Thursday, May 13, 2010
Mothers Are Heroes
I thought we could start things with a flashback from the 80’s. I had not seen this video until recently. Apparently, it was a video release only program called Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool starring Mr. T.
Now if you were like me as a child, Mr. T was one of your idols. There were Bo and Luke Duke, any of the G.I. Joe’s, He-Man, and Mr. T. I tuned in every week to watch him and the rest of the A-Team. So if I had heard Mr. T tell me to treat my mother right, I was going to do it. After all, while you don’t see it here it here in this video, in my head I could hear Mr. T proclaiming, “I pity the fool that don’t treat his mother right!”
But we are not often like the kids in this video. When someone tells us to respect our mothers, we don’t simply nod in agreement. After all our mothers often tell us no and seem to be out to make our lives difficult.
But, in reality, we celebrate a day like today because mothers are heroes. Many of the great moments in the Christian scriptures began with mothers. Let’s take a look at one such story…
Read Exodus 2:1-10.
To get a full grasp of this story, we should start back in Genesis. Abram, the man called by God to father a people who would be a light to the nations, travels to Egypt. They were facing a famine and he had to go there for food. A narrative begins to take shape here where Egypt is the power in the world. Weaker peoples depended on them for food when times were tough. As an immigrant entering a foreign land to provide for his family, Abram felt vulnerable approaching Egypt. So much so, he misled Pharoah about his relationship with his wife Sarai.
We see this theme again in the story of Joseph. Joseph, after being rejected by his brothers, finds a home in Egypt. He finds himself unjustly imprisoned but through God’s deliverance finds himself as Pharoah’s second in command. Again, the sons of Abram, who came to be known as Abraham, find themselves needing Egypt’s grain so Jacob sends his sons.
Now you likely know the story well enough. Through a complex course of events, Joseph is reunited with his brothers and his family settles in Egypt, the great world power.
When we turn the page and get to Exodus, we find a sudden change of circumstances. A new Pharoah has ascended to the throne who did not remember Joseph. Rather than seeing the Israelites as friends, he sees them as a thriving multitude and as a threat. He believes they are more powerful and may escape. The Israelites played a vital role in the sustainability of Egypt’s economy so that couldn’t happen. This insecurity led Pharoah to oppress the Israelites. Then he ordered the midwives Shiprah and Puah to kill all the newborn boys.
The midwives, however, feared God and refused so Pharoah responded by ordering his people to throw all newborn Hebrew boys into the Nile. And here is a subtle but important change in the language of Exodus. The tale begins speaking of Israelites.
But as we progress through the first two chapters of Genesis the reference to the oppressed peoples shifts to the terms Hebrews, speaking not just of Israelites but to all oppressed peoples in the Ancient Near East. Thus, the Israelites, called to be a light to the nations are understood to represent all those oppressed by the world powers.
And that brings us to today’s story. This people, called by God, is under threat of extinction as their male babies are being drowned. But a baby is born and the mother declares this child a fine baby, recalling God’s word at creation. It signals to us that God is doing something new.
In this newness, a courageous mother pledges her love and loyalty to her child over against Pharoah. Rather than allowing him to be added to the slaughter of children drowned in the Nile, she hides the child as long as she can until she acts with one last act of desperation by plastering a basket, an ark as it reads in Hebrew recalling Noah and the flood, so it would carry her child down the river. In a rather ironic twist she obeys the command to cast her child into the Nile, yet prepares for his survival.
We know the book of Exodus. We know this courageous mother, willing to sacrifice her life for her child, provided not only for his safety, but for the liberation of her people. This is rescue story. One child spared for all the Hebrews, for all the oppressed.
And, yet, more than one mother plays a role here. For Pharoah’s daughter finds the child in the basket. And while the text says she took pity on him, the Hebrew here actually uses a phrase suggesting she pledged loyalty, or an alliance, with him. Pharoah’s daughter makes a political move in which she stands against her father on the side of this oppressed child. And through that alliance, and adopting this child, she too plays a role in the historic exodus of the oppressed immigrant Hebrews from Egypt.
And this is the call to mothers today. To love your children sacrificially above all else. This is a love that plants the seed for deliverance. It could be as simple as a mother’s love delivering her child from the mental anguish of walking the halls at school facing rejection at every turn. Or nurturing your child with love so they know they can turn to you when peer pressure confronts them tempting them to make any number of destructive choices that could affect them the rest of their lives.
Or a mother’s love can change the world. It could lead to the Exodus. It could save the life of a child named Jesus who was called to proclaim to us that the kingdom of God was revealed in him and is here with us today.
Your love can be the bolt cutters that break the chains of destructive family cycles such as violence, poverty, self-centeredness, or self-loathing. Your love can nurture a child in the faith so that he or she can find hope where there seems to be none. So that your sons and daughters will no longer feel a need to find their identity in the expectations of others in an endless search for acceptance and belonging. For they will find their identity in your embrace and in the love of God.
