Who said Saviours Don’t Come from Mothers?

Reflecting on Mothering Sunday on Exodus 2:1-10

“Every boy that is born, throw them into the Nile”

The empire decreed to contain the slaves,

Moms were fighting death to deliver their sons,

Only to deliver them into the hands of death,

The shape of the water was the shape of a new grave

Streams flowing, were streams burying,

Tears flowing as babies crying,

Parents crying as babies thrown to drowning,

No human came to stop such inhuman act,

No saviours yet to save those little babies wet.

Who said saviours don’t come from mothers,

Sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and those ‘others’?

There comes a mother courageous, shrewd,

creative, daring, loving, to save her child,

hides him for three months dressing in pink,

weans him and plans him not to sink,

then places him in a tarred basket to float on waters,

turning water graveyard to waters of life.

A saviour did come in a mother,

Saving a saviour and all the others of his kind.

Who said saviours don’t come from mothers,

Sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and those ‘others?’

There comes a sister Miriam, loving, caring,

Intelligent, smart, watching his brother’s life

Float on waters, that’s sucking life to death.

On finding that he was drawn by a princess,

She brings a mother to the child convincing the royal woman,

A mother of her own child now hired to be

Raise a child of her royal princess.

A saviour did come in a sister,

Saving a saviour and all the others of his kind.

Who said saviours don’t come from mothers,

Sisters, daughters, cousins and those ‘others?’

There comes a royal daughter, whose dad was cruel,

Yet she comes with a heart full of compassion,

Risking to save her slaves child, willing to mother him,

Naming him ‘Moses’, for she drew him out of waters of death,

Knowing not that this child will lead a nation to freedom of life.

A saviour did come in a daughter,

Saving a saviour and all the others of his kind.

Who said saviours don’t come from mothers,

Sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and those ‘others?’

There comes an aunt, another slave girl of his kind,

Working as a servant to her royal princess,

Who dared the currents of the water to fetch this basket,

A basket of life amidst the waters of death,

Skilfully drawing him to the shores,

placing him in the hands of a new mother, the princess,

sensing that this little bundle of life will channel a breath of new life to her people.

A saviour did come in an aunt,

Saving a saviour and all the other of his kind.

Who said saviours don’t come from mothers,

Sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and those ‘others?’

God knits the basket of life, by knitting people who we think

Cannot be saviours, moms, sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins,

God’s mothering is to knit life using the ordinary,

God’s mothering stands for life amidst the waters of death,

Defeating death and liberating people to life

Inviting us to channel life in our times filled with lifelessness.

So look out for a saviour among the ordinary and unthinkable,

Look for a saviour from mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and those ‘others,’

Treating them as equals, respecting and loving them in our fullest.  

rev. raj patta

@Mothering Sunday 2018

Picture courtesy: 

https://treasureboxmy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bible-people-jochebed.html