Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Lent

There is nothing so comforting as a meal at a family table, where the father, who is loved and respected, honors the mother; “her children rise up and call her blessed.” She wakes early and “gives meat to her household.” The children are “like olive branches round about the table”, and they sit in the peace and happiness and security of a father and a mother. The family table.

I know my wife is watching right now, and is thinking the same thing that you might be thinking. That scenario doesn’t play out too often. Even when fathers are present and mothers are diligent and children are seated, it is a rare thing to achieve the beautiful imagery of the family table that we find in the Scriptures. Even more rare for the vast number of American households where the father or mother is not present, where there is not honor and praise being given, where the hearts of the children are set against the parents, where food is scarce, or schedules are hectic. This is a broken, crazy world, and families are broken, too. This is a time of fatherlessness and motherlessness. And my heart is sad for those listening who have not had the comfort and peace of the family table, and the security of a father and a mother, and the joy of food, and time, and rest. For many, life is a wilderness. But there is comfort in the Gospel, and the Word of God gives us great hope. For we have a Father, and a Mother, and a Table; all that we need.

This Sunday, the 4th Sunday in Lent is known by two names: “Mothering Sunday” and  “Refreshment Sunday”. The name Mothering Sunday comes from our Epistle, and Refreshment Sunday comes from the Gospel.

The Epistle is from Galatians 4, where Paul contrasts the two covenants in an allegory. The Old Covenant corresponding to Mt. Sinai, and the New Covenant to the heavenly Jerusalem. Of this “Jerusalem which is above”, Paul says, “it is the mother of us all.” The New Jerusalem is our Mother. You are a citizen of the New Jerusalem. You have a Mother.

The Gospel completes the picture with the famous passage from John 6. Jesus leads his people up onto a mountain, a mountain covered with green pastures, and makes the people to sit and rest. Here he takes the 5 loaves and 2 fishes and He “took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down.” And all were filled.

It would be easy for us to miss the subtext here, but the people on the mountain would have understood. Jesus was not merely feeding them, He was fulfilling a host of prophecy that the One who would come as a Fatherly King would gather His scattered people and feed them. Jesus feeding His people would be claiming his identity as the New Moses, the new Father of a new People, giving the people New Manna. And though Jesus is the Son of the Father, there is no doubt that in this passage He is acting as a Father to the New Israel, the Church, in feeding His children, as a Shepherd feeds his sheep. You have a Father.

Isn’t this a comforting thought? That amidst all the chaos of life, no matter the wilderness of broken relationships, economic struggle, pandemic, war, and corruption, at the center of the our world is the peace of the family table: God our Father, Jerusalem our Mother, and a Table laid on the grassy slopes of our happy home.

This is a refreshing thought, hence the name for this Sunday. But, God goes even further in showing love to His children. He will not stand to have us feel fatherless and motherless. The apostles and their successors rightly understood that the Church is in view when Paul speaks of this heavenly Jerusalem, and so we have the oft quoted saying from the Church Fathers that, “The Church is our Mother.” And with regards to His Fatherhood, God gives the Church shepherds, who like Jesus on the mountain act as fathers to the children of God. The truth that God is our Father and that Jerusalem is our Mother is tangibly given to you. Indeed, the Motherhood of the New Jerusalem is sacramentally given to you in Mother Church, and the Fatherhood of God is sacramentally given in the pastors and priests known as “father” by the children of God. And like this beautiful scene in John 6, the family of God gathers peaceable around the Holy Table to receive the Bread of Life, and there we have peace, security, and happiness.

The COVID-19 crisis is causing sickness and death all over the world, and this, no doubt, is the most painful part of this pandemic. But one other way it is causing real pain is that the Family of God cannot be together. Families are meant to be together, and when fathers are away from their families, or children are away from their Mother, it is distressing on everyone. I speak for my fellow priest the words of the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, “I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.” I feel this as a priest and a father in the Church; I want to be with my children. And you, I’m sure, long to be in the comfortable embrace of your church, as children long for the physical touch of their mother. It would be a mistake to ignore the sacramental ways that God works in His world. There is something Gnostic in completely separating the idea of Jerusalem our Mother from Mother Church, and the Fatherliness of God from the priesthood, and the nourishment of God from the Holy Communion. And while we can have all these things through the Spirit, it is okay to mourn that so much of what sustains our walk with God on this earth is being transmitted through the internet. This is not ideal. We are a family living apart, and it is okay, even good, to feel the sadness in that.

But mix that sadness with the refreshment that is found in the Gospel, for though you cannot taste it, God still feeds His people. Though you cannot touch Him, God is still your Father. And though you cannot sit in the comfort of your church, you are still a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and a pandemic cannot take any of that away from you. So use this time to long for the day when you will not be alone, and take comfort in the words of Jesus which He gives us in John 14, ““I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Amen.