Sermon Tone Analysis

Moms: Heroes of Faith

Moms: Heroes of Faith

USELESS HEROES

USELESS HEROES

The Summer is almost here and with it the usual bombardment of Summer blockbusters.

It seems that the superhero movies have been dominating the movie screens as of lately, doesn’t it?

The culture of deeply admiring “super heroes” seems to have grown in great proportion.

One clear trend I’ve noticed is the conglomerate of separate movies into one huge meta-narrative.

Each movie becoming a piece of a much larger storyline.

Yet with each new saga development, the clearer it has become to me how these super hero characters are completely detached from the realities of our daily lives.

In real life we don’t battle space monsters, or sea monsters.

We battle … daily life.

We battle our bills.

The flu.

Our weight.

And then, when we decide to get real about our lives, we battle loneliness.

Failure.

Injustice.

So when you think about it, none of the superheroes Hollywood has come up with are actually of any use for us in the real world.

There’s no “Overdue-bills Super Man” busting through the window at the nick of time right before I get slapped with a late fee and higher interest rates.

That’s not happening.

There is no “My-child-has-a-fever-at-2am-and-I-gotta-be-at-work-at-7am Wonder Woman” that will be coming to our rescue.

At 2 am who cares about Godzilla, I need to sleep!

We could sure use one of THESE kinds of super heroes for the real battles in our lives!

USEFUL HERO

As we look at the landscape of humanity across geographical, economic, and ethnic, lines - there is a real life super hero that does come in at the nick of time to rescue us.

When we are feeling insecure about ourselves.

When we are not sure of what to do.

When we feel unwanted, rejected … who can we call?

Our mom.

In the movies that we idolize in the West, the hero is usually a regular person who discovers they have super abilities.

They are usually pushed into using these super abilities and thus they become the super heroes they were destined to be.

Ironically, and tragically, our Western culture works hard to convince us that our real life super heroes - mothers - that in spite ALL that they do, they are just regular people who’s existence is inconsequential.

But that is not reality.

The ACRONYM M-O-T-H-E-R itself speaks as to crucial role mother’s play in our lives:

Mom.

The proverbial "first word" of an infant often sounds like "ma" or "mama".

This strong association of that sound with "mother" has persisted in nearly every language on earth.

Mum in the United Kingdom.

Mam in the Netherlands.

Mata in India.

Even Mama in Chinese.

No matter how big, or fast, or powerful an athlete is, when they look into the camera what do they always say? “Hi mom!” Affection and love poured out in one simple word – “mom” – no matter what the language.

Others.

When you really think it through, many mothers work as many as 90 hours a week.

Their job description defies logic.

A loving hand on a skinned knee.

Miles and miles of taxi service.

Applause from the 3rd row of the 2nd grade school play.

Tears of joy at graduation – whether it is from dance class or college.

Dishes…diapers…drama…discipline.

Duties all selflessly performed by the person we affectionately call “mother”.

Teacher.

Solomon admonishes us to “forsake not your mother’s teaching” ( ESV).

He goes on to say that those teachings are “a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck” ( ESV).

Life changing lessons taught during late night talks that shape our character for the rest of our lives.

Honor.

The first commandment ever given with a promise was “honor your father and mother” ( ESV).

Why? “That it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land” (vs 3).

The word honor literally means “weighted value”.

We are to deeply honor and profoundly value our mothers – and in turn God promises blessings poured out on our lives.

Encourager.

Your greatest cheerleader will always be your mom.

No matter what.

Through thick and thin.

Good and bad.

Laughter and pain.

I am reminded of the instruction Paul gave when he said “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” ( ESV).

Sounds like what a mom does all of the time!

Relationship.

What’s interesting is that of the seven phrases Jesus uttered on the cross, one of them was directed to the person who gently pushed Him into public ministry (), and searched frantically for Him when she thought He was lost ().

She stood with Him at Calvary when virtually everyone else deserted Him.

Jesus acknowledged her, and provided for her, even during His tortuous death on the cross of salvation.

“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’

And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

( ESV).

A relationship begun in a manger… confirmed in a miracle… and declared even in mourning.

Mother.

My friend Ann Voskamp eloquently puts it like this; “Someone prayed to God saying ‘I need someone who can shape a soul and find shoes on Saturday morning and get grass stains out of Levis.

Someone with a heart strong enough for toddler tantrums and teenage testing, yet broken enough to fall on her knees and pray, pray, pray.’

So God answered by making a mother.”

Life didn’t come with a manual – it came with a Mother.

Interestingly Steven Curtis Chapman’s song “Do everything” begins with an honest question about motherhood.

“You’re picking up toys on the living room floor

For the fifteenth time today

Matching up socks

Sweeping up lost cheerios that got away

You put a baby on your hip

Color on your lips and head out the door

While I may not know you,

I bet I know you

Wonder sometimes, does it matter at all? …”

At no time in our Western history have women, specifically those experiencing motherhood, have been forced to ask that monumental question - “does what I do as a mother matter at all?”

The Bible says that choosing to be a mother can transform a nation.

The OT history of the Exodus with its monumental plagues and magnificent Divine deliverance begins with a mother who refused to let her child perish at the risk of her own life and everything she held dear.

That child of course was Moses the deliverer.

Her ingenious creativity to make a basket and place it in the last place the Egyptian soldiers would look for her son.

What a hero to her child!

Jocabeth may have asked herself, “does it matter what I am doing anyways?

Even if my child survives to be old enough to be brought out into the open, he’ll still end up like me and his father … and the rest of us Israelites.