Mothering Sunday and the pitfalls of AI

I recently had an opportunity to try using AI to help with some creative writing for a Mothering Sunday Service. While I was already aware of some of the limitations of the existing large language models such as Chat GPT and Deepseek, this exercise served to highlight the dangers of relying on it, particularly in relation to theological concepts and questions.

A couple of weeks ago a steward at my link church reminded me that I am taking the service on Mothering Sunday, at about the same time I realised that I was due to provide the written service for the circuit ... This needs to be ready at least a week before, which throws my usual way of preparing out the window.

So first I had to find out a few things.

What does this church do on Mothering Sunday? ... As expected it involves daffodils.

Second question ... What is expected of the written service? There are a few examples on the website so that was easy to answer ... Not quite a full service but a reflection, prayers, and a couple of hymns. I can expand it for the service in the building, so I don't need to prepare two entirely separate services ... Phew.

Final question. ... What are the readings? The parable of the prodigal son ... how on earth do I make this fit, there are no women, mothers or otherwise in this reading. I guess I could go off lectionary. I looked at the Mothering Sunday resources and none of them stood out. Ok, so back to the lectionary.

Now before anyone tells me, I know that Mothering Sunday is (or was) not actually about mothers ... Here is a bit of a potted history for those who are interested.

Mothering Sunday dates back at least as far as the medieval church, it takes place on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was a time when people returned to the place where they had been baptized. Mothering Sunday became a rare opportunity for families to reunite. Apprentices, domestic servants, and young labourers (often working far from home) were given a day off to visit their families and attend their mother church. This journey home became intertwined with honouring earthly mothers, as children would pick wildflowers along the way to gift to their mothers or decorate the church. Over time, the focus shifted from the church to the mothers themselves, with the day becoming a time to honor and show appreciation for mothers, this is where we are today.

So how to include mothers in the parable of the prodigal son ... There is not one included in the story. In fact, she is conspicuous by her absence. What would her story be? surely someone must have written something I could use.

It turns out there is rather a lot, but as I read the accounts they often seemed to simply get rid of the father and replace him with a mother figure, the only difference was in mother rather than father, her instead of him. I wanted something more nuanced. (I have since been reminded of a post shared by my mum a few years ago in which she did something very similar.) The other posts I found created a version of a mother who felt like she had been lifted out of a 1950s ideal family manual, very quiet and subservient with no real agency. This would also not do. This is where AI comes in.

The first thing I tried was asking chat GPT to create an account of the parable from the mother's perspective. As with many of the blog posts I had come across this first attempt simply swapped the father for a mother. The next thing I tried was asking the models (chat GPT 4 and Deepseek) to rewrite the story with the father still present and include the mother as a supporting character. This was a little better, but still read very much like the accounts I had come across featuring a quiet subservient mother figure. At this point, I decided to ask the AI models to provide the source materials used in creating these accounts. I was not shocked to discover that blogs and articles I had already discovered featured heavily in the list of sources. The outline of the story was generally ok, so I decided to ask the AI to write the mother based on present-day understandings of feminism. Without going into too many details this was equally disastrous and hilarious. It did however further highlight the issues with the previous two versions, it was just a little too extreme in the other direction. Ok, so it's time for a final attempt with the AI. This time, I asked for a version of the mother based on the latest historical understanding of the roles of women in the first century. This was significantly better, although it still portrayed the mother as more submissive, when I checked on the source material the most recent source was dated in the late 1990s. This is likely because much of the latest historical and theological research is locked behind academic paywalls or in books that have not been scanned or referenced for blog posts and online articles. The other issue, and this was common to all of the attempts created using AI, was the overuse of metaphor. While grammatically correct (which is more than I can say for my writing) the meaning was often obscured by overly flowery descriptive language. The final version, which I have included below, took elements of all of the different versions of the story and is likely to be inaccurate, although I hope it has avoided the worst of the pitfalls of the versions generated by AI. I have asked several mothers to read and comment on the different drafts, and have tried to take into account all of the bits of feedback, although there were times when I listened and made notes, but ultimately decided not to incorporate the feedback simply because it would have added another point to try and explore in the service which would have detracted from my intended focus on how thinking of God as Mother and Father might help us to gain a deeper understanding of God and our relationship to Them. I will likely revisit this account in the future to explore other themes. If you want to share your response to this retelling of the parable, I would love to read your thoughts, and if you do want to make use of it or adapt it for your context I would love to hear how it goes.

I was never meant to be a silent presence in our family’s story—even if the ancient texts chose to overlook me. Although our society was structured by patriarchal norms, women like me navigated those constraints with resourcefulness, forging networks, engaging in local trade, and participating in the religious and social life of our community.

When our youngest son chose to leave, it was not merely an act of rebellion but a quest for identity. Together we hoped for his return, my husband watching the horizon, while I used my contacts to listen for any news of our son.

Years passed. I had heard of famine in the lands where he had traveled, rumours of a once rich young man reduced to swilling out the pigs, abandoned by his friends … could this be our son?

We saw him from a distance, dressed in rags and weighed down by the consequences of his decisions and a world that only celebrated wealth and success. My husband ran, robes billowing, to meet our boy on the road. I did not run but began organising to celebrate his return.

Our eldest son, returning from the fields, was filled with rage and jealousy, shouting in the courtyard, “Why does he feast while I’ve toiled like a slave?” I listened to his anger and hurt, realizing that we had been so caught up in the search for our lost son that we neglected the one who had stayed behind. I guess all parents have their favourites, even if we are not supposed to. I hope he will calm down and see that there is love enough for both of them. Our youngest was forgiven and welcomed back into the family.

I was never really absent from this story, but rather unacknowledged and overlooked. Being hidden for so long hurts, but I have come to realise that even without acknowledgment my love would remain. Neither myself nor my husband gave our love or forgiveness for the praise others. But we gave it, imperfect as it was, seeking to show something of God’s love for us all.