Saturday, January 28, 2023

As a Nursing Mother

Isaiah 49:14-23
January 29, 2023
William G. Carter

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders outdo your destroyers, and those who laid you waste go away from you.

Lift up your eyes all around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall put all of them on like an ornament, and like a bride you shall bind them on. Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land— surely now you will be too crowded for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children born in the time of your bereavement will yet say in your hearing: “The place is too crowded for me; make room for me to settle.” Then you will say in your heart, “Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away— so who has reared these? I was left all alone— where then have these come from?” Thus says the Lord God: I will soon lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.


We continue to make our way through the long poem in chapter 49. This winter we are reminded how the poems of the Bible are drenched in images. This is especially true of poems uttered by the prophets. A prophet like Isaiah uses picture-language to touch our hearts and ignite our hopes.

In the poem before us, we’ve heard of the Servant who speaks like a sword. The mountains are lowered, and the valleys lifted up. God comes as light that chases away darkness. Springs of water break forth in the wilderness. And as we heard last week, all the prisoners are called out. We spent some time reflecting on how we might be prisoners and how our freedom is announced.

The third section of the poem continues to draw imaginative pictures for us, as it did for Israel in its exile. As Isaiah quotes the complaints of the people, specifically how they feel abandoned by God, he hears God say, “How could I ever forget you? Can a woman forget her nursing child? Can a mother show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” It presses the question: can you imagine God as a mother?

One Sunday morning when my daughters were small, I overheard a conversation in the back of the minivan. Don’t know prompted it. Perhaps a prayer, or a hymn, or a Bible story. But one of them declared, “God is a very old man.” I pulled off the road and asked, “Where did you ever hear that?” They looked at me as if to say, “Well, don’t you know?”

I didn’t want to confuse them by declaring that the Creator is beyond our human categories of gender. But I was curious how they picked this up. Did they hear it from me? They didn’t know. Did you hear this from a teacher? They refused to rat anybody out. Have you ever seen a picture of God? No, not really. Was it something that somebody said? It was quiet for a minute. Then the theologian of the two said, “Well, you taught us to pray to ‘Our Father,’ and fathers are very old men.” Fair enough.

I don’t remember how the conversation went on from there. But I know myself well enough that I’m pretty sure I made a little speech. Old men are prone to make speeches, especially if they’re preachers. And I began to remind them of some Bible texts that imagine God as a Mother. Not as a Father, but a Mother. This section of Isaiah was the keynote.

Israel has been in exile. They have heard their sins have been forgiven (that’s in chapter 40). They know they are coming home by way of the flattened mountains and the raised-up valleys. But when is this going to be? Good question. You may have noticed that the Eternal God is rarely in a hurry. And as they wait, they grumble outwardly – “Maybe God has forgotten us.” As if they were left behind on the Island of Misfit Toys.

God says, “How could I forget you? You are my children, my nursing children, the offspring that have come out of my very own womb.” And if that language strikes you as unusual, let me say it is – because it’s right out of the Bible.

In the Jewish scriptures, the Creator – the Holy One, blessed is God’s name – is often depicted with motherly tendencies. Sometimes God is described as a mother bird sheltering her little birds beneath her wings. Like in the book of Ruth, “May you have a full reward, under whose wings you have come for refuge!” (Ruth 2:12) Or Psalm 17: “Guard me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” (Psalm 17:8)

It’s not only a gloss in the Jewish scriptures. Jesus said it too. One day, he laments, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” (Luke 13:34)

And it’s not always a warm, cuddly image. There’s a line in Deuteronomy, comparing God to a mother eagle who pushes the young eaglets out of the nest, as if to say, “Come on, it’s time to spread your wings and fly.” You can’t always live in the basement. And if the baby eagles aren’t quite ready to fly, God the Mother Eagle “spreads her wings to catch them and carry them aloft.” (Deuteronomy 32:10)

Or I recall how the prophet Hosea compared God, not to a bird, but to a large Mama Grizzly Bear. To translate the line loosely, “If you mess with my cubs, I’m coming after you.” (Hosea 13:8)

So Isaiah is in good company here. “Can a woman forget her nursing child? Can a mother show no compassion for the child of her womb?” The obvious answer is “no.” Not at all. The picture-language enlarges our view of divine care and compassion. The God who has given us life is the One who loves us, holds us, cares for us, protects us. Of course, these characteristics are not tied to only one human gender. But if you were fortunate to have a good mother or aunt or grandmother,

you know what it’s like to be remembered, not forgotten,
embraced, not pushed away,
comforted, not ignored,
cherished, not rejected.

