SPECIAL DAYS: Mother's Day, Ascension Day

Lesson: Ephesians 6.2-3

Sermon Title: Honor above All Else

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A newspaper cartoon shows an elementary school teacher bending down to read a note that had been pinned to a small girl's dress.

The note, clearly from an embarrassed but defeated mother, read: I hope you don't think I picked out this outfit! (1)

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Reader's Digest tells of two seminary students who decided to go door-to-door sharing their faith. At one house they walked through a gauntlet of screaming children and barking dogs. A tired mother opened the door.

We would like to tell you how to obtain eternal life, they said.

She hesitated, then looked around for a moment before she replied, Thank you, but no thanks. I don't believe that I could stand it! (2)

INTRODUCTION:

From the experience of being a son, a father and a minister, Robert Fulghum talks about Mother's Day in his recent book It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It (New York: Villard Books, 1989):

For twenty-five years of my life, the second Sunday in May was trouble. Being the minister of a church, I was obliged in some way to address the subject of Mother's Day. It could not be avoided. I tried that. Mind you, the congregation was quite open-minded, actually, and gave me free rein in the pulpit. But when it came to the second Sunday in May, the expectations were summarized in these words of one of the more out spoken women in the church: 'I'm bringing my MOTHER to church on MOTHER'S DAY, Reverend, and you can talk about anything you want. But it had better include MOTHER, and it had better be GOOD!'

She was joking - teasing me. She also meant it (100%). What better theme for Mother's Day than the biblical doctrine of prayer?

  1. Well we'll talk about prayer in July.
  2. I do appreciate Robert Fulghum's observation and position.
    1. I would bet that there were more advertisements for Mother's Day brunches in the Wisconsin State Journal than there were advertisements for Mother's Day observances in the local churches.
      1. You don't want to take that bet.
      2. I would win hands down.
    2. I found an old Spanish proverb.

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. What is a good Mother's Day Sermon?
    1. There was a time when Mother's Day was observed with accolades, and generous gifts.
      1. Its Mothers Day 2002.
      2. Where are you going to find affirmation of mothers?
      3. You can look at songs and greeting cards.

M-O-T-H-E-R

M is for the million things she gave me

O is only that she's growing old.

T is for the tears she shed to save me.

H is for heart of purest gold.

E is for her eyes with love-light shining.

R means right and right she'll always be

Put them all together they spell MOTHER, a word that means the world to me.

I can remember when Mother's Day was celebrated in the church by giving flowers to the oldest mother, the mother with the most children, the grandmother with the most grandchildren, and on and on.

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  1. In the past 15 to 20 years life has changed
    1. In a mother's day sermon a few years ago I quoted Elise T. Chisolm, Why Do We Blame Our Mothers, Baltimore Sun quoted in Milwaukee Journal, October 14, 1990

She writes: "Why am I hearing so much mother bashing?"

I overheard her say, "You know, I never would have been anorexic if my mother had not made me stay at the table and finish my meals."

"Listen as a teenager I couldn't wait to have sex, probably because my mother was so Victorian and punitive about every date and every boy I liked."

Why do we blame our mothers?

Ms. Chisolm quotes Psychotherapist Judy Tatelbaum, You Don't Have To Suffer,: "While other cultures revere parents, in our culture we blame parents for what we consider the damage they have done to us. We use our parents to justify our difficulties in life or in relationships, our lack of satisfaction or our failure to achieve out goals." "Each of us needs to come to terms with our parents, alive or dead, regardless of how they treated us, so that we can be full-fledged adults ourselves. We need to release them and forgive them their mistakes in order to free ourselves."

    1. Dan Shutters, Laugh Lines (3), shares a story that well illustrates a point.

A young boy wanted a bicycle very badly. All his friends had one. Finally his mother suggested he take his concerns to the Holy Mother Mary in prayer. Johnny wrote his prayer out on a piece of paper before he went to bed, and prayed, Mary, mother of God, could you see that I get a bicycle? All my friends have one. Amen. He placed the prayer next to his statue of the Virgin and went to sleep.

The next morning when he didn't have a bike, he wasn't discouraged, and he repeated the same steps that night, and every night for the next week, with the same disappointing result.

Finally he took his statue of Mary, wrapped it in a towel, and hid it in the back of a dresser drawer. When he went to sleep that night he prayed: Jesus, if you want to see your mother again, I better get that bike!

      1. Mother's are being held hostage to revelations that we did not expose in the past.
      2. The same liabilities exist.
    1. Maybe it ought to be the other way around.

Robert Berner, Tired Mothers of the World, Unite! (4) Writes of the experience of Michelle Tribout of Belleville, IL.

Children ought to appreciate what their mothers do for them, but often don't. For mother of three, Michelle Tribout of Belleville, Illinois, the last straw came when her children failed to get out of bed for a pancake breakfast she'd cooked, despite her making five trips upstairs to wake them. When the kids arrived home after school, they found a note that read, On-strike mom. No cooking, cleaning, doctoring, banking or taxi service. Out of order.

They found their mom in the tree house refusing to come down until the kids started pitching in and showing some gratitude.

