Mothering Sunday - Sarah Cooper

Waiting to be hung on a wall in my flat is this little picture of a church. I don’t know who gave it to my parents, but I know why. It is a picture of the church in which I was baptised, All Saints in Hampstead. I have kept it all these years, thought about putting it in a nicer frame but have done nothing about it and it lies in a pile of jobs waiting to be done.

But there is a twist. I mentioned to my mother that this picture would introduce my sermon and asked her where it came  from. Slightly hurt she told me she had bought it, and suddenly I saw it, I saw her in a new light, as I understood the significance of this little picture for her…the baptism of her first child.

The picture draws me in. I’ve been to visit the church, and when I applied for the Reader training course, needing to prove my baptism and confirmation dates the staff there were magical at fishing out the date of my baptism.

So today I should be there, back at my mother church, because it is Mothering Sunday, and that is what you do…you return to the church where you received the sacrament of baptism, to the church that mothered you in the early days of faith.

Traditionally, on the fourth Sunday of Lent we celebrate this feast, and have done so since the middle ages.

But I am not in Hampstead. We only lived there for a year, and the only other memorable event of that year, if only I could actually remember it, was the time our actor neighbour   pinched my cheek as I lay innocently in my pram in the front garden….just before he went off to film Antony and Cleopatra…and his life changed forever.

So I am not in Hampstead, I am here at St Margaret’s. In different stages of my life I have attended a number of churches on a regular basis,  but it was here that I have felt mothered.

I can still remember the first time I stepped foot in this building…30 years ago.

St Margaret’s just felt right.

And I got to thinking what kind of mother is St Margaret’s?

She has been a gentle, forgiving mother. When we  have left her she has welcomed us back with open arms. She doesn’t judge, but is merciful. She is modest and quite humble. She loves unconditionally. Her warmth fills us with joy.

The people who have worshipped here over the years are in the stone and the woodwork and have imbued this  church with their quiet faith, their patience, their kindness and their generosity of spirit. These walls have witnessed baptisms and funerals, weddings and blessings, music and silence, joy and despair……prayer and struggles to pray. They  have provided shelter, succour, comfort, welcome and community.

Together  we have grown here, we have made lifelong friends. I arrived as a young mother here, with the worst behaved children in Sunday School.

We have sat in here for Alpha courses, Lent courses, APCMs, family services, Christmas Carols and Good Friday vigils.

People come and people go.

I’m only on my fourth vicar and what seems about the 99th PCC.

We have all been mothered here, whether for decades or a few years. Fed by scripture, preaching, silence, music, community we have deepened our faith, grown closer to God.

 We have mothered each other too. Being mothered is a funny term and it is not very inclusive I know. Christianity is fluid with its gender bias throughout history…the Desert Fathers and the Mother church. Let’s not be distracted by that and focus on the meaning

To me it immediately conveys a sense of family, of protection and nurture, of love.

Family….Community…that was top of the list when we did the survey of our congregation last year. We are here because  we are part of this family…we care about each other, we look after each other, we nurture one another, we grow together.

Its not always easy: it requires patience, tolerance, pain sometimes…motherhood, or indeed parenthood generally is not easy…look at the examples we had in our readings of the suffering of two famous mothers.

The early church was built on tiny communities, who clung together as a family does, it’s us against the world. They were fed by each other, by letters, by visitors, by the Holy Spirit, and they grew together, and they grew strong.

In his letter to the Colossians Paul reminds these early Christians of how to live together in the way God wants us to

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body

All over the world there are communities like ours, united in faith, following in Christ’s footsteps. And one of course top of mind, as Brutus and family have just visited, is in Kunnam, the church we helped to build, the family we are part of, from a distance, a church we have mothered but just to confuse the metaphor we call a sister church….and they have a picture of our church on their wall

Let us pray for all these communities all over the world, as well as our own and thank God for the mothering we have found within them. May the peace of the Lord rule in all our hearts as we remember that we are one body in Christ.

Amen