Sermon for Sunday 14th March 2021- Mothering Sunday: Exodus 2, 1-10; John 19, 25-27)

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

There are so many different strands or themes to this Sunday. In the churches of the United Kingdom it is Mothering Sunday – an example of a social custom that was ‘Christianized’ to great effect, and under normal circumstances this is a Sunday that lends itself to very good evangelization, especially among young families. As well as being a special opportunity to give thanks for our mothers, and maybe spoil them a bit, it also lends itself to the memory of mothers now departed, mothers estranged, mothers never known, mothers who did not live up to expectations. This Mothering Sunday is a flexible day in terms of its function. It can be, as Shakespeare hinted, a ‘bitter sweet’ day.

The church can also link the nation’s focus on mothers with the image of the motherhood of the church – nurturing, guiding, comforting, supporting, encouraging the household of faith, just as a good mother would her children.

So too can we reflect on Mary, the Mother of Christ, Theotokos, as she is known in the Orthodox Church.

Today’s gospel reading, one of the shortest prescribed for any Sunday directs us, through the cross, to Mary the mother of the one hanging there. The reading is so short I can afford to read it out.

‘Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.’ (John 19, 25-27).

This word picture evokes so many different images for us, and I leave you to your own imagination, but for me I immediately think of the swooning figure of Mary, supported by the Magdalene, in the painting by Grunewald known as the ‘Isenheim altarpiece’, or in music the Pergolesi setting of the opening words of this gospel passage, Stabat Mater dolorosa, There stood the grieving Mother.

This composition by Pergolesi dates to 1749 and is written for 2 female singers, a soprano and an alto. It is deeply moving, and at one point the alto soloist sings of the fons amoris, the fountain of love. It evokes the maternal anguish of a mother who sees her son mutilated and dying. How a mother’s love must well up at such a scene. Almost daily on our news we see mothers in Yemen, Syria, Myanmar grieving for lost husbands, or sons or daughters arrested, abused or abducted. The harrowing emotions are visible on their faces.

We don’t have to take examples from high profile locations either – the fons amoris flows from the heart and tears of mothers in so many places and different human circumstances. So frequently we see in these women nobility, courage, perseverance and resilience forged by trials and tragedy.

In my study I also find my mind turning to one of the Greek icons I have on the wall – Η ζωοδόχος Πυγή – the Life-giving Fountain. Of course it is Christ who gives us this life but it is through his suffering and cross that it is offered to us.

 

Mary, Mother of the Dying Christ, is for so many the icon of reality – but this is a double sided icon. She can be icon of a perfection, such as the Church prefers to present, or she can be also to so many the icon of real life, and a source of connection to suffering loss and grief, and it is not only women who can make this connection with Christ through Mary’s anguish.

I mentioned that today has many strands. For us this year today is the Sunday before Lent begins. [There will be a ‘live zoom’ service from St. Paul’s at 10.00am on Wednesday 17^th March, Ash Wednesday – the link will be found on the website]. So of course we are entering that time of preparation so that we can truly celebrate a joyful Easter in due course. I mentioned Meat Fare Sunday last week, and I am reminded that today is ‘Cheese Fare’ Sunday when the fasting protocols take a second step. Stinking Bishop, Gouda, Cheddar, Stilton, Graviera or Myzithra from Crete, or even ‘Pere Leonard’ camembert from France – whatever it is, many will be saying farewell to them for several weeks.

However, it is not just Cheese Sunday in this Calendar – perhaps more importantly it is ‘Forgiveness Sunday’. We return to that gospel picture of Mary standing at the cross of Christ. With convicted criminals either side of him, Our Lord, in all the agony of his final moments utters the words, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’. (Luke 23, 34).

On this Cheese Sunday, surely the lesson and discipline of forgiveness is an infinitely greater and more challenging Lent discipline than the omission of cheese from the diet – though if fasting gives forgiveness a keener chiaroscuro in our personal keeping of Lent, we need all the help we can get. Forgiveness is surely one of the hardest of human challenges – especially if forgiveness has conditions.

How human it is of us to make forgiveness transactional ‘I can forgive so-and-so if…’ We do not learn this type of forgiveness from the heart and lips of Christ on the cross. These as not the words that Blessed Mary heard, nor Mary Magdalene, nor the Apostle John into whose mutual and reciprocal care Jesus places Mary and John. ‘Here is your son’, ‘Here is your mother’.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, whose book I have been reading, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, says this about the evening worship on this Cheese Sunday: ‘At the end of the service all the faithful approach the priest and one another asking for mutual forgiveness. But as they perform this rite of reconciliation…the choir sings the Paschal [Easter] hymns. We will have to wander forty days through the desert of Lent. Yet at the end shines already the light of Easter, the light of the Kingdom’ (p 30).

Whatever else we do on this Sunday – whether the focus is Mothering, Blessed Mary, ‘mother church’, or Cheese – make room for the challenge of forgiveness. We pray for it daily and weekly, privately and in our public worship ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us’. If it is a daily prayer, let it become a daily practice, this Lent. Wednesday begins our Anglican Lent in Athens. We have 2 days left to gear up. If our Lent discipline (which is a duty and a joy) is to discover the power of forgiveness, giving and receiving it, then you and I will truly know the bright light of Easter.