Such is the love of God for all of us. This is really important for the prophet Isaiah. Terence Fretheim, a great Old Testament scholar of the last generation, pointed out this section of the prophet’s writings “uses female images for God more frequently than any other Old Testament body of literature.”[1] In chapter 42, God is perceived as pregnant and giving birth (42:14). In chapter 66, God is nursing the child and providing comfort (66:12-13).

As we heard in chapter 49 today, God stays close to the people, even if they are impatient, even if they are confused, even if they are worried, even if they feel God has stepped away. Even more than a compassionate mother, God holds on and never lets go. The child is never forgotten. You and I are never forgotten.

And here’s the remarkable thing: this is how God governs the world. In compassion, God comes alongside the worries and sufferings of her children. This is not trickle-down power from an authority high above us. This is a holy companionship that joins us in our pain. What an extraordinary way to rule the world!

Somebody saw a bumper sticker before a recent election. The bumper sticker said, “Elect a Woman. She will know how to run Nebraska!” There were also campaign buttons with the pithy statement, “The Future is Female.” Alas, many voters in that state have not yet agreed. But it raises the relationship between gender and governance. Contrary to the strong-arm tendencies of many who aspire to run the world, there is no future in brute force – but there is a future in compassion. This is a window for understanding what Isaiah is saying about God.

Ten days ago, the country of New Zealand was rocked by the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, their first female prime minister. Elected at thirty-seven, she was only the second world leader to give birth while holding office. Her two terms were marked by empathy and compassion, and she knew how to get things done. Few expected her resignation. But she decided she had done what she could. It was time to step aside.

As I’ve learned about her tenure, I’ve admired the way she has negotiated the expectations that many people have of women. In an article titled, “Jacinda Ardern Says No to Burnout,” here’s how the New York Times described it:

Women are often expected to be unfailingly kind and patient and to nurture those around them. If women demonstrate the type of leadership typically praised in men — ambitious, swaggering, domineering — they are seen as unfeminine, unlikable and even illegitimate leaders…

Ardern built a public image that tied her leadership to traits that women are usually praised for. For instance, when Ardern addressed the nation after the country began its strict COVID lockdown in March 2020, she conducted an informal Facebook Live session on her phone while wearing a cozy sweatshirt and made sure to let people know that she had just finished putting her toddler to bed. By portraying herself as maternal, friendly and cooperative, she remained extremely popular even as she locked down the country.

Ardern’s tenure, and particularly her handling of the pandemic, showed how those stereotypically feminine traits could be valuable in leaders. “What we learned with COVID is that, actually, a different kind of leader can be very beneficial,” said Alice Evans, a lecturer at King’s College London who studies how women gain power in public life. “Perhaps people will learn to recognize and value risk-averse, caring and thoughtful leaders.”[2]

I tell Prime Minister Ardern’s story to simply raise the question, “What kind of God do we have?” Do we have a God who manages things by arrogance and brute force? Or do we have a God who remembers us and cares for us? A God who knows our pain – and draws near to hold and heal? A God like the God of Israel, who says, “I will never forget you. You are my beloved children.”

I suppose everybody has a picture of God in their heads. We cannot see the Lord, but we can draw upon our memory and imagination of what it is like to be comforted, nourished, and help forever. And I am comforted to know our lives are held in a Mother’s love. She never forgets us.


(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

[2] Amanda Taub, “Jacinda Ardern Says No to Burnout,” The New York Times, 20 January 2023.

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