This desire to give children a healthy, world-changing identity is what spawned the origin of Mother’s Day. It began as a movement of community activism. Anna Reeves Jarvis was a mother in West Virginia and saw a need for greater sanitation. She organized Mother’s Work Days for mothers to take the streets and make this happen. During the Civil War, she pulled mothers together to care for the sick and wounded. After the Civil War, she led mothers in seeking to reconcile the men who brought violence on one another.
Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic during the run up to the Civil War. By the time the war was over, she believed peace was the way to go and proposed there be annual Mother Day for Peace and wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation including this excerpt:
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."
Mother’s Day of Peace was celebrated for 30 years and in that time mothers, fueled by their love for their children and the children of others had first organized to end slavery, now organized to end lynchings and consumer fraud, and worked for better working conditions for women, protection for children, public health services, and social assistance for the poor.
A mother’s love is such it will nurture children who are not interested in cool. Are not desperate for acceptance. Are not consumed by or with themselves. But will find the love of God through your love and through your love will know what is to love their neighbor. Will know what it is to not discriminate based on income, or color, or differences in culture. Who will not decide that one person or group of people deserves to live more than another. They will know the radical love of the God revealed in Christ and, filled with the Spirit, will participate in the continued building of the kingdom of God where God’s will is done on earth as it is in Heaven.
But I want it to be clear. This message is not just for the stay-at-home mom. It includes all mothers. Often, working moms are looked down upon. But whether you work because you have to or you have a career because you want to, you have great value. Your love, your nurturing can bring the deliverance we have spoken of tonight.
But here on mother’s day, there is still more to say. For in our society, there is
often more value placed on those who are married with children than those who are single mothers and those, who are either single or married without children. But I believe this mistake. Our value comes in that we carry the image of our creator. And we have equal roles and equal importance in life.
We see here in this story other women play a major role. The child’s sister keeps an eye on the child floating until he safe in the arms Pharoah’s daughter, the goes to get the child’s mother to nurse him for Pharoah’s daughter. If we rewind just a bit, we hear of the courageous midwives who stood up to Pharoah protecting numerous children. Shiprah and Puah are mentioned nowhere else in history. Yet, they carry a special importance in our salvation history, protecting the young of an immigrant people against the world power.
So all women here tonight, whether or not you’re a mother, carry a special importance in the life of this community and in the life of our world. For every time you act on someone else’s behalf, especially on behalf of a child, you can bring deliverance. And if your God-given love for your neighbor does not change the world it could very well change their lives. It could be the truth that sets them free.
So we honor are mothers. And we also honor all women tonight in all their life-giving , world-changing sacrifice. And we go forth seeking to be filled with the Spirit and emulate that love so we too may be God’s hands in the world.
Now if you were like me as a child, Mr. T was one of your idols. There were Bo and Luke Duke, any of the G.I. Joe’s, He-Man, and Mr. T. I tuned in every week to watch him and the rest of the A-Team. So if I had heard Mr. T tell me to treat my mother right, I was going to do it. After all, while you don’t see it here it here in this video, in my head I could hear Mr. T proclaiming, “I pity the fool that don’t treat his mother right!”
But we are not often like the kids in this video. When someone tells us to respect our mothers, we don’t simply nod in agreement. After all our mothers often tell us no and seem to be out to make our lives difficult.
But, in reality, we celebrate a day like today because mothers are heroes. Many of the great moments in the Christian scriptures began with mothers. Let’s take a look at one such story…
Read Exodus 2:1-10.
To get a full grasp of this story, we should start back in Genesis. Abram, the man called by God to father a people who would be a light to the nations, travels to Egypt. They were facing a famine and he had to go there for food. A narrative begins to take shape here where Egypt is the power in the world. Weaker peoples depended on them for food when times were tough. As an immigrant entering a foreign land to provide for his family, Abram felt vulnerable approaching Egypt. So much so, he misled Pharoah about his relationship with his wife Sarai.
We see this theme again in the story of Joseph. Joseph, after being rejected by his brothers, finds a home in Egypt. He finds himself unjustly imprisoned but through God’s deliverance finds himself as Pharoah’s second in command. Again, the sons of Abram, who came to be known as Abraham, find themselves needing Egypt’s grain so Jacob sends his sons.
Now you likely know the story well enough. Through a complex course of events, Joseph is reunited with his brothers and his family settles in Egypt, the great world power.
When we turn the page and get to Exodus, we find a sudden change of circumstances. A new Pharoah has ascended to the throne who did not remember Joseph. Rather than seeing the Israelites as friends, he sees them as a thriving multitude and as a threat. He believes they are more powerful and may escape. The Israelites played a vital role in the sustainability of Egypt’s economy so that couldn’t happen. This insecurity led Pharoah to oppress the Israelites. Then he ordered the midwives Shiprah and Puah to kill all the newborn boys.
The midwives, however, feared God and refused so Pharoah responded by ordering his people to throw all newborn Hebrew boys into the Nile. And here is a subtle but important change in the language of Exodus. The tale begins speaking of Israelites.