The kids cooked dinner and came out promising to be nice, but Mrs. Tribout wouldn't budge. Next the children baked their mom's favorite brownies and wrote up a settlement promising to:

      1. Pitch in whenever you see something that needs to be done.
      2. Act your age, not like you were five.
      3. Don't smart off.
      4. Come when you are called.
      5. We are the kids; you are the parents.
      6. Give and take on an equal basis.
      7. Ask before you do something.
      8. Do not hit or hurt anybody.

They presented the settlement at 11:30 p.m. A contract was reached at midnight and Mrs. Tribout came down.

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  1. This experience exemplifies the biblical necessity to honor our mothers.
    1. 1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2"Honor your father and mother"--this is the first commandment with a promise: 3"so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." (Ephesians 6:1-3, NRSVA)
      1. Obey?
      2. Honor?
      3. So that it may be well with you
      4. You may live long on the earth.
  2. The intent and the scope of the material that I put in the bulletin this week is an exposition of this passage from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
    1. I. THEIR DUTY IS SUMMED UP IN THE ONE WORD "OBEDIENCE." But it includes four important elements.
      1. 1. Love. This is an instinctive feeling, but it is not the less a commanded duty, for it is the spring of all hearty obedience. It makes obedience easy. Yet We are not to love our parents more than the Lord; we are rather to love them in the Lord.
      2. 2. Honour. This is only another form of obedience: "Honour thy father and thy mother." "Cursed be anyone who dishonors father or mother." All the people shall say, "Amen!" (Deuteronomy 27.16, NRSV); "A son honoureth his father" (Malachi 1.6); "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Leviticus 19.32). God has, indeed, given his own honour to parents. We may not always be called to obey them, but we are always to honour them. "Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old" (Proverbs 23.22). This honour is allied to reverence: "We have had fathers of our flesh who Corrected us, and we gave them reverence" (Hebrews 12.9).
      3. 3. Gratitude. It is our duty to requite our parents (1 Timothy 5.4), and our Lord implies that we are to do them good (Matthew 15.4). We ought to remember their love, their care, their concern for us. Joseph provided for his father Jacob in old age, and the women said to Naomi of Boaz, "He shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age."
      4. 4. Subjection. "Children, obey your parents in all things;" that is, in all things falling within the sphere of a parents authority. If parents command their children to steal, or lie, or commit idolatry, they are not to be obeyed. They are to be obeyed "in the Lord." There are several reasons to make obedience natural.
        1. (1) Parents know more than their children; therefore "a wise son beareth his fathers instruction "(Proverbs 13.1). The child must take much of his knowledge for granted on the mere authority of his father.
        2. (2) The habit of obedience is good as a discipline. It is even good for the health of a child, as a desultory and dawdling obedience breaks its temper and injures its health.
        3. (3) Children are not able to guide themselves; for "folly is bound up in the heart of a child" (Proverbs 22.15).
        4. (4) Society is benefited by the due subordination of family life.
    2. II. THE REASON OF OBEDIENCE ASSIGNED IN THIS PASSAGE IS SIMPLY "FOR THIS IS RIGHT."
      1. 1. It is right
        1. (1) according to the light of nature;
        2. (2) according to the Law of God. "It is well-pleasing unto the Lord" (Colossians 3.20).
      2. 2. It is embodied in the Decalogue, and holds the first place among the duties of the second table, and "is the first commandment with promise "--the promise of a long life. This implies
        1. (1) that the fifth commandment is still binding on the Christians of this dispensation;
        2. (2) that long life is to be desired;
        3. (3) that disobedience to parents tends to shorten life. There may be undutiful children who live to old age, and dutiful children who die young, but the promise abides in its general purpose. It is like the saying, "The hand of the diligent maketh rich," yet diligent persons have felt the bitterness of poverty. Children are therefore justified in having regard firstly to the command of God, and then to the recompense of the reward.--T. C.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. William Muehl, in Why Preach? Why Listen (5) related a story of a mother's redeeming love

One December afternoon many years ago, a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to pick up their children after the last pre-Christmas session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his or her hands the surprise, the brightly wrapped package on which the class had been working for weeks.

One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and wave to his parents all at the same time, slipped and fell. The surprise flew from his grasp and landed on the tile floor with an obvious ceramic crash. The child's first reaction was one of stunned silence. But then he set up an inconsolable wail.

His father, thinking to minimize the incident and comfort the boy, patted his head and murmured, Now that's all right. It really doesn't matter, son. It doesn't matter at all.

But the child's mother, somewhat wiser in such situations, dropped to her knees on the floor, swept the boy into her arms and said, Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal. And she wept with her son.

  1. The redeeming God in whom we hope is not the parent who dismisses our lives with a pat on the head and murmured assurances that they do not really matter in cosmic terms.
    1. It is, rather, the one who falls to the earth beside us, picks up our torn and bleeding spirits, and says, Oh, but it does matter.
    2. It matters eternally.
  2. Honor matters, it matters eternally!

1. As found in W. Wayne Price, Confessions of a Perfect Parent (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 57.

2. Larry Davies, Turning Points: Moses, Failure and Faith, November 10, 1999, Sowseeds@hovac.com

3. Dan Shutters, Laugh Lines, Presbyterians Today, December 1997, 3.

4. Robert Berner, Tired Mothers of the World, Unite! The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 1997, B1.

5. William Muehl, Why Preach? Why Listen (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 92.

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