Mother's Day 2021

I saw this picture this week, and I think this is what motherhood can be like.

Motherhood can be like this.

It can be like a like you're like a nice, you know, cute truck, fully capable of carrying a load, right?

Like you carry your own stories, you carry your own baggage, and then you carry other people's baggage and other people's mistakes, and you carry your own mistakes.

You carry what you wish you were and you're not, but you wish you were that.

You carry the burdens of your children, you carry the dreams of your children, you carry the dreams of uh your family.

Maybe you carry financial responsibility in your family.

Uh maybe you carry a lot of the home life.

Maybe you carry the family calendar.

Um, so you can carry a lot.

Maybe you cut the lawn, maybe even cut the lawn.

I know a few of you cut the lawn, right?

Like you can carry a lot and you can productively carry it.

Like this truck can move.

It is tied down, you can do it.

But I think sometimes uh being a mom can feel like this image, this other image, like it can feel like this, where it's just too much, like it's overload, right?

Like you're going nowhere.

You are stuck, and you're just like, somebody, like somebody help, somebody please come and rescue.

And our hope this morning, a Mother's Day, um, for so many of you, and even some of you who wish you were a mom and it hasn't happened, and that's really hard.

Or maybe you lost your mom this year, or maybe you've lost a child, and Mother's Day can have a range of feelings.

Our hope for you this morning is encouragement.

Our hope for you is not to add more to the truckload to tip you over, but to help give you encouragement on your own journey.

So, our text this morning is Luke 10, a very familiar story.

I've actually preached this text from Mother's Day a few years ago.

I'll admit that, preachers, we do that.

And so this is a story of Jesus with Mary and Martha.

It's going to be familiar for so many of us, but hopefully, as we contemplate it, it has something fresh for us.

Luke 10, verses 38 through 42.

Luke 10:38–42

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

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, 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.

So this is a good point for all of us today, really for every single day.

It's a point that we come around this type of idea repeatedly in our church, and it's this we are called to be with God before we are called to do for God.

How easily we miss over that?

We just start doing for God or doing for our family or doing for somebody else or doing just for achievement.

We're just doing, we don't even know why we're doing it.

But we're called to be with God before we're called to do for God.

That phrase, Mary sat with Jesus, Mary sat at Jesus' feet.

That's a phrase that would be referring to a student or a disciple sitting at the feet of a respected teacher, and that position in this context biblically was reserved for men.

So here we have Mary breaking very traditional social codes by assuming this role that was reserved for men, and then we have Jesus breaking that same social code to esteem her in that position.

And the question hit me this week is like, why would Mary risk possibly being rejected?

Right?

Like, why would she risk being rejected in that moment?

I mean, to go and sit and assume that position where so easily perhaps this respected teacher would reject her and say, hey, this isn't for you.

This spot isn't for you.

I mean, isn't that normally why we sort of like hesitate to become still?

Not like you're praying with music on.

That can be a form of stillness, or you're doing your Bible study while the TV's on, right?

Like that's a form of stillness, but but like really still, just totally, completely you without any outside noise.

Because we wonder, like, what if I'm rejected?

Like, what if God really fully knew all of me, which he already does, but what if you actually kind of came into that experience of knowing that he is in full knowledge of everything about you?

Like, would he reject you?

And the story is so good for us to see that he fully knows and he fully welcomes.

He welcomes you into that space as you are.

Mary seems to have known on some level of faith, of reputation of this man, this Jesus, incarnate God, that he would have her.

That he would welcome her into that space and into that place.

So she can risk, and so she she grows still, she lingers longer, she rests from all of her doing.

Jesus values Mary not just for something she can do for him, but for just being her.

And that is such good news for us that God does not value you for the role you serve or for the things that you can accomplish, but he values you because you're his.

I read this actually this morning, as I was still studying this passage this morning.

The People's New Testament commentary.

This one sentence hit me.

Mary has found the organizing center of her existence.

I mean, wouldn't that be nice?

I mean, if you read that, you're like, oh wow, the center of my being can be organized, right?

I mean, it's a way to say that that the core of who we are can have peace.

And it's not that Martha's horrible and evil.

It's just that she's not living from the organizing center of her existence.

Peace for the core of who she is.

And so she's always gonna have not just a busy life, but a busy heart.

