I heard a radio commercial the other day for flowers – as one often does when Mother’s Day approaches. Since Mother’s Day always falls on a Sunday, it presents a challenge for churches that meet to worship on Sunday. (Father’s Day falls on Sundays also, but for some reason, there doesn’t seem to be the same kind of meaning ascribed to it. I blame all those years of dads receiving “soap-on-a-rope.”) The challenge for churches has two parts. Liturgically, Mother’s Day is not really a significant day on the church calendar – no more than May Day, Star Wars Day, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, or any of the other celebrations that happen in May. But, “Liturgy, schmiturgy,” say some people. It seems almost a blow to family values – to Eve, the mother of all living! – not to say something mother-wise during worship on Mother’s Day. So, the first challenge churches face is the gap between the cultural calendar and the liturgical calendar.
The second challenge is that, in the Christian church, we feel compelled to think and speak expansively. We know that some women are not mothers, either by choice or circumstance. Some mothers struggle to mother well, leaving both the experience of mothering and the experience of being mothered as painful legacies, not something to celebrate with flowers. We know that some families have the adjectives “step,” “foster,” or “adopted” in them, which points to the complexities of the family system. We know that some mothers have lost children in some way, and some children have lost mothers. We know that some of our families have two dads or two moms, not the family structure of old sitcoms. The approach and language of worship has the task of naming the breadth of human experience, not just a two-dimensional version of it. And, more recently, matters of gender identity have even challenged our use of words like “brother, sister, father, mother” in worship, because there are folks who are gender neutral or transgender and the language we use might suggest a distinction between the ‘norm’ and the ‘exception.’
So, the groups with which I have planned worship over the years have sought to acknowledge the meaning that Mother’s Day does have for many people, without ‘normalizing’ the mothering experience in a way that excludes those for whom this can be a painful day of remembrance. To that end, we have spoken of “mothering” and “people who have provided nurture.” We have pointed to images of God’s hesed, the feminine Hebrew word often translated as “steadfast love.” Hesed could be translated “motherly love.” In other words, we have tried to expand “Mother’s Day” to something like “a celebration of family,” or “celebrating the nurturing people in our lives.” It doesn’t quite satisfy everybody, but there is a difference between aiming for liturgy and language that is appropriate and trying to make everyone happy.
So, I heard a radio commercial the other day for flowers – as one often does when Mother’s Day approaches. But, lo and behold, the language of the commercial sounded like it was lifted straight out of bulletins that I’ve worked on over the years for the Sundays of Mother’s Day. It mentioned “Mom,” but it also mentioned adoption, foster care, and “anyone who has nurtured us along the way.” It didn’t mention some of the more difficult aspects of mothering and childhood, but, after all, they had wares to sell not prayers to offer. Still, I was impressed that the language and focus of the commercial was far more inclusive than what one might have been expecting from a national chain capitalizing on one of its most profitable holidays.
The church has an annual challenge of acknowledging Mother’s Day while addressing its complexities and without practicing exclusion. Now a national flower commercial is acknowledging the same complexities of Mother’s Day that the church has been addressing for several decades. The whole phenomenon raises the issue of the relationship between the church and the culture in which we are embedded. I’ll pick up that topic in next week’s “Extra.”
Until then, as the church empowered by the Spirit, may the hesed of God be with you,
Mark of St. Mark
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