Mothering

The scriptures referred to are mentioned in the text.

Despite coming out of a patriarchal culture, the Bible spotlights a large number of exceptional women and mothers. Yes, many of them are married to men who are considered the main protagonists but they are by no means 2 dimensional characters. For instance, Sarah, desperate to give Abraham an heir, resorts to a culturally accepted practice: giving her maid to her husband. That way any child born to the slave would be considered Sarah's. And yet Sarah cannot help but get irrationally jealous of the slave, Hagar, once the plan works and her surrogate gets pregnant. We then see a less than admirable side of Sarah, as well as the cowardly side of Abraham, who lets Hagar and their son Ishmael get expelled from the camp after the birth of Isaac. And though the boy is not the son God promised, the Lord nevertheless saves and protects the slave and her son and Ishmael goes on to prosper.

As you can see, the mothers in the Bible are real people, not idealized figures. Isaac's wife Rebekah prefers one child over the other and helps Jacob in an elaborate ruse to steal his brother's blessing from her blind husband. Jacob's wives Leah and Rachel get into a farcical baby-making “arms race” that draws in both their maids as surrogates. At one point Jacob's sleep schedule depends on bartered vegetables. Moses' wife, Zipporah, performs their son's circumcision, which her husband, the lawgiver, was too squeamish to do. All of which says to me that the Bible is the recollection of actual folks. If not, then the writers pioneered the historically recent trend in fiction of creating flawed and complex protagonists. As we've said, these are not paragons of virtue, but real people.

That said, there is an portrait of the ideal woman in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs. (Proverbs 31:10-31) It begins: “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” Now, considering the patriarchal culture that existed then, and which still exists in much of the church, you would expect this peon to the perfect wife to describe someone meek and mild. Instead we get a picture of a strong, business savvy woman. Yes, we are told that “She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.” (v. 15) But immediately after that it says, “She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” (v. 16) Yes, she makes clothes for her family but also, “She makes cloth and sells it, and offers a girdle to the merchant.” (v. 24, Jewish Publication Society) And “She sees that her business thrives. Her lamp never goes out at night.” (v. 18, JPS) We are told that “Her husband has full confidence in her...” (v. 11) and it is implied that his success is at least partially due to her. (v. 23) She is not simply interested in her family's welfare: “She gives generously to the poor; her hands are stretched out to the needy.” (v. 20, JPS) Nor is she merely a workhorse; she has a brain: “Her mouth is full of wisdom, her tongue with kindly teaching.” (v. 26, JPS) The poem ends : “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her, 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.' Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.” (vv. 28-31) It really is rare in that time period and culture to find such an acknowledgment of the importance of a smart, capable woman, especially one with such agency in her life.

And in the early church women were valued and given authority. While some point to the statements that Paul makes of women being submissive, which one should not be surprised to find in a patriarchal culture, he is also the apostle who calls a woman, Junias, an apostle (Romans 16:7) and who, when speaking of the married ministry team of Priscilla and Aquila, always names them both and almost always puts her first. (Romans 16:3-4; 2 Timothy 4:19; 1 Corinthians 16:19; cf. Acts 18:19,25) He asserts that women can preach and pray in church, provided they are wearing the head covering the culture of the day deemed proper. (1 Corinthians 11:4) And of course it is Paul who says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And indeed the Bible says from the outset that both man and woman are created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27) Inequality is due to sin.

That said, there aren't an overwhelming number of scriptures that portray God as mother. They do exist, however. In the Torah, in the Song of Moses, it says, “You ignored the Rock who gave you birth; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.” (Deuteronomy 32:18, HCB) In fact, in the notes of the Jewish Study Bible it says, “The Hebrew much more vividly presents God as going through childbirth: 'The Rock who gave birth to you...who writhed in labor (to bear) you.' The same verb is elsewhere applied to Sarah, who 'writhed in labor' to bring forth Israel...” (cf. Isaiah 51:2) In Isaiah, God is so worked up by the enemies of Israel that he says, “I will scream like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp.” (Isaiah 42:14, JPS) Again in Isaiah God says to his people, “Can a woman forget her baby or disown the child of her womb? Though she might forget, I could never forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15, JPS) And later, “As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you.” (Isaiah 66:13, JPS) In Hosea there is an image of God, not necessarily as mother, but as a nurturing parent: “I have pampered Ephraim, taking them in My arms; but they ignored My healing care. I drew them with human ties, with cords of love; but I seemed to them as one who imposed a yoke on their jaws, though I was offering them food.” (Hosea 11:3-4, JPS) What parent can't identify with that kind of ingratitude?

