The Problem of Idealized Motherhood: A Community Responsibility
Preached on Sunday May 8th, 2022
For Wollaston Congregational Church
Scripture: Acts 9:36-43
Years ago the daughter of friend of a friend, a young woman named Chrissy, stayed with our family for a while. Chrissy hadn’t grown up going to church, so we didn’t pressure her into attending with us. However, when Mother’s Day came around Chrissy decided she would go with us. I wasn’t sure whether to warn her that the service would focus on moms and mothering.
Because, you see, Chrissy’s mom had died from an addiction while Chrissy was just a teenager. The church service wasn’t particularly heavy on Mother’s Day. But with all the music and the prayers – and baby blankets surrounding us to be dedicated on this ‘special day’ – and, of course, grief, Chrissy spent most of the service in tears.
I worry for women and others for whom this day is a day to lie low. I am concerned because there are women who stay home from church because memories of hurt relationships with their own mothers, or their own painful experiences of motherhood, or because they never had the opportunity to be a mom.
I worry about Mother’s Day and the way it is celebrated in our culture. It has become a day of idealization of what is far from ideal for the lived experience of most women in our world today. Especially this year, as just this past week the ongoing culture wars of our time have focused on motherhood.
We don’t know what the Apostle Peter thought about women and motherhood. And yet, as this week’s story unfolds and we notice an evolution in Peter’s attitude toward leadership and ministry in the early church.
Peter is probably the best known and most frequently mentioned disciple in the Bible. Jesus picks him out while his name is still Simon and renames him Peter. He is to be the rock on which the church will be built. Early in the gospel story Jesus comes to Peter’s house to find Peter’s mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. Jesus heals the woman from the fever, then she gets back to work immediately cooking and serving food for the hungry young men gathered around Jesus. Peter seems unmoved by the whole encounter. His only focus is on Jesus.
Peter blunders throughout the gospels. He always seems to misunderstand Jesus and what his purpose is. He wants to build a monument when Jesus appears with Moses and Elijah on the mountain, instead of living in that fleeting moment.
And when soldiers show up to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter slices of one of their ears with his sword. Jesus has to fix it, by healing the soldier on the spot. Later that fateful night, true to Jesus’ prediction, Peter denies he even knows Jesus three times. Then he weeps bitterly because the prediction has come true. And still, Jesus loves Peter and Peter loves Jesus.
After Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. Peter gives his first sermon and then converts and baptizes many new disciples. He has been filled with a new spirit of clarity and leadership. And still, he has more to learn.
As the community of Jesus forms around the Jerusalem temple, there are both Hebrew-speaking and Greek-speaking Jewish believers. And so there is division. The Greek-speaking members notice that the widows of their community are being neglected. It is essential that the religious community provides for widows because they have no other means of income or support. Peter and the eleven other dominant disciples decide that they are too busy preaching the Word of God, and so they appoint seven Deacons to this task. This is a practical solution, and still doesn’t say much for Peter’s desire to get involved in caring for the widows. Perhaps he still has more to learn.
At the time of our story for today, something quite amazing is happening among the followers of the Way of Jesus Christ. In the few years since his ascension, ministries in Jesus’ name are springing up all over the place. There is a woman named Tabitha who lives in Joppa, a coastal city north-west of Jerusalem.
She is a tailor and has a sewing ministry for the benefit of the widows of her community. Perhaps she also teaches the widows to sew and make money for themselves. This sounds a lot like the All Hands In ministry for formerly trafficked women that was run from this building for the past few years. [1]
The widows are devoted to Tabitha and she earns the title “disciple” from the author of the book of Acts. This is the only instance in the entire New Testament that a woman is called disciple. Sadly, Tabitha dies. The women wash and dress Tabitha and lay her out in an upstairs room. Then they send for Peter to come. When her arrives the widows are distraught, they show him the beautiful clothing that Tabitha has made.
Perhaps Peter remembers how Jesus raised the young daughter of the synagogue leader, Jairus. He does the same thing Jesus did, emptying the room of mourners so that he can pray and then tells her “Tabitha, get up.” He helps her up with his hand and shows her to the assembled community. She has been restored, her ministry to women on the margins will continue.
In the Greco-Roman culture of the first century, women derive their status from the position they hold in the family. This is an ordered and structure society. Men are heads of households and their wives have authority within the household. An unmarried or widowed woman has no status, although they may have wealth, either inherited or from a successful business such as tailoring.
When the Way of Jesus comes along, these women have an opportunity. They can put their skills to good use. They can have positions of leadership and also they can serve the poor, as Jesus served the poor. They are encouraged by the stories of this young Rabbi who welcomed unmarried women and widows into his circle and paid attention to them.