This week I learned about a painting entitled The Listener.

Here's the painting.

I went and looked it up on Google, and here's the painting here.

Right?

This person quietly sitting still, surrounded by noise, by politicians and family and artists and musicians.

There might be a preacher or two in there as well.

We can only assume that, right?

And he sits still, perfectly still.

Now the artist said, as I looked it up, the artist's commentary on his own work was that this person is sitting still to listen to his own voice, of which I thought to myself, that's good like half the time, but half the time that's crazy.

Like that's a crazy voice to me.

Like my voice.

You don't want to hear that voice half the time what's going on inside.

And so I don't love that interpretation.

I get it.

That's the good thing about art.

We can all have our own interpretation.

For me, I got caught up in this painting this week because for me it felt like it felt like Mary.

I mean, it felt like the stillness that Mary is coming into to resist just more busyness, to grow still, to hear a voice from outside of herself, into herself.

Right?

So to move past even what we hear as the condemnation of our own voice so often.

To hear a voice of outside love and welcome and delight and affirmation and redemption and rescue, forgiveness, the imputation of righteousness to us.

Right?

We need that voice of Christ to us that says, I want you more than what you can do for me.

I love this quote from Richard Swinson in his book Margin.

It's one of my all-time favorite quotes.

We must have some room to breathe.

We need freedom to think and permission to heal.

Our relationships are being starved to death by velocity.

No one has time to listen, let alone love.

Our children lay wounded on the ground, one over run over by our high-speed good intentions.

Is God now pro-exhaustion?

Doesn't He lead people beside the still waters anymore?

Who plundered those wide open spaces of the past and how can we get them back?

There are no fallow lands for our emotions to lie down and rest in.

And that can be a description perhaps of your life, definitely of the world.

And this is about bringing our busy hearts to Jesus.

But he's welcome, he's wanting to welcome you and to transform a busy heart into a quiet heart, even if you have a busy schedule, that you can have a quiet heart at peace.

So this idea of pausing and praying and stillness, this takes so many different forms for us, right?

If we went around the room and said, how's that look like for you?

It can look like a million different things based on the stage of life you're in and your personality.

But the key is that you're finding that, you're finding a way to be in relationship with Christ.

And you're finding stillness in your days.

To connect with what's already true about you, that you have fully forgiven in Jesus.

And you are fully righteous in Jesus.

Now, before we just move on to our second point, I want us to pause and I want us to actually practice what Mary practiced, like even within the sermon.

And so I want us to pause and pray just in the middle of the sermon.

And so I'm going to pray.

I just wrote this prayer this week.

There's nothing special about these words.

It's just, it's our hearts coming before God to pause and pray and be still and say, I am somebody in Christ before I start to do stuff for Christ.

And so perhaps you're here and you're a mom.

And for you in this moment, just for you to open your hands and really just receive this prayer this morning.

You're welcome to read along with me on the screens.

You can pray with your eyes open.

We'll allow that in our church as well.

You can close your eyes if you want to.

Let's pray together.

Abba Father, thank you for creating me for yourself.

Forgive me for all the ways I refuse being with you in favor of doing things for you and for those I love.

Help my heart to slow down, to soak in your lavish welcome and love for me and Jesus.

Help me to know I'm yours before I am my schedule.

Help me to know I'm yours before I am my performance.

And may I move from this position of belovedness with my heart secured in you.

Father, in these few moments of quiet, just like Mary, help me to receive your delight of me.

Amen.

There's a short little teaching in Matthew chapter 23, verse 37.

Matthew 23:37

And here's what Jesus teaches.

He says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.

So point number two is this Jesus delights in you and welcomes you into his loyal love.

Here's what I learned about mother hens this week.

I'm not a farmer, didn't grow up on a farm.

I don't know a lot, so I have to Google to learn about hens.

And here's what they are they're very overprotective, mother hens.

And they interfere for the sake of their children.

Hens have loyal love.

Like fighting, strong, courageous, intentional, interfering, loyal love.

And Jesus is saying in this teaching, Jesus is saying, he is like the strength and the force of like a loving, fierce mom.

A protecting mother hen.

It's just an image.

It's an image for us to grab hold of, or to be grabbed hold of by, to behold this welcoming God.

