Mother's Day May 9, 2010 “Idealized Love” Reverend Michael D. Powell Psalm 131:1&2, John 14:27

            Mother’s Day always presents a challenge for the preacher because it’s not based on any particular scripture.  Although there’s no lectionary passage that is entirely appropriate, I have selected Psalm 131 for today because it portrays the individual soul as being nourished by God and it uses feminine imagery:  “I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.” It presents a beautiful, contemplative image of ideal divine/human love.  Additionally, I did use a portion of today’s lectionary gospel reading, the familiar words of Jesus when he says, “My peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  These two passages of scripture represent an ideal spiritual relationship, the ideal of being nourished, guided, protected and comforted by God’s love. 

            Mother’s Day represents an ideal. God’s love is always flowing into a mother’s heart, just like it’s always flowing into every human heart, but mothers are just like everyone else in that while we’re all striving for perfection, none of us have attained it.  Thankfully, God isn’t done with us yet.  Hallmark cards tend to symbolize the idealized love of the perfect mother, but has there ever been a truly perfect mother? 

            Mary, the mother of Jesus, revered by millions, is the idealized mother, a symbol of sinless, perfect love.  And, here’s my confession as a Protestant – I love Mary too, and it’s not just the Holy Madonna with the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. We have half a dozen statues of Mary in our home.  When Chalice was just a toddler in diapers she had all kinds of soft and cuddly teddy bears and dolls, but for some reason she liked to lug around a heavy, hard plaster garden statue of Mary that was half her size.  Love calls out to love!

              Mary is a symbol of idealized love, and that’s not a bad thing. As an image of ideal love, Mary has granted comfort to and inspired reverence in millions of people over the past two thousand years.  Popular legend as well as official church dogma describes her as being immaculately conceived and bodily assumed into heaven, even though neither of these beliefs are found anywhere in the Bible.  They’re symbols!  We have only a handful of references to Mary and nothing is known of her prior to her unexpected teenage pregnancy, and yet she’s become the most famous and influential woman in the world, depicted in more art forms than anyone else in history. Idealized love inspires a deeper human love, a longing after divine love, and that’s a good thing!  Here is the earliest known depiction of Mary, from the walls of the catacombs in Rome.  The second is entitled “Mother of Clemency,” (or mercy), by Yvonne Bell.

            It wasn’t long before legends began to fill in the missing information about Mary’s life.  By the second century a legend arose that Mary had been born to rich but childless parents as a result of their fervent prayer.  At the age of three they dedicated her to a life of service in the temple.  When she was twelve a widower named Joseph received a revelation from God that he was to be her divinely ordained protector.  Mary, so the story goes, was one of seven virgins appointed to the task of weaving a new curtain for the temple and it was during this work that the angel of the Annunciation appeared to her.  The power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary to induce what was called pneumatological conception – from the Greek pneuma, meaning breath.  The seed of Christ was breathed into Mary’s womb, “like sunlight shining through a clear window pane.”  In Hebrew the word compassion comes from the same root as womb.  God’s compassionate love is like a mother’s love for her children.  The story of Mary has the power to inspire love and reverence. 

              There is no historical record of Mary’s death, but for centuries popular piety held that she had bodily ascended into heaven.  It wasn’t until 1950 that it finally became official church dogma when Pope Pius XIII, issued a bull stating:  “We pronounce, declare, and define it to be divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”  The language is that of an inspired ideal, like a love song, as Bishop Spong would say.  Here’s Mary, the Mater Dei, Latin for Mother of God, and the second is Mary Regina Angelorum, or Queen of Angels.

              Even the popular designation Mother of God was hotly disputed by theologians, many of whom thought the term went too far.  They argued for softening it to Mother of Christ.  But poetry and popular piety won the day. In 431, the Council of Ephesus declared that forever after all official Catholic pronouncements concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary would refer to her as The Mother of God.  "A woman clothed with the sun, the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev 12:1). St. John recorded this vision for us in his Book of Revelation. And Psalm 45 says, "at your right hand stands the queen of gold in orphir." The Fathers of the Church tell us that this ‘woman’ clothed with the sun and that this ‘queen of gold’ is none other than Mary, the Mother of God, because she is now standing at the right hand of Christ her Son.  Here is what has perhaps become the most famous image of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe:

              Somehow, by the grace of God, through all the literalistic wordsmithing and divisive theological posturing, Mary has remained a powerful symbol of all that is good about motherhood for both Catholics and Protestants.  Who among us does not warm to the gracious glow of the Madonna with the baby Jesus lovingly cradled in her arms?  She represents ideal love, and that’s a good thing.  We need ideals. 

             I’ll close with a quotation from the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible:  “Mary represents all that was finest in [Jewish] womanhood and motherhood.  Her deep spiritual sensitivity; her purity, faith, and obedience to the divine will; her scrupulous attention to the training of her son in the religious traditions of his people; her loyalty to him, as evidenced by her presence at the cross, even when she did not fully understand him – all mark her as a person [a woman and a mother] of remarkable qualities.”  [IDB, vol. 3, p. 293]

            And, finally, one last image, which, it is claimed, is an actual photograph of Mary.  I got this from the website of the Boston Catholic Journal, which states:  “In 1970, a pilgrim visiting the Shrine of San De Marco, in Italy, had a vision of a woman who told him to take a picture of the setting sun. Having a simple Polaroid camera, he only saw the sunset when he snapped this picture. When the picture was developed, this image of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared (note the sunset at the lower right of the picture."  God bless all mothers everywhere.  And may Christ be your shalom.  Amen.