Sermon for St Peter's church, Bramley, on Mothering Sunday, 30th March 2025
as part of a series on 'Women of Holy Week' (based on a book of that title by Paula Gooder)
and to mark the Feast of the Annunciation (25th March).
The sermon as preached was a shortened version of this longer text.
Shalom! My name is Yakov ben Yusaf. But you can call me James. I believe you know my older brother Jesus, but today I want to tell you about our wonderful mother Mariam (Mary to you). The best mother in the world. Yes, I know you may think yours is the best mother in the world, most people do, and all mothers are special. But my mother Mary is the best in a unique way.
Like all children, I grew up just accepting my family as they were. I had several brothers – Jesus, Joseph, Simon and Judas – and sisters as well[i], so we were quite a large family. Mother loved us all of course, as did our father Joseph, but we always thought that Jesus was her favourite, and not just because he was older than the rest of us. He never seemed to do anything wrong, but he wasn’t self-righteous.
It was when Jesus was twelve that we realised there really was somehting special about him. We had been in Jerusalem for the festival and were travelling back to Nazareth. My younger brothers and sisters were with me and Mum, but we thought Jesus was with the men – he was expected to at that age. When we realised he had been left behind in Jerusalem, my parents went back to find him – it turns out he had been in the Temple, debating with the religious experts like one of them! Dad was angry with him, but Mum just questioned him – “why did you do this?” [ii] His answer puzzled us all. “Did you not know I would be in my father’s house?” He had started calling God his father, rather than Joseph!
After that, I asked Mum if Jesus really was different in some way from the rest of us. She seemed to blush when I asked that, and just said that I would find out soon enough. Not long after that, the Synagogue reading one Sabbath was from the first chapter of Samuel – Hannah’s song. Do you know it?
Just listen to a few of the lines from it-
The Lord has filled my heart with joy,
how happy I am because of what he has done!
He makes some people poor and others rich,
he humbles some and makes others great.[iii]
Later that day, Mum took me aside and said “James, I think you’re old enough now for me to tell you what happened when Jesus was born. In fact, what happened before he was born, as well”. She went on to tell me the story you probably know quite well already – the archangel coming to her, her stay with Aunt Elizabeth, Dad taking her to Bethlehem for the census, the shepherds and the wise men. When she got to that last bit, she took me into her bedroom, lifted up a stone set in the floor under her sleeping mat, and showed me the treasures of frankincense and myrrh. “What about the gold?” I asked. “Oh, we had to spend that when we were exiled in Egypt. You were born there, you know, only you were too young to remember it”. She asked me to promise not to tell my younger siblings, they would find out when the time was right too.
I asked her why she had chosen this day of all days to tell me this family story, which sounded a bit like the story of the Exodus that we tell every Passover night. She said it was because of that reading in the synagogue – Hannah’s song. “I sang something similar”, she added, “when I visited Aunt Elizabeth”.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
He has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.[iv]
After all that, I was dazed, and sat in silence for a long time. Then I asked, “So are you an angel, Mum?” “Oh no”, she replied, “I was just an ordinary girl, but God chose me for this special task of being the mother of his holy baby. It’s God’s promise. We know from Scripture that God never breaks his promises, even if it takes a long time and there are difficulties on the way.”
“So you’re not Supermum then?” “No, darling, it’s no easier for me than for any of your friends’ mothers. More difficult, knowing who I have to care for. I really needed the support of Joseph through that time – he’s a really special man, you know, what with his dreams and visions, and now he works so hard for us. And your aunt supported me too. But what really kept me going were the words the angel spoke to me; ‘Greetings, favoured one, the Lord is with you!’, and ‘Nothing will be impossible for God’.[v] It’s that sense of being favoured, and being given God’s strength to do the impossible, that’s what keeps me going. If he saved us from Herod’s soldiers, he can save us from anything else.”
Well, that changed the rest of my childhood. I never looked on Jesus the same way after that, or my mother. We grew up, Jesus and I, working in our father’s construction business, though Jesus was always more interested in the spiritual life of the synagogue. Eventually Dad died. Mum wanted Jesus to take on the business, but he wasn’t having any of that. Instead he left home, becoming a rabbi with a group of followers. You’ve heard some of the stories of the miracles he did, starting with when Mum told him there was no wine at a wedding and he just made loads of it out of water. She came home very merry that evening!
Life became more difficult for us then. Partly without Dad running the business, that fell to me and my brothers, but we had a large family to provide for. But we knew it was especially difficult for mum with her favourite son having left home. All mothers find that difficult. She would often shed tears for him and worry about what he was getting up to. Then one day he came back, and again the Sabbath reading in the Synagogue took on a new meaning for us. Jesus read the familiar words from Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. [vi]
Mum smiled at that mention of the Lord’s favour.
