestor and ours, Hannah, she also sang a very similar song, ‘My heart exalts in the Lord…my mouth speaks boldly against the enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation…the feeble gird on strength, the hungry cease to hunger…he raises the poor from the dust, lifts the needs from the ash heap to make them seat with nobles and inherit a seat of honour…’

Hannah sang her prayer in thanksgiving for the gift of her son, Samuel, whom she dedicated to the Lord after he was weaned.  She knew that the blessing was in giving, giving of her very self, as did Mary, as did our Lord and as do we see in the work of members of the Mother’s Union around the world.

It is not only in places far away that the impact of the work of God undertaken by the Mother’s Union can be seen and known.

In our Diocese you have a presence in four prisons, providing playwork, relationship training, craft and listening; in three of the women’s refuges you provide support in time and in material provision, parents are supported through the provision of holidays, support for very small babies in hospital, parenting classes and groups.  This is just our diocese, and this is replicated throughout the C of E and so we pray for all members of the MU today as they pray for us.  I think Jesus’ mother, and Hannah are thrilled at what is going on.

What we must avoid is the temptation to set anyone as a paragon, neither Hannah, nor the mother of our Lord, neither our sisters and brothers; for to do that means that their examples are lost to us for we know that we ourselves are not, and cannot be, paragons.

If instead, we are determined to always recognise our shared humanity, then the example of all our faith ancestors, as well as your example to others, serves as inspiration.

So for a moment consider how inspirational you all are to others.  How many of you have encouraged a friend to join the Mothers’ Union, or encouraged your families to support a project?  How many of you have written letters to MPs, joined a campaign group, given a talk about the work of the MU?  How many of you have listened to someone in distress, knitted, helped with filling in forms, done a craft workshop?  The list is endless. 

This is what is done day in and day out, largely unsung and unrecognised, because it’s just the warp and weave of life.

Mary’s life is largely unknown.  Some accounts name her parents and she only ever is references in our scriptures in relation to another. ‘…a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph…’ ordinary accounts would say who her father was.  She is ‘engaged to Joseph’, the she is the ‘mother of Jesus, God with us’.  From the very beginning of our relationship with her in the scriptures she is a person in relation to others.  This has had the effect over the centuries of reducing her individuality or equally unhelpful, setting her up as different to other women.

If we pause from time to time to consider her as an individual, as someone just like us, then we may be able to enter into Lady Day more fully. And perhaps we can join with her in rejoicing in all that is being accomplished in the service of God by the MU worldwide.

Mary is an obscure person – little thought important to record by Luke.  We know that she had to give birth to her first child without the presence of her mother, far away from home.  I believe that Mary could have said ‘no, thank you’ to the angel.  She had free will, as have we and all God’s people.  However, she said yes, not because she knew what the future held, but because she knew who held the future – ‘here I am, the servant of the Lord’.

Mary, like those who followed Jesus, the grown man Jesus, had to come to an understanding of just what it might mean for this son of a carpenter to be God’s Messiah.

And Mary, like so many women have had to know the deep grief of not just losing a child, but of having her child killed.

This is not a paragon.  This is an ordinary woman.  She had resources in what she had learned from the angel, from Anna and Simeon, from Elizabeth – but that doesn’t always bring understanding at the time.  That comes when we look back.

So, in her ordinariness, what does she teach us? Courage – just think of all those members of the MU worldwide who work in the face of so much opposition – opposition because they may be women, opposition because they are addressing outmoded ways of viewing disease – opposition becuae they are challenging unjust systems which lead to the degradation of not just women but of all people. 

In her ordinariness she teaches us discipline.  She was entrusted with the most important job of all – a parent, a mother.  Her task was not different to any other mother.  She reared a toddler – what was Jesus like during the ‘terrible twos’.  She knew that wonder and weariness when the lovely baby grows through the years of adolescent angst and they can treat their parents with disdain, ‘didn’t you know where I’d be?’ is what she heard when she finally found the wayward 12 year old, after three days of searching. Did she recall the words of Simeon, ‘and a sword will pierce your own heart too’?  I’d love to know what conversations they had as she was teaching Jesus the importance of discipline, of listening carefully to God through his elders and his faith tradition.  Was he a tricky teenager? Her discipline remained throughout her life as she, experiencing what no parent should, watched her son die.

She teaches us courage, she teaches us discipline and she teaches us the fundamental importance of celebration, of rejoicing. She rejoiced, just like Hannah did.  She rejoiced.  She rejoiced in God, not in circumstances.  She did not understand what was being asked of her, but she knew who was doing the asking.  She could have said ‘no’.  Like you and I, she had free will.  She could have said ‘no’, but she said ‘yes’ and she rejoice.

We don’t think of this often, but I think that God may well have said ‘thank you to Mary’ for her obedience, for her courage, for her discipline and for her rejoicing heart.  Could you, perhaps, allow yourselves just a moment to listen for God saying ‘thank you’ to you?  Could you hear Mary and Hannah rejoice with thankfulness at the work of members of the MU around the world, in Britain and Ireland, in Guildford Diocese.

Can you hear that ‘thank you’ for all you have done and do in the service of others in the name of Christ.  It is not what you’re used to – I know, to thank yourselves, but if God does it so can you.

May the work continue to thrive and may our MU, and all branches of the MU worldwide. continue to be a force to be reckoned with, a force for change and for the flourishing of all people.  Amen