Mother’s Day: Secure as to Serve

Well, happy Mother's Day.

I realize for many of us and many of you today can be quite hard.

Maybe because you were unable to have children, or having a child was just hard, or having children is hard.

Anybody wave your hand?

Yeah, you see, the moms are too tired to raise their hands.

They can't even, you're just like, yes.

I can't can't get my hand up.

I I know some of you lost a child this year.

I know some of you lost your mother this year.

Or maybe you just simply feel lost.

It's very easy to feel lost in a role or the role that you serve.

Last November, a video went viral.

A young mom, Monica Murphy, she had just had her third child, all three children under the age of four.

That's kind of like the Jim Gaffigan joke.

What does it feel like to have five children?

You're drowning, and somebody throws you a baby.

Anybody drowning?

Can't get still too tired of your hand up.

Well, this mama Monica, she has three kids under four.

She's drowning in babies.

And her sweet mom comes by to check on her and to check on these grandbabies.

And Monica shares her to-do list with her mom.

Work, stay present on social media, maintain a clean home, breastfeed, be present with my kids, eat a nutritious diet, make time for my husband, keep in touch with my friends, make time for myself, plan activities for kids.

And on the way out the door, her mom turns around and says something to her.

The doorbell camera camera catches this short scene for us.

They're never going to remember if they had a clean house.

They're going to remember how much you love them and hop off with them.

Okay.

Later, love you.

Bye.

Don't we just need a mama to say that to us?

As a parent, especially as a mom, you can just feel like the to-do list just never stops.

And we we need a mama to turn around to say to us, like, hey, they're not going to remember how clean the baseboards are.

Like they're not.

They'll remember how you loved them.

The mother role can be overwhelming at any stage.

Most roles can be overwhelming at any stage.

At first, we love a role, and we love a role because a role can define us.

We'll pull definition from it.

And then slowly we become exhausted to the role.

And then before we know it, we're even condemned by the role because we're not good enough at it.

And then we wonder: like, is there any relief?

Is there any hope?

Is there any help?

Our text this morning is Luke 10, this well-known story of Jesus with Martha and Mary, Luke 10, 38 through 42.

Let's read it one more time.

Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

But Martha was distracted with much serving.

And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Tell her then to help me.

But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her.

A few years ago, there was an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, In the Country of Motherhood, Finding My Own Path.

And I love this quote on Mother's Day.

Here's what this mom writes about what it feels like to be a mom.

The Japanese have Kutsingai, a method of repairing broken pottery with gold, making it even more valuable after it has been broken.

Some of the parenting books I read told me that I should similarly welcome the shattering of myself and that I was made better because I was now a mother.

I disagreed.

I liked myself just as I was before I had children.

While other mothers were taking pride in their new broken and repaired forms, I was on my hands and knees still looking for pieces of myself.

And I wonder, moms, but any of us really, if you feel like that, if you feel worn down and a bit broken.

Looking for pieces of yourself.

Who am I?

Where am I?

Martha was the busy, anxious one.

Mary was the slow, calm one.

This week I realized, well, I am slow but anxious.

I'm like, I don't know how that works out.

Let's ponder two gospel promises.

First, gospel promise.

You are more loved and secure in Jesus than the role you serve.

The Holy Spirit plants this truth into the very core of who we are.

Much deeper than any role that you will ever serve is your identity in Christ.

So we are free from our roles and free to serve our roles.

In the ancient world, the Greek-Roman world, women were seen as property, not as people.

Girls had almost no education.

The cultural value on women was close to nothing.

Women were human doings, they were not human beings.

And Jesus shows up into this horrible context, and we get this story where Jesus validates Mary while she's doing nothing.

To be validated while you're doing nothing.

Moms, can you can you imagine moms?

Doing nothing?

Sometimes my wife will say, like, I just want to be sick for a week.

Like, and then I just get to lay in bed, watch Netflix for one week.

I don't want to be sick longer than a week, just one week.

I would like to be sick, really sick.

You'll all leave me alone.

You see, God does not value you for the role you do or you do not serve, but for you as you, the core of you.

His child.

A few questions to ponder, not to guilt us, but to say grace on us, to free us from roles, to free us to serve the roles.

Question number one: Do you love and raise your children, or do you use your children to define you?

Do you love and care for your friends?

Or do you need them to approve of you?

Do you love and serve your job?

Or do you need the next rung-up to finally be okay?

Mary teaches us that we can let go of roles and the busyness to be defined by that role, and we can be freed into being God's beloved as to be freed to serve our roles.

So we're freed from, as to be freed to.

Years ago I talked to my mentor, Pastor Scotty Smith, about busyness, and he said this: Life can quickly become a series of events.

I always think about it as a busy heart before a busy schedule.

If the gospel is not the greater narrative of our lives, we subtly begin to feel the need for something to make us whole, to validate us.

That pressure will create an anxious and busy heart.

Anybody else?

Can we get the hands up yet?

Can we get anybody else?

Yeah, busy and anxious heart.

He continued.

We are made to be productive.

When God said to his first son and daughter, fill the earth with my glory, that's an awesome, life-fulfilling calling.

One we still have.

Be creative, build culture, make beauty.

The trouble comes when we believe Christianity is more about doing things for Jesus than doing all things with Jesus.

So our first gospel promise you are more loved and secure in Jesus than the role you serve, which gives us a prayer.

Something like, Heavenly Father, help me live all the more for my secure place in you as to be freed to joyfully serve the roles you give me.

And I want us to pause midserment and just pray for our moms.

