Last Sunday, among the scriptures we reflected on was Psalm 23 -- The Lord's My Shepherd. My reflection on this reminded me of one of my favorite sections of scripture which begins at Matthew 9:35 and ends at 11:30. This where Jesus sees people as "harassed and helpless as sheep without a shepherd." That section ends with Jesus' invitation to them saying, "Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find refreshment for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light."

There were two things that I want to make sure I conveyed to you. First, to those of us who are Christians and members of this church -- if we have not laid down our burdens, received Jesus' rest and taken his easy yoke upon us, we have no testimony to take to the world. The easy yoke of Jesus, is not that we will have less hardship dealing with the struggles of day-to-day living, nor that sin would matter less. The easy yoke Jesus promises is about being freed from the yoke of religion with all its restrictive theologies, laws and structures. The yoke of Jesus is the yoke of grace. When he calls it a yoke, he means that it comes from above and grasps us with saving force; when he calls it easy, he means that it is not a matter of our acting and striving. It is not even about going out and looking for that new reality. When you hear Jesus say, "Come unto me," you have already been found in a unique place to be able to respond to that new reality. It is never a call to legalistic Christianity or a new set of religious laws which could very well be more binding, rather it is to a transforming, saving, anxiety conquering, fear and restlessness eliminating, empowered life.

The second thing I want to make sure I communicate to you, particularly to you who are new at church, was this. The church must be a place where people will experience that yoke of grace. Church is about experiencing Jesus, and not about adding more legalisms, rules, restrictive theologies and burdens of church structures to that person's life. If a church is adding burdens, as unfortunately churches tend to do, then Jesus may be out there calling people away from the church, just like he called people out of the legalistic religious establishment of his day, saying, "Come to me, take my easy yoke upon you." This morning, let me tell you one way, we can be a church of or the easy yoke.

Many years ago when I was a hospital chaplain at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's, I visited a woman whose 5 year old child was very seriously ill and dying. I visited her daily over a couple of weeks, got to know her well and struggled with her grief. She was a Christian woman but could not bring herself to pray. She had an enormous block. "Why is God doing this to me?" she asked one day, "Why is God so mean?" She was so angry at God. The day she told me this, I took this distresssed woman to the hospital chapel and encouraged her to shout and scream out her anger to God. I closed the door and went out. About an hour later I went back. After an hour of screaming, she had made a break through. Sitting in that chapel for the next hour, she told me how it had dawned on her that much of her feelings about God were similar to her feelings about her father, who had left her mother for another woman when she was still a child. She felt severely abandoned. At every important event of her life it was clear to her that he did not care. At this time when her child was dying, all images of God were intertwined, not with a loving, welcoming, generous father, but a cruel, abandoning, uncaring father. That day, for the first time in my life, I suggested to her a new way to think about God, not as father, but as mother. I had heard it was OK to do that. I had not thought or studied it at any depth, but I knew in my heart that the God I knew, who called this woman saying "Come to me all you who are weary and are heavy laden" was calling her to lay aside this religious burden. It was a paradigm breaker for her. She was uneasy at first, but the next day she was full of smiles. "As I thought about God as mother," she said, "I remembered all the times my mother was there with me, particularly in times of sickness. She could not take the pain away, but she was always there, holding me, supporting me, comforting me. I feel now that God is with me, like that."

That day back in 1984, I too took a step of faith. I acted on my understanding that God is bigger than any categories of thought or any language I have to speak about God. After that, I went back and tried to read scripture again from that mother's point of view. And I saw in scripture things I had never seen before because those who taught me the Bible in church and in seminary never looked at God's word through the eyes of a mother. Now with new eyes I saw the mothering images come right through the text. I want to share some of those with you not only so that we will perceive God more fully, but also that Jesus' invitation to our friends and neighbors will not be compromised by our narrow images of God.

Since I am going to throw lots of scriptures at you, I some notes for you so you can remember this later on. If you like to follow with your Bible, that's fine, but don't be so engrossed about finding the right place that you'll miss what I am saying. You can check it out later.

Perhaps the most pervasive mothering image of God is of a pregnant God. Its like God is carrying the whole creation in the womb and birthing it. Isaiah 42:14, provides us the first clue. "For a long time I have kept my peace.... now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant." God cries out like a woman in labor. These words were written at a time when God's people were being oppressed. Israel was in exile in Babylon. From the conception of world God has been in travail and that, when oppression, injustice and suffering of the world continues, God's travail continues, until the time when that oppression ceases and the exile ends, as Isaiah says in vs. 16, at that time, "I will turn the darkness into light and the rough places in to level ground."

Paul has a lot to say about God giving birth to the creation. Acts 17 is his famous speech to the Athenians, where he introduces their "unknown god." Paul declares that this God is the one who has given life and breath to everyone. Not only that, this God is not far from any of us, for it is (vs. 28) "in him that we live, and move and have our being." Now, although Paul specifically does not name the womb, at no other time in human experience do we exist within another person. In this sermon, Paul is picturing the entire human race, as living, moving, having their being, within the cosmic womb of the One God. Now, the image of God's womb may sound unfamiliar to us but it would not be that outlandish for Paul -- not with the solid Jewish education he received. He would have remembered Deuteronomy 32:18 where to a rebellious children of Israel Moses says, "You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth," and Job 38, where to the totally humbled Job God speaks from the whirlwind, saying "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?... (vs 8) Or shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?..." (vs. 29), "from whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?"