Another motherly image of God that pops up in scripture is that of a bird. Again in the Song of Moses it says that God is “like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.” (Deuteronomy 32:11) And Jesus famously said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often have I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37)

So we see a few themes in these passages. Such as that God is not only our creator but his feelings for his people are as intense and intimate as if he had physically given birth to them. God's love is not theoretical. It is as fierce as a mother's, which is why he protects his people.

And while the image of God as Father predominates in scripture, we see this shift to maternal metaphors in order to highlight his nurturing, healing love and care. The Bible offers images of God picking up, pampering and feeding his people. There is nothing to prevent us from seeing those as something a loving father would do but we more readily see those as things a mother would do. And indeed I remember in college one of my professors pointing out that the Christian virtues tend to be those our culture considers feminine. For instance imagine someone like John Wayne telling other men to manifest the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is nothing in that particular passage about being tough, or strong or certain that you are right. Probably because it doesn't take divine inspiration to remind us of those things. Our culture touts those things continually. But we often forget the so-called softer virtues, the ones that make life endurable, if not possible. Somebody once pointed out that the hyper-masculine, super-aggressive culture dreamed up by the writers of Star Trek for the Klingons wouldn't actually work for long. Like the real life hyper-masculine, ultra-military Spartan society, it would fall apart and collapse. The virtues Christianity emphasizes are the glue that holds groups, communities and even nations together.

Mothers are usually the glue that hold families together. There is not only a lot of wisdom in that phrase “happy wife, happy life” but also, as a recent Rutgers University study found, actual scientific truth. And another scientific study from the Netherlands found that people with happy spouses tend to live longer. And this result remained true regardless of the spouse's gender, ethnicity, education level, household income or sexual orientation. The scientists are not exactly sure why. It may be that a happy spouse will take care of you when you are sick. It may be that the marriage is less stressful. It may be that happy couples are more physically active. Personally I think that if you keep your spouse happy they are less likely to kill you.

And while we know that a mother has a great impact on the child, science now has some clues as to the exact way that works. It seems that a mother's love physically increases the size of the child's hippocampus, the part of the brain which affects learning, memory and stress responses. Those kids tend to do better in school and are more emotionally developed than kids who were not nurtured. (Fathering is important, too, but this is Mother's Day!)

In our movies and in our culture we tend to overemphasize exaggerated hyper-masculine traits like physical strength, violent aggression, callous sexual attitudes toward the opposite sex and the equating of danger with fun. And then we wonder why rudeness, belligerence, violence, sexism and reckless behavior are rampant in our society. We need to recover the things our mothers taught us about being polite, being respectful of others, using words not fists, using helpful and not hurtful words, listening to others, admitting it when we are wrong, apologizing to others, forgiving others, and being a decent person. Mothers generally want what is best for their children and they want them to grow up into good people. I sometimes wonder how much of the state of the world is due to people not only not listening to God but not even listening to their mothers. The world would be a better place if a lot more people were sent to their room until they could behave themselves.

Mothers aren't perfect, of course. Someone once said parenthood is the last stand of the amateur. But some people have a real instinct for caring for and raising children. And some people who never gave birth are better at being mothers than some who have. But most of us would not be here were it not for a mother, or someone who acted as a second mother to us, who stepped up to the challenge, nurtured, taught and protected us and displayed self-sacrificial love. And you know who else modeled self-sacrificial love for us? God in the person of Jesus Christ. He may not have physically birthed us but he created us, cares for us, and gives us wisdom and kindly teachings to live by. He gave over his whole life to us and wants us to grow up to be good people. May we never let him down, nor his surrogates, our mothers.