Personal Matters

Speaking with a pastor from a traditional denomination about the Church as Mother moved me to reflect on the relationship between our experience of mothers and corporate Christian life. Given the importance of human motherhood it is surprising how rarely “mother” is used of the spiritual life. I believe this is because of the hidden and difficult depths of the issues involved. “Mother Church” nurtures, protects and instructs. For many years I have puzzled at the struggle many Christians have in discerning damaging spiritual dynamics in the Church. There seems no end of believers who have been controlled and abused by Church leaders and impersonal church systems; I believe this relates to distorted images of mothering. On the positive side the reality of Church as Mother was first brought home to me by a powerful spiritual encounter years ago.

Our Mother Above

In a meeting of pastors praying for city transformation a powerful experience of Church as Mother came through the scriptures; “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labour! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.”” (Galatians 4:26-27 ESV cf. Isa 54:1). I could sense that the heavenly Jerusalem above was the place from which God was building the Church across the cities of the earth[1]. We are already vitally linked to the Jerusalem which will in the End descend from heaven to earth (Revelation 21:2, 9-10 cf. 3:12). As a child is called to learn from its mother earthly congregations are called to image the mature God-filled reality of the Church above. Unity, love and Spirit-led direction are all marks of a church that is in touch with Mother in heaven. This was conveyed to me through another experience from Christ.

Driving along by the Swan River I had an extremely deep sense of the pleasure of God over Perth. Psalm 87 came to mind; “Egypt and Babylon…Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia — “This one was born there,” they say. And of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”…The LORD records as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there.”” (vv. 4-6 ESV). I could sense a time coming when people of all races living in Perth would supernaturally sense their common rebirth in the heavenly Mother Zion as our common Mother. The outcome would be a genuinely supernatural love and unity in the Spirit beyond all natural barriers. Today however the spiritual landscape of Perth is marked by spiritually and ethnically separated congregations.  Our original text in Galatians points out why.

Law versus Grace

There is only ever one foundational struggle in the Church – righteousness through faith versus righteousness through law. The barren woman with multitudes of children in Galatians 4:27 is typologically Sarah. She stands in contrast to Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, as grace stands in contrast to law (v.21). Sarah is the symbolic conceiver of a miraculous birth from above by grace through faith. Those born of this mother enjoy access to God independent of legal obedience (Isaiah 51:1-2, 7). The revelation that law and grace are like two mothers tells us what is often missing in the contemporary Church. There is a law based mode of spiritual child-rearing in Mother Church keeping many believers in spiritual infancy.

Enslaved

“He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the church for his Mother.” (Cyprian). In practice many believers connect more readily to the ways of Church than they do to the ways of the Father. Rather than training believers to hear God for themselves and enjoy “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:14, 22), my observation is that many church leaders tell their people what to think and how to live. This is a parental formula for sustaining infancy because it is the way of mother Hagar (law) rather than of mother Sarah (grace) (Eph 4:14)! Only grace gives space for believers to enter into mature God-directed living and receive empowerment to reproduce (John 15:16). Whilst the vast majority of pastors are sincere and well meaning, the undeveloped state of the people of God testifies infallibly that we need to be embrace by a mothering that descends from heaven. True spiritual mothers empower their spiritual children to know for themselves the mind of God in them (Rom 8:14; 1 Cor 2:16). Paul models for us this radical form of parenting.

Un-Principled

When Paul exclaims, “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19 ESV) this has nothing to do with programmes or principles, but imparting the life of Christ himself. Paul’s warm personal presence was a manifestation of heavenly mothering that made Jesus very real to his hearers; this is the sort of radical spiritual leadership we need today. “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” and “like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you” (1 Thess 2:7, 12). He takes the position as spiritual mother and father to his converts, imaging both God the Father and the heavenly Mother Church. Paul understood that only the sort of agony a woman endures in labour was enough to convince his spiritual children that they could leave behind all the ways of worldly philosophies and religious laws. The same issues remain today, the Church needs liberation from things like “Principles of Church Growth” or “Laws of Leadership” and to be restored by grace alone to intimacy with Christ (Gal 5:4). Christ’s law is Christ’s life (Gal 6:2).

Conclusion 

Only those who embrace the cross as a womb of pain through which the whole world shall be reborn can image the heavenly Church as the Mother of our freedom (Rom 8:18-25; Gal 4:26). This is a call for a new sort of grace-filled leadership which shall impart the limitless liberty of Jesus Christ (Gal 5:). Few embrace this very difficult call, for one of the hardest things of all for the average human conscience is to “betray” a M/mother who has taught us so many good/godly things from our earliest days in her family. Only a conscience that knows the robust authority of righteousness by grace through faith alone can walk Christ’s path of discipleship no matter where it leads. If we would see the Church as she truly is, heavenly, beautiful, radiant, our Mother of FREEDOM, we can only walk the way of the cross.