Radical motherhood.

When Dad was here last Sunday, he and I went with Anne to see Spotlight, the movie about The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on rampant sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests – and the deliberate cover-up by powerful Catholic officials.

In that cloud of context, we drove home, and Anne ran some ideas by me for the prayer she was writing for that week’s coming Bible study.  Harry had invited Jeralynn Brown Blueford, whose son was killed by the police, to speak with us as we looked at the Biblical connections to Black Lives Matter.  (Ultimately, I wasn’t able to be there.  Ricky said it drew in a lot of people.  We’re looking for some place to resonate our griefs off of one another, I suppose.  And this badass mother – who could stand up and lead in that group.  Dang…)

Having lost a son herself, Anne wondered how she could both express solidarity with the mothers of so many sons murdered by the police but in no way claim to “understand what that feels like.”

Dad said (and Anne didn’t hear, so we didn't go on about it) that he could really see the connection there to Mary, another mother who lost a son.  

Such a good point, Dad.

Mary’s son was also executed within an unjust criminal justice system. The Sadducees, Jewish leaders themselves, often get blamed for Jesus’ death, but it seems to me to be more like men (ahem) scrambling for some semblance of power under the crushing weight of the self-evidently more (much more) powerful and oppressive Roman Empire.

(Police today are for sure a horrific part of the problem [and I’m afraid that this analogy might be anti-Semitic because of my pronounced ignorance about Jewish history], but White Supremacy has been the name of the game for a lot longer than the NYPD, and etc.  [As the Roman claim for dominion was certainly not Jewish-only antagonism.] Our country came to be under conditions not possible if not for those White guys’ already undeniable commitment to White supremacy.  It’s how we do.)

AND Mary was no naïve, whimpering victim.  No no.  Mary was our comrade.  Even at the very beginning of her pregnancy with Jesus, she boldly claimed that our God is a God who cares for the poor, the downtrodden.  She sings out: Our God is not a God who feels the need to assert that “Blue lives matter!”  Duh, they matter, but God’s immediate concern is not for those with the power to execute at will with impunity.  (God seeks and waits for them, gives unearned grace, and will rejoice at their turn toward God, but) God calls us to make the oppressors see that the lives of the oppressed matter (, too.).

And Mary said:  

“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”

I got an email from a dear friend recently who made a self-deprecating joke about her plan to be “a stay-at-home mom” next year.  Nuh-uh.

I like the model of motherhood that Mary offers us.  Mother as freedom fighter.  Motherhood as a liberation movement.  A couple days later I saw this piece on the shackling of pregnant women in prison – a piece published by MomsRising (!).

I’ve thought a lot about how God created us to be in family to help us to understand better, to give us some framework, for understanding God’s relationship with us.  God mothers us all.  (And God values the work associated with motherhood.  We're the ones who think it feminine and thus base or undignified or disempowering.)

Thinking about motherhood this way brought me back to one of the most compelling for me scenes in the passion.  Here’s John’s:

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” 

Comrades, here you are. 

My child, here is my child.   Go out, as you are called to do, and help to restore God’s order, God’s (social) justice.

Black lives matter to God.

God cares about all of us as, for example, we care about one another in our family relationships. 

God worries about the way that we’ve designed “race” as a powerful construct by which we move away from God’s justice, by which we forget or ignore that God calls us all God’s children.  All lives matter.

God worries especially about those of God’s children who are poor, who are murdered, who are silenced.

And God calls those of us who are squandering, who are murdering, who are silencing, to remember that God worries about us, too.  God will rejoice when we give up our shit, nurture our create-ivity, and sing together.  Yeah duh all lives matter. Seriously duuuhhhhhhh.

God mothers us all.  God watches Black people getting gunned-down again and again (and again and again).

AND, WITH SCREAMING URGENCY:

Black lives matter to God.