I was quite upset a few years ago when my manager said to myself and my fellow sisters that we were not to “Mother” the newly qualified staff nurses. They’re adults and should be treated like adults. I was upset because I knew the comment was indirectly aimed at me.
I started in the department as a newly qualified 22-year-old who’d gone straight from school to university and was now undertaking the job that, yes, I’d trained 4 years for, but also was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done, until I started to stand up here that is. I felt completely out of my depth.
The leap from student to staff nurse is huge, any other medical professionals in the room will I’m sure agree. They’re support programs in place, but nothing beats care and nurture by a person who takes you by the hand, understands what you’re going through and walks beside you through it.
Enter Caroline. Caroline is one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with: highly skilled clinically, compassionate but firm, completely professional, and one of life’s natural nurturers. She’s not that much older than me, but she was the work mum I needed, and as I grew in my career, she was the template for how I myself wished to nurture future new nurses.
We still work together now, though her role has changed and she works in a different department. Whenever we see each other there’s a hug and a catch up, she always makes me feel seen and cared for with the added dynamic of us now being equals in our roles. Even if we didn’t still see each other, I will never forget how her care helped form the practitioner I’ve become.
Fast forward to being told my providing this nurture to other staff was’nt OK. Last year we had about 15 new nurses join our team, the majority of who are newly qualified, 21–22-year-olds, straight out of uni. I know how they feel, and I want to support them in the way that feels most natural to me.
The good news is the management team now value our individual styles of supporting the team, whether it’s the feistier sisters who fiercely advocate for them, my male colleagues who have a more big-brotherly approach, or my gentle mothering and guiding.
Mothering comes in all guises and in many different areas of our lives. We may have an amazing relationship with our own mothers and yet still have other maternal figures – or we might have a tense or fractured relationship and have found that nurture elsewhere.
We might be a mother who mothers beyond our own family – my kids have a lot of LGBT and neurodivergent friends, they know they’ll always be accepted, fed, and given a bed at our house.
We might be a mother who has difficult relationships with our children, but have found we provide that parental role to someone else in our life.
You may have found maternal nurture from your father or another male role model, you may be a man who, like God, has been both father and mother when needed. Mothering Sunday can be joyful and it can be painful.
In today’s readings there's a mixture of blood families and found families. I’ve often wondered how Eli coped having a toddler left on his doorstep; he had to be mother, father and teacher to Samuel, and though Samuel maintained a relationship with Hannah it was Eli that was there day to day.
Paul is writing to a community who he has a difficult parental relationship with. In his previous letter he accused them of being children still fed on milk, not ready for solid food. Bridget Nichols writes that "in this 2nd letter Paul’s tone is maternal, echoing the voice that comforts the hurt and disappointed child, in consoling the children who have not grown up much since he admonished them in his earlier letter."
And then we have the achingly painful gospel reading. A few weeks ago, we heard Simeon’s prophetic words at Candlemas, which now come to fruition. He told Mary a sword will pierce your own heart, and here, with other women from her community, and the Beloved Disciple, she’s watching Jesus die, unable to do anything to stop it.
Jesus, enduring the pain of crucifixion, has the added agony of watching his mother watch his suffering. It’s so brutal, even with the knowledge of what follows on Easter Day, to read and reflect upon this. Mary is losing her son, which a few different choices could’ve prevented, but they both know it must be this way.
Amid his suffering Jesus provides consolation for his mother and his friend, telling them they’re now mother and son, a new family is being formed and emerging from all this pain. The literal translation is the beloved disciple received Mary "into his inner life-setting."
The gospel models for us a mother-child relationship borne out of circumstance and trauma, I’ve seen this in my professional life. Patients become friends, patient’s families become friends, and sometimes, in the circumstances where a patient dies, support comes from the only people who could possibly understand each other’s loss and pain.
The best churches, I think, are built upon relationship and I think it’s an amazing strength of our congregation. There’s an array of inter-generational friendships, some with that parent-child dynamic, right here among us. I’ve felt held, loved, and encouraged in a beautifully maternal way by so many of you. I hope as I grow in age and wisdom that others feel this care from me.
I would even say that inter-generational friendships are one of the biggest strengths of the church as a whole. As with the family-like communities which were built in the aftermath of the events of that first Easter, we hopefully continue to build communities where we actively ensure that each generation is nurtured, valued and encouraged to be an active participant in the life of the whole.
We know this isn’t always the case, it’s easy to make someone feel unwelcome or pushed away, yet it can take the smallest of kindnesses to make someone feel welcome, included and valued.
I also believe that healthy inter-generational relationships build empathy. Church congregations bring together people from so many different backgrounds and form friendships that encourage us to look at difference differently, an amazing thing in a world where the over-arching message is one of division.
What we’ve got right here is counter-cultural, it’s rebellious, it rejects the message that we should conform to particular ways of thinking and living. It’s proof that the best way of spreading the gospel message of rebellious hope, beyond these walls, is through building relationships which model our values in the wider world.
The message we have to share is that the mother church is just that, a mother, which sees the whole person, accepts the whole person, respects the dignity of each child of God and actively seeks ways to nurture them, and to walk with them through all life’s chances and changes.
So, as we recall today those who’ve mothered us and those we’ve mothered, let’s remember this community, this mother church is also mother to our whole parish family, those who walk through the doors and those who don’t. Let’s continue to spread the message that in this family they always be accepted, nourished, and find a place to rest. Amen.