But as we progress through the first two chapters of Genesis the reference to the oppressed peoples shifts to the terms Hebrews, speaking not just of Israelites but to all oppressed peoples in the Ancient Near East. Thus, the Israelites, called to be a light to the nations are understood to represent all those oppressed by the world powers.
And that brings us to today’s story. This people, called by God, is under threat of extinction as their male babies are being drowned. But a baby is born and the mother declares this child a fine baby, recalling God’s word at creation. It signals to us that God is doing something new.
In this newness, a courageous mother pledges her love and loyalty to her child over against Pharoah. Rather than allowing him to be added to the slaughter of children drowned in the Nile, she hides the child as long as she can until she acts with one last act of desperation by plastering a basket, an ark as it reads in Hebrew recalling Noah and the flood, so it would carry her child down the river. In a rather ironic twist she obeys the command to cast her child into the Nile, yet prepares for his survival.
We know the book of Exodus. We know this courageous mother, willing to sacrifice her life for her child, provided not only for his safety, but for the liberation of her people. This is rescue story. One child spared for all the Hebrews, for all the oppressed.
And, yet, more than one mother plays a role here. For Pharoah’s daughter finds the child in the basket. And while the text says she took pity on him, the Hebrew here actually uses a phrase suggesting she pledged loyalty, or an alliance, with him. Pharoah’s daughter makes a political move in which she stands against her father on the side of this oppressed child. And through that alliance, and adopting this child, she too plays a role in the historic exodus of the oppressed immigrant Hebrews from Egypt.
And this is the call to mothers today. To love your children sacrificially above all else. This is a love that plants the seed for deliverance. It could be as simple as a mother’s love delivering her child from the mental anguish of walking the halls at school facing rejection at every turn. Or nurturing your child with love so they know they can turn to you when peer pressure confronts them tempting them to make any number of destructive choices that could affect them the rest of their lives.
Or a mother’s love can change the world. It could lead to the Exodus. It could save the life of a child named Jesus who was called to proclaim to us that the kingdom of God was revealed in him and is here with us today.
Your love can be the bolt cutters that break the chains of destructive family cycles such as violence, poverty, self-centeredness, or self-loathing. Your love can nurture a child in the faith so that he or she can find hope where there seems to be none. So that your sons and daughters will no longer feel a need to find their identity in the expectations of others in an endless search for acceptance and belonging. For they will find their identity in your embrace and in the love of God.
This desire to give children a healthy, world-changing identity is what spawned the origin of Mother’s Day. It began as a movement of community activism. Anna Reeves Jarvis was a mother in West Virginia and saw a need for greater sanitation. She organized Mother’s Work Days for mothers to take the streets and make this happen. During the Civil War, she pulled mothers together to care for the sick and wounded. After the Civil War, she led mothers in seeking to reconcile the men who brought violence on one another.
Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic during the run up to the Civil War. By the time the war was over, she believed peace was the way to go and proposed there be annual Mother Day for Peace and wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation including this excerpt:
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice."
Mother’s Day of Peace was celebrated for 30 years and in that time mothers, fueled by their love for their children and the children of others had first organized to end slavery, now organized to end lynchings and consumer fraud, and worked for better working conditions for women, protection for children, public health services, and social assistance for the poor.
A mother’s love is such it will nurture children who are not interested in cool. Are not desperate for acceptance. Are not consumed by or with themselves. But will find the love of God through your love and through your love will know what is to love their neighbor. Will know what it is to not discriminate based on income, or color, or differences in culture. Who will not decide that one person or group of people deserves to live more than another. They will know the radical love of the God revealed in Christ and, filled with the Spirit, will participate in the continued building of the kingdom of God where God’s will is done on earth as it is in Heaven.
But I want it to be clear. This message is not just for the stay-at-home mom. It includes all mothers. Often, working moms are looked down upon. But whether you work because you have to or you have a career because you want to, you have great value. Your love, your nurturing can bring the deliverance we have spoken of tonight.
But here on mother’s day, there is still more to say. For in our society, there is
often more value placed on those who are married with children than those who are single mothers and those, who are either single or married without children. But I believe this mistake. Our value comes in that we carry the image of our creator. And we have equal roles and equal importance in life.
We see here in this story other women play a major role. The child’s sister keeps an eye on the child floating until he safe in the arms Pharoah’s daughter, the goes to get the child’s mother to nurse him for Pharoah’s daughter. If we rewind just a bit, we hear of the courageous midwives who stood up to Pharoah protecting numerous children. Shiprah and Puah are mentioned nowhere else in history. Yet, they carry a special importance in our salvation history, protecting the young of an immigrant people against the world power.
So all women here tonight, whether or not you’re a mother, carry a special importance in the life of this community and in the life of our world. For every time you act on someone else’s behalf, especially on behalf of a child, you can bring deliverance. And if your God-given love for your neighbor does not change the world it could very well change their lives. It could be the truth that sets them free.
So we honor are mothers. And we also honor all women tonight in all their life-giving , world-changing sacrifice. And we go forth seeking to be filled with the Spirit and emulate that love so we too may be God’s hands in the world.
