I wonder if you’ve heard the term “helicopter parenting”? It’s used to describe an over-protective style of looking after one’s children which is marked by high levels of involvement and control. This type of parenting is driven by adults who fear that their child might come to harm or fail to flourish; however it can actually be harmful and lead to the child failing to develop the ability to make decisions, depending on its parents for solving any problems that it encounters, or simply becoming anxious about life in general.

It’s not that helicopter parents don’t care for their children; they’d be horrified at the suggestion and want to do their best for them. What they’re forgetting is that children, especially in their teens, need to fail and learn from their mistakes. This is hard; but not allowing young people to do this can stunt their cognitive and emotional development. Perhaps, without entirely agreeing, these parents can learn something from the writer D.H. Lawrence whose advice on educating children was: “First rule: leave them alone. Second rule: leave them alone. Third rule: leave them alone. That is the whole beginning”.

When we think of parents – and especially mothers – in the Bible, the first to come to mind must be Mary. It’s very easy for us to paint a picture of Mary as an ideal, even unreal, mother; we know that she is extremely popular in some sections of the Church (which has led to her being almost ignored in some others!). Today though I want to bring us down to reality as we look at some occasions when Mary’s son Jesus brought her disappointment, pain and even grief. The signs of that began before Jesus was even born; later on Mary must have despaired as she saw him saying and doing things which, she could clearly see, could only have a fatal outcome. One wonders how often she wanted to cry out, “Stop! Don’t go there!” before realising that she had to allow Jesus to make his own choices and support him in them.

The Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared and told Mary that she was going to have a baby son, was of course a frightening moment, even after the angel soothed her nerves by saying that he was bringing good news. However she must have been troubled when she and Joseph took baby Jesus to the Temple and encountered Simeon. They may have felt that he was intruding into their private ceremony, but his first words were encouraging, even amazing, as he spoke of Jesus being “God’s salvation, a light to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel”. Joseph and Mary “marvelled” at what Simeon said – but the end of his little speech was far less reassuring; in fact it was disturbing. For he not only predicted that Jesus would “be a sign that will be spoken against” but also that “a sword would pierce Mary’s soul”. What might that mean? What pain would her son bring her? A shadow had fallen across what should have been a day for celebration.

A bigger shadow fell soon after, when Joseph dreamed of an angel telling his family to flee for their lives as Herod was out to eliminate any potential young rivals. Matthew tells a story of urgency and haste: “Get up!”, says the angel; Joseph and Mary scrabble together a few necessities, get out of their house while it is still dark, and move as quickly as they can towards the Egyptian border, about 65 miles away. This isn’t the carefully-planned ‘holiday of a lifetime’; it’s a life and death situation, one which gives me a queasy feeling when I start to think of the families with young sons who received no warning from God – that seems so unjust as they had no inkling of what was going on. As far as Mary was concerned, it must have seemed that Simeon’s prophecy was starting to come true; although the family had escaped this time, what trials and tragedies still awaited them?  

We now turn the clock (or calendar) forward about twelve years, to another familiar story: the tale of Jesus apparently getting lost in the pilgrim crowds in Jerusalem, his parents at first believing that he is with friends, then searching for him with growing desperation, eventually being both relieved and puzzled when they find him in the Temple debating with the academics. “Didn’t you realise I had to be in my Father’s house?”, asks Jesus innocently. Joseph and Mary didn’t know whether to hug him or punish him – perhaps they did both.

This story tells us not only that Jesus had a growing awareness of who he was but that, like any adolescent, he was beginning to assert his independence and personality. He didn’t have the maturity to inform Joseph and Mary of his plan (or did he think they’d stop him going to the Temple?) but he definitely knew where he wanted to be. Mary could see her son beginning to flex his muscles; no longer would he be the small child who was always willing to do what he was told. That was sad for her, as it is for any parent; but we can’t keep them little, we have to let them grow up and, indeed, help them to do so.