And maybe you're with your mom or you're with your wife, and you can just hold her hand or put a hand on her shoulder.

Maybe your mom is somewhere else around the state or country, and you can just open your hands to pray for her.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for our moms at every stage that have hearts that are pouring out for their children.

God, we pray for a greater freedom of their own hearts, a freedom from the motherling role as to be freed into the secure identity they have as your child.

May that give them a great sense of security, of love, of validation, of wholeness, and of a freedom that allows them and empowers them to joyfully serve the role of mom.

Help their hearts be comforted, give them great wisdom and all the mothering they do.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Our family invented a new game in our driveway called Mini Pickle.

Mini pickle is for people who like pickleball but they're too lazy to walk to the park where the pickleball courts are.

And so we invented mini pickle in our driveway.

We have two kind of squares in our driveway.

The crack between the two squares is the net because we're too lazy to buy a net.

It's sort of like four-square, but with pickleball rackets.

Everything's underhanded, no slams, everything's in the hand.

The ball needs to bounce, everything underhanded.

And my girls are playing this game a lot.

Like I'm playing a good bit, they're playing a lot.

So they're getting better and better and better.

Last week I was in a match with my middle daughter, and we were playing to seven win by two.

Win by two.

I beat her 15 to 13.

And I wasn't doing the dad thing.

You know what I'm talking about?

Or like I'm gonna let you get close and then I'll like, you know, toy with you, and then I'll beat you, and then I'll say I was playing my hardest.

Like I was playing my hardest.

And I was not gonna let her win.

Uh, because like who am I as a man if my 13-year-old mother beats me?

I like to win.

Um, even if I lose, I create reasons why I didn't care, or I create reasons why I could have won if I wanted to, and I really didn't want to win, and if I wanted to win, I could have won, I could have beaten.

Uh and I'll crush little children if I need to for that kind of validation as a middle-aged man.

I like to win.

I uh I I wanted to win at planting a church.

I want to win at pastoring.

I I don't even know what that means.

It's been 20 years, and in me is this drive to win at pastoring.

I don't know what that means.

I don't think it means anything.

I don't think there's a such thing, but it's in there.

I want to win.

That drives in there.

But it keeps me motivated, that's good.

It can also keep you up at night, which is not so good.

Here's what I've learned when my winning at my roles becomes my source of validation or righteousness.

Now I'm on an eventual path to exhaustion and condemnation.

Because I ain't perfect.

I'm not perfect before my role as a pastor, I'm not perfect as a parent, not perfect as a friend.

And eventually my daughter's gonna beat me at mini pickle.

Like it's that's a matter of time.

It was 15 to 13, and I was trying my hardest.

None of us run the perfect race.

We could say this way life completely lived by roles is life by merit.

And life by merit is exhaustion and condemnation.

It's amazing in this story how Jesus is just pouring out constant forgiveness to Martha in her sin of busyness and role idolatry.

And Jesus is extending and pouring out constant forgiveness, validation, constant worth upon Mary, who dares to simply be still.

And this is the gift of righteousness we have.

We can see in Martha this constant forgiveness, how it's our sin put upon the cross, and we can see with Mary how he's giving this worth to Mary, how this is his righteousness is given to us.

Our second gospel promise: God is deeply devoted to you through Christ without conditions or limits.

Isaiah 49, 14, but Zion, that's a way to say the people of God, said, The Lord has forsaken me.

My Lord has forgotten me.

The people are saying, I don't feel loved.

Like this is hard.

This is hard.

I don't feel God.

I feel like he has forgotten about me.

I have hurts and needs.

Where is he?

Why doesn't he fix?

Why doesn't he fix this?

And God doesn't give an explanation to these people.

Isn't that frustrating?

Right?

We've all lived through that.

He doesn't give an explanation.

But he gives a promise of love that is with them in their struggle.

Verses 15 and 16.

The Lord replies, Could a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, your walls are continually before me.

The point is, can a mom who uh has had a baby, she's nursing a baby and cares for that baby, could you could she ever not love that baby?

A mother's love is close and it's intimate and it's unconditional.

And then verse 15 says, even if you could find a mom who forgot about their baby, God says, not me.

I'll never forget you.

I will love you without limits, without conditions, one way, forever, constant love.

We're like the baby before the mother, and we take and we take and we take and we take and we take, and God gives, and he gives, and he gives and he gives.

Verse 16, this image changes.

I've engraved you on the palms of my hand.

In the context, at the time, a servant might be tattooed with their master's name on the palms of their hands.

But never would a master be tattooed with their servant's name.

So what is this verse?

This image is the reverse of what was going on in culture.

And it tells us it's not you devoted to God to begin with, or primarily or foundationally.

It's God devoted to you.

His hands are tattooed with your name.

It's a beautiful image of the cross, really, if we think about the scars on Jesus' hands for you.

And it means God is deeply devoted to you.

That's the gospel promise.

God is deeply devoted to you without conditions or limits.

We know this in Jesus.

The prayer that comes out of that is, Heavenly Father, help us to rest and grow all the more in your deep devotion to us.

Help my heart to slow down and to experience your grace and love.

Let's pray that together.

Heavenly Father, we confess and admit that we often act like Martha.

We use busyness to feel important, and we use roles to feel whole or validated.

Would you forgive us for this confusion of our hearts?

For the sin in us that turns away from you.

Would you woo us back by your grace that we are fully and always forgiven and fully and always righteous in Jesus?

And help our hearts to be quieted by your grace with us.

Help us to trust all the more in Jesus, who is sufficient for us in all ways.

And help us to still our hearts in front of you.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.