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NRS Isaiah 66:13 As a mother
comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
NRS 1 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle
of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, 2
To Timothy, my loyal child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the
Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 I urge you, as I did when I was
on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain
people not to teach any different doctrine, 4 and not to occupy
themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather
than the divine training that is known by faith. 5 But the aim of
such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and
sincere faith.
Good morning
and welcome to Mother’s Day. Today is the day we celebrate those special gifts
given only to the women of the world. It is a day when we celebrate the
personalities of God that are reflected in the women, young and old of the
world. I wanted to take a few moments this morning and walk through the Bible.
There we ffind some very interesting women who gave of themselves What are
interesting are the sacrifices that have been given by women who show up in the
Bible stories.
I want to
start with Sarah, spouse of Abraham. This is what we know about Sara. When we
first meet Sarah, she is ninety years old and barren, never having had a child.
In the day and age of Abraham and Sarah, this would have been considered to be
a shameful situation. For a woman to be barren, she was thought to have
committed some terrible sin. Now understand, they did not have the knowledge of
modern medicine about disease and genetic malfunction. Now that we do, we know
that the physical makeup of some woman prevents them from having children. And
certainly by the age of ninety, at least in this day and age, it would be an
irreversible issue. But God promised her a child. More importantly, Sarah was asked
to give up all she had in terms of her home and probably much of her
possessions at the age of ninety to go. She had no idea where or why, other
than God is directly her to go. Could you, would you make such a sacrifice for
God? My wife has and she is my Sarah whom I love dearly. Especially knowing
what the sacrifice is for a woman to give up her nesting instinct to follow her
husband in the service of God.
The next
woman is Deborah from the book of Judges. What makes Deborah’s story so
significant is that in the time of Judges, women were basically considered
property. And yet, here we have a strong willed woman who was both judge and
warrior who led her Hebrew followers to victory. That it is included in the
earliest of traditions is significant to me.
The next
woman is Esther. Esther represents everything we think of when we think of a
woman who is with God. She has physical beauty such that the King finds favor
with her and brings her into his domain. Now consider that would mean that
compared to hundreds if not thousands of women, she alone is chosen. But she is
faithful and upon learning of a plot to kill off the Jewish people, she finds a
way to tell the King. In that regard she enters into the inner sanctum of the
court, an offense that is punishable by death. So in order to protect her race
and culture, she puts her life in danger. Here she has achieved the life of
luxury and means that many envy, she lays it all on the line for people she
likely does not even know. Would you have done this?
The next
woman is Lydia, who we find in Acts. She provides Paul the means to form the
first church in refined world beyond the Middle East. Here we get some insight
into the role of woman in the Roman Empire. They often had the ability to rise
into positions of power and influence. And we know that women who rose to power
influenced the way of the world. In fact, we know that Constantine’s mother was
a Christian. And it is through her Christianity that the Catholic Church is
formed and given favor. Without that, the Christian movement would likely have
been isolated to the Middle Eastern part of the world.
I want to
talk now about two Mary’s, Mary mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Now we know
that Mary who gave birth to Jesus was around 14 years of age at the time of his
birth. We know that she was from a small town in Galilee and was to be married
to Joseph who was a carpenter by trade. What that tells us is that she had a
future of what we would consider middle class in our world today. Carpenters
were considered to be a trade that brought respect and moderate means. We know
that Mary follows Jesus during his ministry by the several instances of her
appearing where he is. And we believe from the story that Mary was there when
Jesus was crucified and buried.
We do not
know a lot about Mary Magdalene. What we do know is that at the end, she was
one of the followers of Jesus and within his inner circle. Now if you happen to
see the movie, The DaVinci Code of read the book, Dan Brown suggests that she
and Jesus were married and that she is in fact the mother of his child. Now in
all the writings of the Gnostic and Christian movement, there is not a single
document that suggests this. In fact, we can reasonably be assured that Mary
was nothing more than one of the close followers of Jesus. But we also know
some things she is not. She is not the prostitute that Pope Gregory suggested
in 550 AD. Why did he suggest that, we may never know completely, but we do
know that he was concerned about the role of women in the church and this was a
way of discounting the primary leader of this movement, those who followed the
image of Mary, the first Apostle. We also know from scripture, that Mary is the
first to see the resurrected Lord and she is the first to be told to go and
tell. From that we can find important significance in that.
But in all of
this, we need to ask some important questions about women in the kingdom? With
the exception of Jesus, we find no other significant accounts of sacrificial
behavior like that shown by the woman of the bible. Most give up their homes
and all of them sacrificed themselves in order to fulfill the promise for
someone else.
Being female
is not something you do, it is something you are. You can choose to allow the
world to tell you who you are and what you are to be. Or you can look to the
one who created you and become the person you were meant to be. You can spend
your time in bitterness, despair and live life oppressed and beaten down. Or
you can look to the one who created you and find your path. A number of years
back I was honored to officiate at the funeral of Lucy Clyde Blanton. Lucy was
a member of the church I served. She had been born in the 1920’s at a time when
woman were expected to be seen but not heard. Lucy felt the call of God to be a
missionary. The fact that she was a woman was not an issue in her life.
Mary expected
to be the wife of a carpenter. God expected her to be the mother of the only
son. As women, you can allow the world to tell you that you are
insubstantional, insignificant, and become subservient to the world. Or you can
look to the one who created you and realize that you gave birth to the ones who
are trying to tell you what you are. The ones who you gave birth to would not
be here if not for you. Never let them dictate who you are. You are a creation
of the almighty God who loves you with all the love that comes from the
creator. As God created your life, so to you become the instrument to create
life.
When I was
growing up, I used to think my mother was superwomen, able to see through
walls, hear discussions from hundreds of feet away, and be able to read my
mind. There wasn’t anything that I
couldn’t do, say, or even think that she wasn’t one step ahead of me. You see God grants women intuition, so that
they are prepared for raising us when we are young. We men do not possess this thing. It is in the female genes. Why they possess it from birth. My wife scares me at times, “Are you really
going to wear those clothes? And I
haven’t even put them on yet. And let it
get quiet in the house. You women know
what I am talking about don’t you. When
silence descends on the house it is always a sign that the children are up to
something. And usually that something is not a good something. We men just shrug and think, finally some
peace. But not mother’s, oh no, not
mothers. They immediately tune all of
the senses, turn on the x-ray vision, the super hearing, because in the hearts
they know, those kids are up to no good.
I think that
we all have to mature before we ever really appreciate what mothers do for
us. You see, it wasn’t until adulthood,
that I realized that my mother had so much expertise and training. Let see, she was a bus driver, the local laundry
service, maid service, resident cook, nurse, teacher, and conscience and the
list goes on. You see, we men come home,
take out the trash, usually on the third reminder, mow the lawn, at least until
our sons and daughters get to that useful age, and that’s about it. But through mothers we truly learn about what
sacrifice means. What does it take to be
a mother? Everything and they gladly
give it every single day.
On this
mother’s day, remember that through their love, we learned about life, through their
love we learned to overcome the struggles, through their love we learned to
walk and then run and through their love we learned how to interact with
others. If not for women, we would not be here and we would not have the skills
to overcome the adversities of life. I have a message for you today. For the
women, do not let the world dictate your life. For those who think they have
all the answers, do not let your feeble thoughts on life oppress and cause harm
to God’s creation. God created each of us, unique and special. But God created
women in order that God’s creation could see the face of God.
