God Our Mother
A Sermon by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Second Sunday in Lent, March 5, 2023.
John 3:1-17.
“…You must be born from above…”. John 3: 1-17
Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. He is so curious about Jesus that he can’t stay away. He knows that Jesus is from God and he has a deep spiritual hunger for the wisdom that Jesus is offering. Nicodemus has devoted his life to the pursuit of divine wisdom. As a leading Pharisee, he would have been highly proficient in Mosaic law, the oral tradition and its application to everyday life. Pharisees were devoted to helping people extend their religious practices beyond the temple. So, it’s easy to see why he would be so drawn to Jesus. Jesus was always trying to help people see that God is everywhere, in us and in the world around us. Nicodemus senses that there is even more to Jesus than being a wise teacher. He just can’t quite get his head around exactly what it is. He hasn’t yet realized that Jesus is the embodiment of all that the law and the oral tradition that flowed from the law was designed to accomplish.
It’s easy for us to relate to Nicodemus. He would fit right into our Arlington landscape. He is an accomplished, well-educated, “subject matter expert”. He is a man of reason, but he is also spiritually restless. People come to him for answers, but in today’s Gospel he is the one with the questions. Nicodemus shows courage and humility in knocking on Jesus’ door in the middle of the night. He can’t be recognized as one of his followers for fear of risking his reputation and the condemnation of his collegues. He has a lot to lose when he seeks Jesus out, but their nighttime conversation is a major turning point in his life.
Jesus doesn’t ask him what he is doing there when he shows up. Jesus receives him with open arms and responds to his questions by telling him “…You must be born from above…”, a shocking answer indeed. “…You must be born from above…”
Jesus’ use of birth imagery as a metaphor for spiritual awakening is very powerful. The person who perhaps understood this best was Julian of Norwich. Her writings in 1342 are the first works known to be written by a woman in the English language and she is greatly admired and revered in our Episcopal tradition. Julian was gravely ill, and after a priest had performed last rites, she laid there, awaiting death, while she contemplated a crucifix that the priest had put at the foot of her bed. But instead of dying, she received a series of visions that she recorded soon after in her book, Revelations of Divine Love. Julian was given a gift more precious than life it itself when she was close to death. God showed her that God is not only our Father, but also our Mother. And she received a deep knowing that divine love is the beginning, the end and the middle of our life. She wrote this.
“…as truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother….. This fair lovely word 'mother' is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of him and to him who is the true Mother of life and of all things.”
Julian’s revelations are widely regarded as one of the most beautiful expressions of God’s all-embracing love that we have in Christian tradition. Her words surprise us and open a new place in our imagination.
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus today shows us that Jesus’ invitation to deepening our faith is all about love. “For God so LOVED the world.” God so loved Nicodemus. God so loves you. God so loves all of us that God sent Jesus into the world to pierce our hearts with divine love. Nicodemus is beginning to experience that love when he knocks on Jesus’ door late at night. There is a yearning that draws him. Jesus looks at him and loves him. And he also challenges him, as a loving mother challenges her children. Jesus challenges with the voice of love, the love of a mother who cares for her child more than her own life. A mother who is willing to lay down her life for her child. NIcodemus wants to stay in the warmth, darkness, and safety of the womb and Jesus is encouraging him to come into the world in fullness. We can only grow so much in utero. We have to be born in order to mature. But who does the work of salvation? Is it Nicodemus? Well, yes. It is hard work for a baby to come into this world. It is hard work to grow up. But the mother is the one who labors, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. And that labor continues throughout the child’s life. So it is with God. God is the one who labors for us. God is the one who gives birth to us. And God is the one who loves us into becoming the faithful person God created us to be. We just have to respond to the maternal nudges that we get. We come from God. We return to God. And God is all around. The words of Julian of Norwich still speak to us today.
“…as truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother….. This fair lovely word 'mother' is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of him and to him who is the true Mother of life and of all things.”
And what of Nicodemus? Later in the Gospel of John, he brings his fledgling faith into the light of day. He appears two other times, in very significant ways, once to intercede on Jesus’ behalf during his trial and then again when he prepares Jesus’ body for burial after the Crucifixion. That is all we know about Nicodemus. He appears only in the Gospel of John and he is something of a mystery man. I wonder what his life was like after that. I wonder if he witnessed Jesus’ post- Resurrection appearances. I wonder if he was part of the founding of the Church. I like to think that he became even more courageous and more faithful. His story is a hopeful one. He shows us that our questions are good. Our questions can lead us to places we could never have imagined going.
Lent is about coming into our fullness. It’s about maturing in our faith. It is about coming out of the shadows and bringing our life with God into the light of day.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish by have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”