Worship - 15 March 2026

Summary of this week's theme

In Menorca they like to decorate roundabouts. There’s one with three cast-iron dancing ladies. It’s joyful. I’m not a woman, of course, but like everyone else I would not be here without one. We all arrive in the world through women.

My own life has been shaped by three marriages: one without children; one that brought the gift of two children, followed by another to whom I contributed biologically. Cancer ended those two marriages, but the children remain a gift - even if calling people in their thirties and forties ‘children’ now feels a bit odd. My third marriage added another young woman to the blended family. So: two mothers, and one woman who was not a mother.

Being an adoptive or step-parent is not always easy - nor is it easy to be the child in those relationships. Yet the rewards can be profound. Each person learns from the other, and love, appreciation and wisdom grow.

After all, if Jesus could bring two people together from the cross, entrusting his mother to the beloved disciple, surely we too can learn to care for those beyond the obvious circle of family or those who simply agree with us.

The deacon Jayne Manfredi once wrote about the trepidation with which clergy sometimes approach Mothering Sunday. Yet she also noted that if mothers are honoured and celebrated outside the church, then surely the church should say: you matter. The sacrifices, the exhausting and often unseen work of motherhood matter to God.

Whatever our experience of our mothers, we have all had one. Parenting can therefore be a helpful metaphor for God’s relationship with us: nurturing, guiding, protecting and forming. But like all parenting, the relationship must evolve.

In John’s Gospel we see that evolution in Jesus and Mary. At Cana she directs him: there is a problem, and she expects him to act. At the cross the roles are reversed. Jesus sees the need and entrusts his mother to another’s care. Even in death he forms a new family of compassion.

Jesus also simplifies the law to its heart: love God with all your being, and love your neighbour as yourself. Simple—but far from easy. It requires living by the spirit of the law, not merely ticking boxes.

Lent invites us to ask ‘Why?’ Why do we do what we do? Are we growing in love, or simply following rules?

God walks beside us like a patient parent - guiding us toward the fullness of who we are meant to be. And perhaps that patient, joyful love is glimpsed both in Christ’s final act of care … and symbolised by three dancing ladies on a roundabout!