For the next eighteen years, nothing (apart from Joseph’s probable death) rocked the family boat. Jesus took over the carpentry business and seemed to be making a go of it. Did Mary secretly hope that his religious fervour was a phase that had passed? Was she waiting for him to bring home a nice girl and announce their engagement? Was she looking forward to cuddling her grandchildren? Mary wouldn’t have been a normal mother if she hadn’t harboured these hopes in her heart – yet she could never quite shake off the dreadful words uttered by Simeon, all those years ago. She must have constantly been looking for signs of Jesus going crazy, leaving his business and home and striking out in a new direction. When Mary heard about his cousin John drawing crowds into the desert, she must have wondered if this would be the time Jesus’ life would change for ever. When she heard of his baptism and witnessed him nearly being lynched after his controversial sermon in Nazareth, she knew that she was right.

At the start of Jesus’ ministry, relations with his mother and brothers seem to be cordial even though he has started to gather together a group of disciples. They’re all at a wedding, the wine runs out, Mary tugs Jesus’ arm and says, “Do something” and he, rather reluctantly, performs his first miracle. Once the wedding is over Mary, Jesus, his brothers and the disciples all go to Capernaum and spend a few days together. It all sounds very cosy.

However – and we don’t know the timescale – an incident takes place which fundamentally changes these relationships, an incident which Mary must have found hard to handle. For one day she and his brothers seek out Jesus and, not unexpectedly, find him preaching to a crowd. They pass word of their arrival to Jesus: surely he’ll tell his hearers to let them through. But he doesn’t; in what sound like the rudest words that Jesus ever spoke, he says, “They’re no longer my relatives: my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it”. At a stroke, Jesus was redefining relationships in a way that to us sounds almost cult-like. His words must have felt like a slap in Mary’s face – but they certainly made her think!

We’ve talked about darts of pain jabbing Mary during Jesus’ childhood and ministry. But it was of course his Passion which brought her the greatest distress and grief. We don’t know how much Mary saw of Jesus’ trial and humiliation: was she one of Luke’s women who mourned and wailed for him or one of Matthew’s who, having followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs, watched at a distance? That seems very likely, but we know that Mary did not remain distant. It’s John who relates the most poignant and tender moment in the entire story, of Mary weeping at the foot of the Cross and “the disciple who Jesus loved”, probably John himself, standing beside her. And, even in his agony, Jesus lovingly reaches out to them. He looks down and says to his mother, “Woman, here is your son”; to the disciple, “Here is your mother”. Mary has not been forgotten, she will be cared for. As John says: “From that hour the disciple took her into his own home”.

I said at the beginning of this message that we shouldn’t make Mary into some perfect and unrealistic figure. I don’t think that’s fair on her for it wasn’t easy to be Jesus’ mother, especially if Joseph died at a relatively young age, leaving her to bring up the family alone. Think about it: quite apart from the challenges which all parents face, Mary hadn’t chosen to have a baby so young and knew that his birth had been the reason for the family fleeing to Egypt. As Jesus grew up, Mary sometimes found his behaviour incomprehensible; later she felt that he’d turned his back on her in order to hang out with his friends. Then there was Simeon’s prophecy, gnawing away at the back of her mind: she must have been like someone today who’s been told that they may have a hereditary disease and is constantly looking out for symptoms. Finally there was the horror of Jesus’ arrest, trial and death – what mother could bear to see her son suffer in that way? Yes, being Jesus’ mother was hard; there must have been times when Mary shouted at God and said, “Why did you choose me to carry this heavy load?”

And being a mother – or a father, or anyone who has the responsibility of bringing up a child – is still challenging, still difficult. Yes, there are the happy moments when the child finds a “creature” on the beach and brings it to you, the joyous moments of laughter, cuddles and kisses, the celebrations of birthdays and Christmas, the pride when your child does well in music, sports or an exam. Those moments stick in the mind. But there are also the bad times: the nights when a mother is exhausted by a baby that won’t stop crying, the awful rows which leave you and your child estranged, the challenges to parental authority, the fear that your teen may be sliding into a dark world of drink or drugs, the anger if they drop out of university or fight with their boss, the concern that they may get into abusive relationships, the worry that they may go out one night and never again be seen alive … good parenting has its costs which I’m sure Mary, although she lived in a very different time and place to us, knew full well.

It’s not easy bringing up a child in today’s world; in fact it probably never has been easy. Today we give thanks, not just for Mary but for all good and loving parents; and we pray that God will help them in their arduous but hugely rewarding task.