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We meet Mother Mary in today’s Gospel. She is a new mother, and trouble is brewing. She feels it in her gut. She heard it from Simeon in the Temple in Jerusalem when they brought baby Jesus to be circumcised. Then Joseph had a dream instructing them to leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt.
Mary had the protective instinct of a mother. This instinct is biological, but goes beyond biology because you don’t have to be a biological mother to have it. Anyone caring for a child can have that instinct. A coach may have it. A teacher may have it. A grandparent, aunt, uncle, or godparent may have it. That gut necessity to put your arms around a child and ensure their safety… that transcends biology.
I imagine you can think of people who have mothered you: a tutor, a woman at church, or a Scout leader. And I’m sure many of you have been mothers to others, irrespective of your gender. Gender isn’t what makes a mother, it’s that protective instinct; it is empathy, patience, and sacrifice. It is that nurturing love which flows through our hearts when we are called to care for a child, even a child we don’t know.
Have you ever seen a lost child looking for their parent in a park, department store, or a sporting event? What did you do? I know what you did. You stepped up, you stepped in. You threw a protective shield around that child and did whatever you had to do to help reunite them with their parents. This response is hardwired into us by God. We are made to care for children,because we are made in the imagine and likeness of God. We are God’s children, and children are given to us to care for. It is a divine imperative.
Our matriarch, our patron saint for this is Rachel. She was the second wife of Jacob. She was his beloved. Yet through the trickery of her father, Laban, her older sister Leah married Jacob first. Rachel waited patiently. She made sacrifices for her sister, as the culture 4,000 years ago required. She had empathy for Leah. Then, at last, she became a mother.
Her eldest son was Joseph, the Vizier of Egypt. Her second son was Benjamin. She died giving birth to him. Her life for his life, it seems: a sacrifice that elevated her to the place of revered mother within Judaism, and Christianity, and Islam.
We meet Rachel today in the Gospel of Matthew crying out for her children: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matt 2:18) This section of Holy Scripture is omitted from the lectionary. The suggested reading skips it presumably to spare us from the horror of Herod massacring the children. But I think this is a mistake, which is why we included it today, because to skip it denies us the opportunity to reflect on our role as mothers, and to wonder about how we care for the children in the world around us.
Herod repressed his motherly instincts. Many do, suffocating their empathy by hardening their hearts. The only sacrifice Herod was willing to make was the lives of thousands of children, to protect his kingdom. He justifies this genocide as a necessity for a greater good. Evil loves a greater good. For Herod and his like-minded citizens, it was the stability of the empire that mattered. This passing horror was necessary for the good of the nation, for the safety of the people, for the stability of the region, maybe even, some may argue, for future generations. As if this generation, these Bethlehem children were accidental children; as if God had made a mistake in giving them breath; that their only value was to be statistical collateral damage in the conflicts of adults.
But Rachel and her spiritual descendants, the mothers, would have none of it. They refused to stop weeping. They refused to be consoled. They refused to shut up and line up and do what they were told. Rachel set a tone for all mothers, over all time, because she refused to compromise the significance of even one child.
Azucena Villaflor also refused to compromise. In 1977 she began standing in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina every Thursday at noon. She wore a white scarf embroidered with the names of children who had been “disappeared” by the dictator, Jorge Rafael Videla. Her slogan was: “Where are they?” Other mothers joined her, and then more mothers followed. From 1977 to 1983 the mothers gathered, not just for their own children, but for all children. A mother to one is a mother to all. That was Rachel’s truth. It was the truth of the mothers of Playa de Mayo.
Is it our truth as well? Our instinct is to shout YES! A mother to one is a mother to all. Right? Maybe. In 2007 three researchers, Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic put together a cross-disciplinarian study that explored how people are more likely to empathize with the plight of a specific person or even a dog, than they were a large groups of people starving on another continent, or being caught in the cross-fire of war.
It’s understandable that people would have greater empathy for those they knew personally. It is hard to muster energy to sacrifice for someone we don’t know. It’s hard to live like Rachel relentlessly demanding that children matter. That each child matters. It is exhausting, especially if they are children we’ve never seen; children that are far away. Why weep for them? Do we have tears to spare?
God does. Jesus stopped and looked over Jerusalem and wept. We don’t weep because we know the children. We don’t weep because we miss the children. We weep because God weeps.
“The people were bringing little children to Jesus, but, the disciples turned them away. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to them. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And Jesus took them up in his arms, and blessed them.” (Mark 10:13–16 para) Jesus, our mother, is a mother to all
Some of the men of the junta in Argentina in 1977 claimed to be religious men. They went to church. And yet, they didn’t like these women gathering in Playa de Mayo on Thursday’s. They didn’t like Azucena Villaflor asking: “Where are the children?” The question undermined their greater good. So, they kidnapped her, and tortured her, and murdered her on December 10, 1977.
But that did not stop mothers. They continued to come to Playa de Mayo. Mothers cannot be intimidated. The love of a mother is the love of God…there is nothing stronger. They wept because God weeps. They kept coming because they knew they had a divine imperative to care for the children, all children. They kept coming because love is stronger than fear.
Do we live as if we believe this? In the United States, 11 million children live in poverty. This is 16% of all American children. That is 1 in 5 children. Count them the next time you are out and about. 1 in 5 children.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve proven it. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Child Tax Credit significantly reduced child poverty. It can be done if we believe children matter. But it is expensive. Some say it would cost $90 billion annually. That is a lot of money.
So is the $498 billion paid to bailout banks in 2008.
So is the $15 billion of annual agricultural subsidies.|
So is the $20 billion of annual fossil fuel subsidies.
So is the $1.4 billion of annual aid to Egypt
So is the $17 billion of annual aid to Israel.
So is the $816 billion for the U.S. military budget each year.
That is a lot of money. My question is – Do we believe love is stronger than fear? My question is – Do we believe in a God of love? I wonder – What would Rachel think?
The wailing of Rachel in the Gospel of Matthew is a quote from the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31:15) where he cites Rachel as the avatar for all mothers, wailing for the children of Israel who have been walled off in a camp called Ramah by Nebuchadnezzar before he forced marched them to Babylon.
In that camp children died as collateral damage. Rachel, the Jewish matriarch who became the Christian and Muslim matriarch, would have none of it. They died, and she wailed, and she would not stop. They were not her children, they were not flesh of her womb, they were greater than that, they were God’s children. They were not accidental children. They were not born to be incidental – another statistic, and she would not shut-up.
Nor would the mothers of Playa de Mayo. From 1977 to 1983 they met every Thursday and shouted the question: “Where are the children?” And finally, evil withered and the junta fell.
Are we mothers as they were mothers? Do we wail for the children? Do we own the relentless legacy of Rachel? As we enter this new year, I invite you to think about children, about those in our church, at Madrona Elementary school, in our community, or in camps on the other side of the world.
Children are the future, which is why God continues to give them to us. We were made to be like Rachel. We are all mothers and a mother to one is a mother to all…which is why, I pray, we will never stopped wailing for the children of this world.