In the 21st century women are seen as more than wives and mothers, aren’t they? All the same, if an anthropologist from another time and place dropped in today and visited a Hallmark store they might be fooled. It might seem that in this culture, women are valued for their ability to birth babies and then to care for them at the expense of everything else. Mother’s Day cards generally project an idealized version of motherhood, in which mothers are shown as self-sacrificial to a fault. These images do not do women or children any favors.
The lived experience of motherhood is not adequately expressed through pastel cards that show smiling, serene mothers tirelessly caring for their families. Many women carry a child; give birth; breast or bottle feed; change diapers; nurture and provide for infants. Still many others adopt, foster, or simply care for the children of their communities because no one else does. All these things are hard work, but they ought not to be thought of as heroic acts.
When we idealize motherhood, we excuse the rest of the community from playing their part in caring for the children. Our communities need healthcare; daycare; birth control; education; affordable, safe housing; safe neighborhoods; and safe play spaces. These things are necessary because we need children to grow up strong and healthy and become productive members of society.
Education is critical, particularly for girls. Agencies who work in developing parts of the world have shown that education for women in can solve the problem of poverty in one generation. When girls are given an education they marry later, they have children later, they are less likely to contract HIV and AIDS. When they know how to control their own fertility, they choose to have fewer children and they create businesses to provide for their families. Then, in turn, they educate their own children. [2]
Over the past few years, culture wars have become the norm. And just this past week, the conflict has turned a sharp focus on motherhood. There have been protests and demonstrations by groups who call themselves “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”
In 2019, the Catholic Nun, Sister Joan Chittister, critiqued the “pro-life” movement in an interview with Bill Moyers. Sister Joan said "I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." [3]
Women don’t deserve to have their healthcare decisions judged and assaulted by moralists and do-gooders.
Some women will have children.
Some will wish to have children, but find that they are unable.
Some will become pregnant but find out that their pregnancy is life-threatening.
Some will be unable to maintain a pregnancy.
Some women will be made pregnant against their will and seek to end the pregnancy.
Some women will choose not to have children.
Whether a woman chooses to have children or not, she may well enjoy a worthwhile career.
And some women like Tabitha, whether or not they have given birth, will choose to care for women and children on the margins in their own communities.
The Apostle Peter’s world is about to be blown apart. He will be opened up to things he never imagined before. There is going to be a major paradigm shift among the followers of the Way of Jesus. We will talk about this next week.
But first, Peter makes this stop in Joppa and raises a women named Tabitha from the dead. In doing so, he affirms her discipleship and her service to Christ. All this regardless of her status in marriage or motherhood. Peter’s transformation from fisherman, to disciple, to apostle, to the rock on which the Church is built is not an easy process. He is regularly challenged and his past assumptions are blown away.
Thanks be to God, he makes that journey, so that we might also challenge our own cultural assumptions about what this day means, here today in our service to Christ.
Amen
A Prayer for Mother’s Day for All of Us, by Rev. Michelle Henrichs
For women being celebrated by their children and grandchildren today…
may your joy be complete.
For women separated from their children today, due to physical or emotional distance -and for those with difficult relationships with their mothers…
may your joy be in what was and what yet may be.
For women whose child – born or unborn – has died – and for those whose Mother has died…
may joy be present in the midst of your grief.
For women who lost a child in abortion…
may the joy of peace be yours.
For women who have given a child in adoption…
may you be bathed in the overflow of joy you provided to another.
For women who are expecting or dreaming of a child someday – and for women who are struggling to conceive or adopt…
may your hope lead to joy.
For women who are not called to have children of their own…
may you find joy in community.
For women who raise or love the children of other women as their own – and for women who adopt or foster children…
may your love bring you joy.
For women one and all…
may you find joy in the truth that you are wonderfully made.
For the miracle of all life, we give thanks to the Lord
Who
taught Ephraim to walk,
took us up in your arms;
but we did not know that you healed them.
Who
led us with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
Who
was to us like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
Who
bent down to them and fed us.
– Hosea 11:3-4 (NRSV)
In all and for all, to God be the glory. Amen. [4]
[1] https://www.allhandsinma.org/
[2] https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/educating-girls-is-the-key-to-ending-poverty/?gclid=CjwKCAjwjtOTBhAvEiwASG4bCNRRenAjxePWI59j3kUyxRAWaWTNhaqkk4f0nDeOTVuD7lM3XwuFsxoCCvwQAvD_BwE
[3] https://www.popsugar.com/news/Catholic-Nun-Quote-Abortion-43096831
[4] https://lifeinthelabyrinth.com/2018/05/08/a-prayer-for-mothers-day-for-all-of-us/?fbclid=IwAR0c4fEqMFoDEs753IImyrhx6WJstL_6Gpwj8xuD5T-YtLxFENneWRzCPTo