God As Midwife
a sermon by wayne mclaughlin
Leeds Presbyterian Church
August 25, 2019
____________________
Jeremiah 1.4-10
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Psalm 71.1-6
In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me and save me.
Be to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress, to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.
Luke 13.10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
SERMON TEXT:
Images of God
About the time I was graduating from college the Feminist Movement was beginning to find expression in the Church. In the late 1960s and early 70s feminist theologians and feminist Bible scholars began publishing books on feminist ways to read the Bible. I became excited about this new way to delve into Scripture because it opened my eyes to passages in the Bible I had never paid attention to before. Feminist Biblical scholarship has helped the Church find treasures in the Bible that were there all along, but had been ignored for centuries.
Our Psalm this morning is a case in point. Psalm 71 says:
For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
Did you hear that? The writer of Psalm 71 is saying that the Lord was the midwife at his birth. Let me read someone else’s translation:
I’ve leaned on you for support
since the day I was born.
You were the midwife who delivered me from my mother’s womb,
the safe hands who pulled me gasping into life.
I’ll never stop thanking you for that!
[©2001 Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net]
Here is the Common English Bible translation:
You, Lord, are the one I’ve trusted since childhood.
I’ve depended on you from birth—
you cut the cord when I came from my mother’s womb.
We imagine God in many ways: as father, shepherd, king, Lord, rock, eagle, the wind, breath, etc. Here is another Scriptural picture of God that we can use in our thoughts and in our prayers: God as a midwife. That’s different; yet, it’s in the Bible. God as a midwife.
Cross—deliverance
When Jesus was being put to death on a Roman cross he was able, between gasps for air, to get some words out. One of those statements was this: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That sentence is the first verse of Psalm 22. Could it be that he went on and quoted the whole Psalm? Could it be that while on the cross Jesus said,
6 But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock at me;
………
9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
Here is another time in the Psalms when God is described as a midwife. Psalm 22.9: It was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
It could very well be that Jesus, while suffering and dying on the cross, remembered God’s ministry of midwifery. It very well could be that Jesus, on the cross, was quoting Psalm 22 in order to remind himself and everyone around him that the God who is at our birth is also at our death—to deliver us from the darkness of death into the light of a new birth into eternal joy.
Soft power
Juliana Claassens has written a book titled, Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Delivering Presence in the Old Testament. She points out how the feminine language describing God tends to soften the terminology about God’s deliverance as the Warrior-God. So often in the Hebrew Bible God comes across as a macho, masculine “I’ll-show- you” kind of God as he delivers the people of Israel from danger. He delivers them by the sword, by violence, by military offenses.
Midwifery is also “deliverance language,” but a more tender and intimate kind of deliverance. In both Psalm 22 and 71 the writer opts for this intimate, feminine language for God’s deliverance. The Psalmist reimagines God in a helpful way.
It is important to realize that Biblical writers felt free to imagine God, using a variety of terminology that reflects our human experiences and relationships. All religious language is symbolic. Symbolic language tells us something that is true, but something that is beyond our complete understanding. It is true and not true at the same time. That is, symbolic language points us to the true God, and conveys truth to us, while at the same time reminding us that our knowledge is only partial.
What is happening as these feminine pictures of God arise in the Psalms is a “softer” or more tender picture of God. That process is taking place all through Scripture and culminates with Jesus who presents us with a picture of God who is completely loving, forgiving, and non-violent.
Inferences
As we hold in our minds and hearts the thought of God as a midwife, what inferences can we draw from that mental picture?
First, like a midwife, God knows when the time has come. We too need to watch for signs of coming birth. Is something about to be born in our nation? In our church? In your life? Is something new on its way? God knows when the time is right. We have to be ready.
Second, the birth itself is hard. You have to know when to bear down and when to back off. You have to concentrate. You have to breathe. It’s hard. They aren’t called “labor pains” for nothing (says the man standing in the pulpit who has never been through labor).
Of course I don’t know what it’s like, except from one looking on. I helped my wife during her labor when our daughter was born. I was there by her side, reminding her to breathe correctly. She told me to shut up!
When we think of God as a midwife, it might help us feel Her support, Her expertise. God knows what we’re going through. She can help us. She is right there when we need Her! She will encourage us to keep on keeping on until the birth is complete.
The third inference is that during labor you have to push. There are times in our lives when it is necessary to be “pushy.” God is with us to tell us when to push—when to be assertive or even aggressive.
Jesus turned over the tables in the temple. It was a time to push. At that moment he didn’t care who got in the way. We don’t see the “pushy” Jesus very often in the gospels, but sometimes the occasion calls for it. Jesus knew when to push, because his Father in heaven was a Midwife.
There are times in our lives when, in order to bring facilitate new life, we have to push someone out of the way.
The fourth inference is this: the midwife cuts the cord. The cutting may seem cruel, but it has to be done if the child is to begin its new life. There are times when we want to hold on—to stay connected to someone or something in our lives, but we know that is not the best thing to do. But it’s hard let go—hard to cut the cord.
One of the most difficult moments in my life was when I drove my daughter to Xavier University in Cincinnati and took her up to her dorm room, and had to leave her there. I cried like a baby. Well, we only have one child. But I bet it’s the same way if you have ten children. Every time one leaves the nest it’s like cutting the cord for their second birth, their new beginning. That’s hard. But it is part of life.
God as our midwife helps us through that process. She is experienced with births. She birthed the whole world. She understands life. She created it. We can trust Her.
The unbiblical cord
The umbilical cord is a temporary connection. When a baby is born, and thereby becomes a “person,” the cord must severed. From that time on as we go through life and grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, we find that it is necessary to time and again to develop new connections and to severe connections. It’s an ongoing process.
Every Sunday we pray to God and says, Delivery us from temptation. Every time God “delivers” us from a temptation, God is our midwife: delivering us again. Temptations happen when we have a desire to attached ourselves to something that we should not be attached to. God as midwife severs that attachment. God cuts the cord again and again and again.
By the guidance of the Scripture and the Spirit we are able to live the right kind of life. We strive to live Biblically. But when temptation comes along we feel the desire to live unBiblically. That’s when God cuts the “unbiblical umbilical” cord. Yes, the unBiblical umbilical cord!
Comprehensive
From womb to tomb God is with us. Psalms 22 and 71 give us this marvelous mental picture of God who has been with us from the beginning, and will be with us to the end.
Jeremiah says that God called him while he was still in utero. Even while Jeremiah was being “formed” in the womb—before he was even a person—God has plans for him. Before we are born. Even before we are conceived, God knows who we are. All through life, and even after death, God continues to know us as we continue to exist by his grace.
God’s knowledge of us, and God’s love for us, is totally comprehensive; yet, we cannot comprehend it with our puny little minds. What we can do is trust.
The Gospel of Luke says:
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
The healing hands of Jesus are the same hands that took us from our mother’s womb and brought us into this adventure we call life. If we pay attention we will see the Hand of God at work in our lives day after day.
