Our Maternal God

Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. . .you shall have no other gods besides me.”

In the Hebrew scriptures, Egypt is a place of slavery, separation, and oppression. The story of Exodus is about escaping injustice, and making one’s way, ever so painstakingly, to the promised land.

Do you know exile? Maybe you lost a parent too early, or have experienced eviction. Maybe a landlord suddenly decided not to renew your lease. Those of you who have served in the military know what it is to move and move and move. 

The seasons of life often demand that we exchange everything familiar to be near family, or perhaps aging or divorce requires us to give up a beloved home.

God is present with God’s people throughout this journey. Frequently in scripture God reveals God’s presence via the natural world. Job 38:1 - “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.”

When God first calls Moses we read, , “And the angel of the Lord appeared to [Moses] in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2).

In the gospels, God most magnificently enters Creation described in John, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

In the story of the Israelites Exodus from Egypt, God leads by means of nature–– in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 

photo credit: Getty Images

And like any other group of humans, the Israelites murmur about this and that. They don’t like the food. They reminisce about the meat pots. . .“we ate better as slaves in Egypt!” Always a good mother, even with petulant children, God sends down quail and manna to feed them.

In today's passage from the Hebrew scriptures, God, like a mother, gives some life lessons via Moses, the 10 commandments, or the 10 Words.

In her sermon, Keep Moving Forward, African-American scholar Renita Weems compares God to a southern mother who will take trains, subways and/or Ubers to arrive on the doorstep of her beloved child. Why? Just to check in. Just to come “see about you.”

Reverend Weems preaches, “Put your hands together for a God who will come and see about you. Tend to you. Wipe your eyes. Look you in the face. . .and tell you, “Don't you know you are loved by God?”

Reverend Weems sees God appearing to the Israelites in the desert as a nurturer, as a mother. 

Feminist theology is not about changing scripture to include women, but about women’s perspectives and interpretations of Scripture. 

Imagery of God as mother runs throughout the Bible:

Isaiah 66:13:

As a mother comforts her child,

    so I will comfort you;

    you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 42:14:

I will cry out like a woman in labour,

    I will gasp and pant.

Psalm 131:2:

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

In the Gospels we have an image of God as a mother hen in Luke 13:34:

How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings . . .

God has come down to see about you, to lead you out of displacement, uncertainty and anxiety into a place of promise. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt 400 years, so returning to the promised land was an “idea” rather than a comfortable reality, a place they hadn’t been for generations. 

It wouldn’t feel like home right away. God will lead you home, is leading you home now, although it might not feel like it just yet.

God meets Moses on Mount Sinai to give him instructions. If we read 10 commandments as rules, we might believe, as scholar Robert Alter puts it, “the way to monotheistic loyalty and ethical behavior is paved with prohibitions, that human behavior is fraught with impulses that must be resisted” (The Five Books of Moses, notes p. 431).

But teaching children to resist impulses that harm others, isn’t that a huge role of a loving parent? Don’t hurt one another, don’t take what’s not yours. Don’t lie.

I grew up totally unchurched. My impression of Christianity was that it was a chilly room full of stiff people. In his wisdom, God saw fit to insert a few Christians into my high school friend group. They were all cute boys so when they talked about Jesus I at least pretended to listen. 

When I finally did become a Christian in my early 20s, I entered a tradition with a thick, heavy catechism which gave precise order to a world I had heretofore found difficult and chaotic. I loved that book. These “rules” seemed logical and I wanted to follow them. I wanted to please an exacting God of Justice.

The closer I grew to God, and the more I experienced God as love, I began to want to follow God’s law out of relationship rather than out of a transactional pleasing, rather than a tireless earning of good graces. Religion transformed into relationship. 

God has come down through time immemorial to see about us, to call out for us, to invite us into his loving embrace.  After Adam and Eve sinned and went off the radar, so to speak, God came down to Eden and walked through the garden calling, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

Of course God is omniscient, and knows where we are, but he wants us to know he wants us. God is always reaching for us.

The 10 Commandments begin with God’s invitation to relationship….I am your God. And we have the prohibitions, the mothering, Don’t kill one another stuff. Fair enough.

But then in an extraordinarily nurturing invitation, God tells us to rest. “Remember the Sabbath Day to hallow it.” To hallow: to consecrate, to make holy, to set apart. Set apart a day to rest.

The Sabbath is the oldest continually celebrated religious ritual, dated to the very foundation of the world. On the seventh day God rested from all the work he had done. 

God’s act of Creation was an ordering and dividing, water from earth, night from day. And then among the space God created for our flourishing, God created space for all beings to rest. 

Sabbath is an eternal creation; it is something we enter into, where God rests. Whether we observe the Sabbath or not, God is there, resting. Like a mother, God tells us when we need a nap.

Remember who God is. As the Torah teaches, “love the stranger who dwells among you, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:18, 34). Be decent to one another. Rest. No really. Rest. You will find God there.