This imagery of a mother hen, you have that imagery of like a wing, like just like protecting in those babies.

This imagery of wings is not new.

It's all throughout the scriptures.

Twelve years ago, I went to Israel on a tour with a friend of mine who was a Bible expert, an expert in Israel, and he took me with a group, and we went, we toured everything.

We toured all over, hit all the main sites, and eventually we were in Jerusalem.

You know, we went to the Wayland Wall, Temple Mount, all of it.

And eventually we went shopping in the Old Town Market.

Here's a picture of the Old Town Market, just want to get you an idea of it.

It's just like these ancient roads just filled with textiles and different tourist stuff and stuff like that.

And I actually bought, I bought this prayer shawl while I was there.

And some of y'all know about prayer shawls, and some of you don't.

I didn't know much about them.

And so this is a prayer shawl, and Jewish people, you see people wearing them, and maybe they'll just wear them every once in a while, kind of like this.

And these are called tassels, or in Hebrew, they're called tsy, which is important.

We're gonna get to that.

A lot of times, Jewish people, you'll see them wearing underneath their shirt or their robe, and you'll kind of see these tassels sticking out from behind.

And it's coming from Numbers 15, verses 37 through 40.

Numbers 15:37–40

Now listen to this.

The Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner, and that shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.

So you shall remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God.

So that word tassel is the word seetzi, so hang with me.

And then in Malachi chapter 4, verse 2, we get this verse, this prophecy.

Malachi 4:2

Now that word wings is the Hebrew word kanaf, which is the same word in numbers which the tassels connect to.

So a legend group, a belief, that healing would be found in the tassels or the fringes of the prayer shawl of the Messiah.

So, of course, Jesus as a devout Jew, he would have on a prayer shawl.

Some think that this might have been part of the robe or it would have been worn under the robe, but he would have had them on.

This makes sense of Luke 8, verse 42.

Luke 8:42

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him.

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though had she spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

And Jesus said, Who was it that touched me?

When all denied it, Peter said, Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you.

Right?

I mean, Peter's saying, like, hey, we're in a crowd.

Like pre-CO COVID crowd, okay?

Like where everybody's just like smushed together, pressing.

Peter's like, What are you talking about?

There's people touching you constantly.

Verse 47.

And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace.

It's an interesting story, I mean, just not of itself, but if you think about this stuff in the Old Testament, it's even more interesting, isn't it?

Because she went and she touched the fringe of his garment.

Which means she's thinking back to a lot of her Jewish heritage and teaching, thinking, if I can just get there, if I can just touch that, I will be healed.

Now, religion would tell her not to touch him because she would have been unclean.

So religion would have said, no, you you can't.

No, not you.

Somebody else who has their act together, but but not you.

But she was desperate.

She was at the end of herself.

And what she's demonstrating is that she's demonstrating faith.

That she needs Jesus, that she needs an outside source of forgiveness and righteousness and love and acceptance, right?

And this is the incarnate God.

Nothing else will do.

She has nowhere else to turn.

And how beautiful it is when we're not in religion but we're in relationship.

Because Jesus doesn't condemn her for being unclean or not having her act together.

No, no.

Rather, he welcomes her and accepts her and heals her.

I mean, this is the work Jesus does for us.

Right?

This is what we get with this little teaching about a mother hen.

This is the same thing we get with this teaching of the wings of the tzitzi.

I mean, both are saying the same thing.

It is our welcome by Jesus in relationship to him that we find salvation for our hearts, eternal welcome in him, and a journey even now in this already but not yet, where we're just trying to do a good job and constantly not quite doing it, and sometimes purposefully not doing it.

And we need the forgiveness and the righteousness of Jesus.

We need that welcome of his to be on this journey of greater and deeper healing.

As we move toward communion, we're going to pray again, and I want to pray a prayer that's been prayed over moms and children, God's children, for almost a thousand years.

So let's pray together.

Jesus, like a mother, you gather your people to yourself.

You are gentle with us.

As a mother with her children, despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness.

Through your gentleness, we find comfort and fear.

Your warmth gives life to the dead.

Your touch makes sinners righteous.

Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us.

And your love and tenderness remake us.

In your compassion bring grace and forgiveness.

For the beauty of heaven, may your love prepare us.

Amen.