Mothering God

"How often have I desired to gather your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings..."
Luke 13:34b

The beautiful nest pictured above is nestled securely in the crook of the pear tree in our backyard. When I first peeked inside a few weeks ago, there were two eggs. When we checked on the eggs last weekend, we were surprised and delighted to find three! As I went back to take a photo, ducking under the branches to get closer to the nest, I almost had a heart attack when the mother robin came flapping and squawking out of the nest and through the branches, warning me away from disturbing her babies. 

Once I recovered from the shock and terror (and went back to the nest again to get this photo, much more cautiously of course!), I recalled this verse from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus uses the metaphor of a mother hen protecting her brood to describe the care he wished he could give to the people God so dearly loved. 

The Bible is filled with images likening God to a mother - giving birth, nursing her children, nurturing and protecting and comforting. In Hebrew, the word for "womb" is the root of the verb "to have compassion", and one of my Old Testament professors in seminary would often refer to the "wombishness" of God. Like a mother, Creator God birthed us. Like a mother, Jesus feeds and nourishes us with his own body. Like a mother, the Holy Spirit hears our cries and unspoken pain and intercedes for us.

Mother's Day, while often joy-filled, is also a challenging day for many. It may be filled with grief at the loss of one's mother, or the absence of one's mother, or the pain of having a mother who was not who you needed her to be. It may be filled with longing to be a mother, or anguish at the loss of a child. It may sting a bit, as yet another example of how society unfairly upholds motherhood as the epitome of what it means to be a woman.

It is particularly on the complexity of this day, with the accompanying swirl of emotions, that I am thankful we have such a diverse and expansive repertoire of language to use to describe God. The Bible is filled with different images and metaphors for God - some masculine (father, king, etc.), some feminine (laboring woman, nursing mother, etc.), some inanimate/without gender (rock, fortress, etc.). It is the nature of metaphors (and the nature of God!) that none of these images fully encompass who God is or what God is like, but they give us a glimpse of God, however imperfectly and incompletely. 

What is it we celebrate, then, when calling God "mother"? We rejoice in a God who carries us and knows us even before we are born. We give thanks for a God who nourishes and nurtures us with her own body. We sink into the softness and protection and comfort of her embrace. We marvel at the grace of a God who gives and gives and gives of herself - even when it goes unnoticed, even to a people who are unappreciative, or take advantage, or rebel - because of love. We praise a God who never stops loving us, who always holds us in her heart, even when we feel far away. 

For a mothering God, and for all who show motherly love and care, we give thanks.