God Our Mother...

Feast of Julian of Norwich (May 8th)

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and it was also the day when our Episcopal Church honors the memory of Dame Julian of Norwich, a saint who lived in England in the 1300s.

There is not a lot of specific historical data about Julian. She was probably born in 1342 and lived at least until 1416. Even her name is not precise. Whatever name she was given at birth, she abandoned it and took the name of the church where she became an anchoress (a type of hermit who lived on the property of a church, cathedral, or shrine in the Middle Ages). Since it was the church of St Julian in the town of Norwich, England, she called herself Julian of Norwich.

At around the age of 30, Julian became deathly ill. As she lay, presumably on her deathbed, she had a series of intense mystical visions of Jesus Christ. Later in life, she recounted them, and someone wrote them down in a book that is called Revelations of Divine Love. It is from this book that we learn the most about Julian and her theology based around God’s love and compassion for all of creation.

One of the most interesting points in Julian’s mystical visions is very appropriate to discuss in connection with Mother’s Day: she said a lot about how God is our Mother, as well as our Father.

She wrote, “God chose to be our mother in all things.” Believing in the divinity of Jesus, she also wrote, “Our mothers bear us for pain and for death; our true mother, Jesus, bears us for joy and endless life. Christ carried us within him in love and travail, until the full time of his passion.”

Theologically speaking, there is no gender or sex to God. The Creator is not human, so words that apply to humans, animals, and other created things cannot accurately describe God. We are limited, however, by human language, and so we use a number of expressions to try to state what we know or believe about God.

For example, we are all familiar with the idea of calling God a shepherd – the 23^rd Psalm is the best example of this. Other ways in which we try to describe God include calling God a king, a father, and even a rock! Now, we all know that God is not a rock, but poetic language in which we think about the attributes of a rock and apply them to what we know of God works very well in helping us express our faith.

Likening God to a shepherd produces a clear image of the idea we want to express. It is a form of analogy. That is, when we say, “the Lord is my shepherd,” we are actually saying, “in some ways, God is a lot like a shepherd,” and then we might list those ways. But all analogies break down at some point, and the shepherd analogy is no exception. Shepherds look after their flocks; God looks after us. Shepherds protect their sheep from dangers, and God protects us. Shepherds lead their sheep to food and water; God leads us to the things that nourish and sustain us. Shepherds are human beings – whoops! God is not a human being, so the analogy reaches a point where it has to stop. God is not actually a shepherd, but is like a shepherd in certain ways that are important to us, or that we want to emphasize. In the same way, God is like a rock, a solid foundation on which we can build our faith. But God is not actually a rock, and none of us really think that.

So, God is also like a father to us in many ways. Fathers bring their children into existence; God creates each one of us. Fathers care for their children, and God cares for us. However, fathers are male human beings, and God is neither human nor male. It is true that God is like a father in important ways, but God is not actually a father. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should ever stop praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” but we must not take it literally or conclude that God is male.

Julian of Norwich correctly pointed out that God is also like a mother in many important ways. In doing so, she was only echoing many things that the Bible already says about God. In Isaiah 66:13, God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”

First John, chapter 4, reminds us that God loved us before we loved God. [1 John 4:19] God is referred to as having “great compassion” in the 51^st Psalm [Psalm 51:1] The Hebrew word for compassion is derived from the Hebrew word for the womb (rachmin/rechmen). God’s compassion toward us is that of a mother toward her child.

Perhaps it’s best to allow Julian to speak for herself:

As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother. God All Power is our natural Father, and God All Wisdom is our natural Mother, with the Love and the Goodness of the Holy Spirit―who is all one God, one Lord.

I understood three ways of looking at motherhood in God:  the first is the creating of our human nature;  the second is [the] taking of our human nature (and there commences the motherhood of grace); the third is motherhood of action (and in that is a great reaching outward, by the same grace, of length and breadth and of height and of depth without end)  and all is one love.

This fair lovely word “mother” is so sweet and so kind in itself, that it can not truly be said of anyone nor to anyone except of Him and to Him who is true Mother of life and of all. To the quality of motherhood belongs natural love, wisdom, and knowledge — and this is God….The kind, loving mother who is aware and knows the need of her child protects the child most tenderly as the nature and state of  motherhood wills. And as the child increases in age, she changes her method but not her love.

And so, on Mother’s Day, on Julian’s feast day―and on every day for that matter―we have the opportunity to behold and be thankful for God’s qualities, as a shepherd, a rock, a king, a father, and a mother. May we continue to learn all we can about our God and to love him-her with our whole hearts, minds, and spirits. Amen.