Not only did Jesus go on to say he had come to fulfil that prophecy, he called himself a prophet and said no-one in our own town would accept him. Well, that angered the men in the synagogue and they dragged him to a cliff and tried to thrown him off it.[vii] Fortunately God was with him and he escaped, but Mum was really shaken and upset by this. She reminded me of the words Simeon had spoken: “A sword will pierce your own soul”[viii] . “I always have to bear that cross”, she said, “Jesus is such a blessing to us all, yet he doesn’t really belong to us, he’s dedicated himself to God just like the angel said, and that’s hard to accept sometimes. But I still remember I’m favoured to have been his parent.”
Mary’s heart was pierced again not long after that, when we went to hear Jesus preach and see what healings he was doing. When he was told we were there, he replied “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers” (meaning his disciples)[ix] In this way he seemed to be cutting himself off from our family altogether. I was insulted and wanted to hit him, but Mum held me back and reminded me of what happened that previous time. “His hour hasn’t come yet”, she said, “God will protect him until it does, and we just have to accept that he knows what he’s doing”.
Later, we reflected on what he really meant. Just as mother Mary dedicated her life to serving her son, so we, if we give our lives to serving him, are like parents to him too.
From that time on, she became one of the women disciples who followed Jesus around – to and from Galilee, sometimes across the Jordan, sometimes down to the coast, often up to Jerusalem. Those from richer families supported her and other poorer women.
Then finally, when I was around thirty and Jesus a couple of years older, we all went up to the Passover feast. Mary put on her favourite blue dress. “Why are you wearing that?” I asked. “It’s old and too small for you” (she was about fifty by then). “This is the robe I was wearing when the angel came to me”, she said. “I just have this strong feeling – the Holy Spirit is telling me something important is going to happen this year at the festival. Something wonderful, yet…” She paused and started crying… “Something terrible. We have to go and watch, and I want to wear this blessed robe.”
So we went up to Jerusalem that year, along with all the other men and women from Nazareth who joined the pilgrimage. We saw Jesus ride into the holy city on a donkey, we heard about the perfume poured on him at Bethany, and we heard he was going to celebrate the Passover with his band of twelve closest disciples.
The next day the city was in uproar. Jesus had been arrested, tried and was being sent out to Golgotha – to be crucified by the Romans like a thief! And on this, one of the holiest days of the year! Jesus looked so alone, searching for a friendly face in the crowd. Mary, distraught, pushed her way through to him and held his bloodied body in her arms, with no regard for being made ritually unclean. She was just trying to comfort her hurting son, as she had for him and me so many times when we were young. [x] Grieving still, she stood at the cross until the very end. Then, with Mary Magdalene and the other followers, they took Jesus’ body for burial. Of course I grieved for my innocent brother too, but how can I begin to understand what it meant for a sword to pierce our mother’s heart on that day?
My mother wasn’t there on Easter morning, but the other Mary was, and before long all of us had seen Jesus alive. Our mourning had been turned to joy, and Mary, mother of Jesus, the most highly favoured lady, became one of the leaders of the new Church that followed him, full of the Holy Spirit. Young John joined us to take Jesus’ place in our family, and Mary adopted him as her son.
We learnt a new lesson at Pentecost, that in the light of the Resurrection, the church is our family. Not instead of, but as well as our natural families. Where we can be mother, brother and sister to each other, just as Jesus had said. “For nothing will be impossible with God”.
And so, on this Mothering Sunday, let me encourage you all to become or remain part of this family of Jesus, looking up to Mary our mother as a symbol of all that motherhood should be. Mary, the favoured one. Mary, full of grace. Mary, the God-bearer.
May you all be favoured by God, as she was. May all of you who have children, be favoured by God in your own way, as she was, and learn from Mary all that motherhood should be: serving, loving, trusting in God. Committed to your children, willing to stick with them as they grow up, whether they bring joy or pain. May all of you without children play your part in the families of others. And may you all know yourselves loved and honoured in Jesus’ church.
[i] Matthew 13:55
[ii] Luke 2:41-51
[iii] 1 Samuel 2: 1, 7 (Good News Bible)
[iv] Luke 1:46-53, Common Worship version
[v] Luke 1:28, 37
[vi] Isaiah 61:1-2
[vii] Luke 4:21-30
[viii] Luke 2:34
[ix] Matthew 12:46-50
[x] https://www.catholic.org/prayers/station.php?id=4, adapted