Paul also gives clearer expression to this imagery in his letter to the Romans. Chapter 8 has one of the most beautiful expressions of the life in the Spirit and the grounds for Christian hope. Right within that chapter (vs.22) is one of the most profound expressions of Paul's theology of the womb. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." Salvation from Paul's point of view is a birthing process, occurring not only within each individual but also within the natural creation as a whole. "Likewise" he continues, since we don't even know how to travail in prayer through this birthing process, "the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding with sighs too deep for words" In other words, the Spirit takes on our labor pains, becomes our mother. At this birthing, the children of God will be revealed. Then the universe itself will be freed from its shackles and enter the liberty and splendor of the children of God. That is the new birth.

The birth image did not escape Jesus either. Speaking to Nicodemus in John 3:6, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as a mother. "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit." To be born of the flesh is of course, to be born of a human mother; and then it follows, to be born of the spirit is to be born of a divine mother. Continuing, Jesus says, "do not be astonished that I said to you, 'you must be born form above.'" God, specifically, in this instance, Holy Spirit, gives birth. Like Paul, John does not seem to have any trouble relating to this female imagery. In his prologue, in chapter 1:12,13, he points out "to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ....to be born of God." Similarly in his first epistle, in 4:7, he asserts, that everyone who loves is "born of God." Obviously Jesus, who spoke the words and John who wrote the books, sees and encourages us to see the female components of the divine nature. When Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again, and John proclaimed it to the world, they were urging us to experience a birthing through the womb of God, the mother.

Not only does the Bible have many images of a pregnant God, it also has many images of God as a nursing mother. One my favorites is found in Isaiah 49:15. "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you." The analogy is that God's love is like a woman's love for her suckling child. Is it not true that in our human experience there is no greater and yet tender bond between human beings than that between a nursing mother and her child? Even so a human mother may from time to time fail her children, but God, our mother, will never forget her little ones. God's mother-love is the most constant, most reliable and the most consistent of all forms of caring.

The same image is there in the 11th chapter of Numbers. Here Moses is having a real argument with God. God is angry at the Israelites and Moses complains (vss.11-13) "Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?" Now here's the kicker! "Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me 'carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child'... where am I to find meat for all these people?" Moses is saying, God, since you are the mother who conceived and gave birth to the children of Israel, you should be the one to carry and suckle them and find meat for them. Moses resents being saddled with the job of wet nurse! Apparently God sees the justice of Moses's complaint, and immediately steps are taken to give Moses assistance in governing the people.

Hosea chapter 11, is another beautiful chapter of God's love for Israel, the wayward child. It begins, "When Israel was child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.... (Vs.3) Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love, I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them." Mother God is lamenting the waywardness of Israel, recalling the good times of Israel's childhood, of how she lifted him up to her cheeks and kissed him, bent down and fed him.

There are lots more beautiful images of the mothering God. Here are two to wrap this up with -- God as mother eagle and mother hen. In Deuteronomy 32:11-12 "As an eagle stirs up her nest, and hovers over her young; spreads abroad her wings, takes them up and bears them aloft on her pinions, the Lord alone guided Jacob," and in Exodus 19:4, "I bore you up on eagle's wings and brought you unto yourself." These powerful images actually depict the nature of God's relationship to her children. Do you know how the mother eagle teaches her eaglets to fly? She takes them on her wings, swoops downward suddenly to force them into solo flight, then stays close to swoop under them again when they grow too weary to continue on their own. What beautiful a picture of a loving God, caring nurturingly for us when we are weak, yet always pushing us towards maturity rather than dependency -- that's an empowering image.

And then, Jesus used the mother hen image on himself. In Matthew 23:27, Jesus lamented, ":Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you refused!" Jesus calls us, who want to continue in sin destroying the prophets who bring us jolting insights, with our arrogance and self righteousness, to cuddle inside the safety of God's protective wings. Just as God had promised protection in Psalm 91:4, "he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge," Jesus spoke of his yearning to be like the protective mother hen.

These are some of the powerful mothering images of God in the Bible. The woman at the hospital did not have access to these images. At the time of her deepest grief, Jesus' invitation, "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden" did not make any sense to her -- it was incongruent with the abandoning father she knew. That was a yoke of religion to her. There are lots of people like her "harassed and helpless" that need to hear about the easy yoke. And notice, this is not inconsistent with scripture. It is just that we are not used to reading scripture this way. For any who worry that this presents a weak image of God, let me offer you a true story which to me is an image of God's motherly strength.

It was a hot summer day in south Florida and a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house -- something he was not supposed to do without adult supervision. Hurriedly taking off his shoes, socks, and shirt, he dove into the water, not realizing that as he swam toward the middle of the lake, an alligator was swimming toward the shore.

His mother, in the house and looking out the window saw the two as they got closer and closer together. Horrified, she ran to the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could. Hearing her voice, the boy became alarmed and did a U-turn to swim to the mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the alligator also reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed the boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war between the two. The alligator was much stronger but the mother was much too passionate to let go.

A farmer happened to drive by, heard her screams, raced from his truck, took aim and shot the alligator. Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital, the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. And, on his arms, were deep scratches where his mother's fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.

A newspaper reporter who interviewed the boy, asked if he would show him his scars. The boy lifted his pant legs. And then, with obvious pride, he said to the reporter, "But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn't let go."

Doesn't that speak to your experience of God? Imagine God as mother, it'll be good for you, both when you are weary and wounded, needing comfort and safety, when you need to be snatched from the jaws of hell. Just as our human mothers were there for us when we were babies, with a ready breast, a dry diaper, a warm cuddle, when we were growing up with an encouraging word, and empowering kick in the pants, God our mother is always there. Even when our human mothers fail us from time to time, God our mother never fails us.