Stirring Up the Nest

Stirring Up the Nest

May 10, 2026

Rev. Dr. Molly Mitchell

Reading: Deuteronomy 32:11-12 & Psalm 103:1-5

Download a printable PDF of this sermon here.

 

Students once described the two women on the faculty where I was teaching: One was a Mother Bear, protective and gentle with wayward cubs; the other was the Mother Eagle—tearing up raw meat for the eaglets, kicking them out of the nest, maybe swooping under them before they crashed on their fledgling flights. My colleague was called the Mother Bear, and, you guessed it, I was the Mother Eagle. But I have leaned into that moniker over the years.

My fascination with eagles has grown in my time of living near the Mississippi River. Watching them return to the area in the spring, perform ballet over the river, offer attentive care for fuzzy headed chicks, and capture the attention of photographers is enchanting. (I love living in Minnesota!)

Eagles can see four to eight times farther than humans can. They can spot a rabbit nearly three miles away from the air. When a storm comes, rather than retreating, eagles fly toward the storm and let the turbulence elevate their flight. Once it finds the winds of the storm, the eagle stops flapping and uses the force of the raging storm to soar above the clouds to glide. This gives the eagle an opportunity to rest its wings. Skilled as hunters and fishers, they are good providers for their little families.

The imagery of the Deuteronomy text is vivid. Here feminine language for God’s care of Israel is outlined. When Biblical writers used the eagle as a stand-in for God, it was a symbol of nurturing empowerment. It is also a fierce image of protection in the face of many assailants.

These verses in Deuteronomy are a part of a longer section called “The Song of Moses.” This long poem narrates the ending of Moses’ leadership and the beginning of Joshua’s. Its purpose is to convey the steadfastness of God even through many epochs of hardship.

The affirmation of God’s unique providential care of Israel moves on to the theme of the years spent wandering through the wilderness and the miraculous manner in which the survival of Israel was ensured. The author views the entire wilderness experience as one demonstrating the total sufficiency of God’s care for the people.

The mother eagle nurtures her little ones according to their needs. Some take a few weeks to fledge, others a few months. She simply stays with them as they practice hopping, flapping, and landing. And she keeps feeding them even after they know how to hunt, as long as they are still in the nest.

Like Mother God, the mother eagle patiently teaches and waits. And the end goals are the same: competence and maturity. The mother eagle doesn’t plan to do the work that is theirs to do; her offspring can mount up with wings as eagles, too.

Often our language about our relationship with God infantilizes us. We remain “children of God” long after we are nudged to fledge! The language of “stirring up the nest” is a description of One who does not let complacency or comfort keep little eagles from what they were born to do. When the mother eagle stirs up the nest, she is exposing the twigs previously covered with feathers and soft material. She makes it uncomfortable to remain there. And God does not want us to feel as if we have arrived; there is always more maturing to do.

When we read the long passages about God’s providence in the wilderness, we should not ignore the hardship, the deaths, the violence that Israel encountered—and sometimes inflicted. Accompanying the people did not mean shielding them from all harm. Israel was called to partnership with God—even as the church is similarly called in our day.

I have heard sermons about “God as mother” that focused only on gentle nurture and comfort, a limited view of the scope of God’s mothering. That Scripture uses feminine imagery for God is a testament to the inspiration of texts in a patriarchal world. Rather than the usual “Father, Ruler, Lord” language that speaks of domination, feminine language provides balance and nuance.

You recall that Jesus likened himself to a “mother hen” who wanted to gather her chicks under her wings as he wept over Jerusalem, the city that slays the prophets. Paul compares his care for the church at Thessaloniki as a nursing mother, patiently feeding and caring. The mother eagle, however, means business in getting her brood launched.

Mother’s Day is a day mixed with joy and heartbreak. Infertility and miscarriages reside alongside nuclear families with 2.5 children. Those who choose not to have children are considered selfish, even though that choice may have been made to be able to give themselves in fuller service to others, a different form of mothering. Some have endured abusive or distant mothers and continue to seek healthy attachment. Hallmark has romanticized motherhood with its palette of pastel hues and flowery language, thereby reducing mothers to decorative status. Yet, they are so much more

I have a friend who calls his mother each year on his birthday to wish her happy birthday. When she protests he says, “But you did all the work!” The intensive work of birth pangs brings us into being; indeed, all creation groans as in labor, as Romans 8 puts it.

Over these past months our city has experienced much “stirring of the nest.” Comfortable ways have been disrupted; our neighbors have been suffering, and we as the people of God have been called to leave nests of security to serve others. Faith leaders have borne prophetic witness as they have marched, sung, ministered, and called for justice for the vulnerable.

The grandmothers have shown up! Walking with kids to school, tending school buses, knitting hats and scarves for protesters, and calling congregations to deeper prayer have all been part of their labor. (A group in my church, St. Anthony Park UCC, the “knitters,” has been hard at work. Their capacity to accompany reflects that journeying presence of God in the wilderness.)

The promise of the Psalmist is that God continues to restore our lives “so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” It is God’s desire that we devote our lives to “standing in” for God; we make God present in the world through the strength God supplies. And we take counsel from the Mother Eagle who will not let us remain complacent nor immature. Time to fly!