“Godly Guerilla Mothering: Supportive & Subversive”

May 8, 2005 Mother's Day Prov.31:10-31 Ex.1:15-2:10

Nurture Notable, Though Not News

Being a mother isn’t quite as exciting as bungee jumping. Housework is hardly ever going to make front page headlines. Every day there's the floor to sweep and the table and counters to wipe. Every meal requires its preparation, its thawing and baking, then the dishes and pots and pans to wash afterwards. Every week brings its fresh (if somewhat smelly) loads of laundry to tote to the washer, hang or spin to dry, and arrange for folding, if not ironing. Yet this endless round of tasks often receives no recognition (though modern fathers are learning to pitch in and help with some of the jobs, especially heavier work like vacuuming). Overall, though, it’s small wonder many mothers are left feeling passed by and unappreciated in the larger scheme of things.

             Jean Fleming writes in her book A Mother's Heart, “Is life passing you by while you shampoo the peanut butter out of Junior's hair, then lug the diaper pail into the laundry room once more? Does your mothering seem uninteresting, insignificant, even slightly demeaning? Do you feel you are lying dormant – your talents, gifts, and degrees wasted on your present occupation? Do you feel as though you are in a holding pattern, waiting for your children to leave home or start to school, so you can resume real life?”

             Many moms can no doubt relate to what Jean says. Our culture does little to recognize and honour the value of mothering in the media. Movies usually feature less obligation-bound heroines.

             Yet for those who catch the vision, mothering offers a fulfilment and satisfaction that no other lifestyle can. On a missionary's tombstone were found these words: “If I had a thousand lives to give, Korea should have them all.” This person's life was poured out for others on foreign soil, yet she had no regrets; she only wished she could do it again and again. Jean comments about that epitaph: “I feel the same way about being a mother. While many women feel the pressure to do something more, I say that if I had another life to give, I'd be a full-time wife and mother again. I enjoy the breadth of the challenge. The task of mothering can be as broad as I make it. Consider the endless variety of jobs a mother may do: teacher, nurse, dietician, psychologist, chauffeur, trainer, disciplinarian, seamstress, baseball coach, interior decorator.” Yes, mothering can offer many avenues of fulfilment, many means of investing one's life's energy in rewarding roles. But it takes a vision, a sense of purpose, an appreciation of how vitally important mothering is for the next generation – and how influential a mother can be in predisposing her child toward Christ’s Kingdom.

             Motherhood takes a noble woman – one who has high ideals, a caring heart, and determination to impact the future for the better through godly offspring. For a Christian in an increasingly secular or pagan culture, training up children with godly standards is like running a boot camp for holy insurgents. It is both potentially supportive and subversive in society.

             {By the way, although much of today’s message focuses on the role mothers play, you don’t have to be a mom or even have children to apply some of these truths. Any Christian is called to be a maker of disciples, whether that be your own offspring, a niece or nephew, an unrelated young person, or even someone your own age. So don’t feel excluded though I’m using moms as the primary example; Jesus is recruiting each of us as His special agents for a top-priority covert operation that undermines the Enemy in order to promote God’s Kingdom of truth and love and holiness.}

Supportive – Making a Contribution

A classic picture of a mother supportive of society – making a remarkable contribution – is found in Proverbs 31. Cynthia Heald, in a Bible Study for women called Loving Your Husband, notes that one way this woman maintains her integrity is by living her priorities. Cynthia observes that the first half of the verses list her priorities in order. The initial allusion to her – “A wife of noble character who can find?” – refers to her excellence or virtue. This is a good indication that her relationship with God was first in her life.

             With regard to her marriage, v12 says she brings her husband “good, not harm, all the days of her life.” Next comes her ministry to her children and her home. V15, “She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family...” Verse 17 notes the energy she puts into her enterprise: “She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.” She’s on a mission that’s motivational. Verses 22 & 24 describe a manufacturing angle: she makes coverings for her bed, linen garments and sashes which she sells to the merchants. I remember my own mother would often be sewing or darning in the evening while us menfolk relaxed watching TV.

             Cynthia Heald notes v20 describes the noble woman’s ministry to others outside the home, quite independently from social agencies. “She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.” So her priorities are: God, husband, children and home, time for self, and ministry to others outside the home.

             Godly mothers thus make a remarkable contribution to society in a very positive way; revering the Lord helps us pursue passionately His Kingdom in our family’s lives and our neighbourhood. Mrs.Heald concludes, “Understanding our priorities helps us in making right decisions and commitments...To be women of integrity we must keep our commitments, have a keen sense of doing what is right before God, and live our priorities in honour and out of respect for our Lord.”

             V30, near the end of Proverbs 31, counters the myths of Hollywood by concluding, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” That is, a woman's real significance or inner importance derive not from cosmetics but character – faith and graciousness.

             It may not be trendy to acknowledge it, but mothering constitutes an essential supportive role in society. Besides cookies and cleaning and just keeping a household running, there’s a parent’s or guardian’s irreplaceable impact on children. When we bungle one person’s upbringing, others may experience the negative consequences for years to come. Dr.Jack Raskins is psychiatrist at the Children's Orthopaedic Hospital and University of Washington in Seattle. He considers the early months most crucial, saying the key “...is the child's close, unbroken attachment in the early months to the people who care for him. Too much disruption of this imbeds in the personality traits that can be disruptive for a lifetime. People are hyped up over adolescent drug abuse, pregnancies, suicide, and the cults children join. But the same roots underlie them all. The roots are depression and emotional deprivation. These are laid down in the personality in the early months of life. They grow out of poor attachments and inadequate affection and contact for the child in the first months. Attachment to the people who love him and who respond to his needs is nothing less than the foundation of the child’s personality.”

             Dr.Brenda Hunter is a developmental psychologist who , referring to a White House conference advocating the expansion of child day care, cautioned: “Decades of child-development research show that what all young children need to grow up emotionally healthy is a warm, affectionate relationship with their mothers. I am not aware of any research indicating that a ‘caregiver’ is even an adequate long-term substitute for a mother, much less a good one...An important point speakers ignored is that separation from the mother is extremely stressful for a young child and can affect his developing brain...even a 30-minute separation increases the level of cortisol (a stress hormone) in a baby's saliva. Few things can be more stressful for a baby than the repeated, daily separators that day care requires.” Dr.Hunter suggests that since abundant survey data show that what most parents want is more time with their children, not less, we should make it easier for mothers to work flex-time or engage in job-sharing. Also we could create a tax structure that lets mothers stay at home with their very young children and be present when the school bus rolls down the street.

             So mothers have a vital supportive role to play in society, from material goods and services to subtle things like emotionally healthy adults who create fewer social problems years down the road.

Subversive – Taking Risks for What’s Right

But the Bible also hints that godly mothers play a Kingdomly subversive role when society gets off-base. Consider the Hebrew midwives Shiprah and Puah when their people were being oppressed by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The king ordered them to kill the boy babies, but they defied his order – why? Because as Scripture says in Exodus 1:21, they “feared God”, who rewarded them with families of their own.

             Consider Jochebed, Moses' mother, who went as far as she could in obeying the law – throwing her son into the Nile, as the law technically required – but first preparing a basket for him to float in amongst the reeds. Quite a creative approach to coping with unjust laws.

             Consider Pharaoh's own daughter: along she comes, and feels compassion for the very children her father is out to kill. She arranges for Moses to be nursed and adopted as her own son – the very same Moses who one day would be God's agent to lead Israel out of that Egyptian bondage of slavery.

             All four of these women exercised subversive mothering tactics, godly guerillas that they were. They honoured God's ways and values more than the bent oppressive human system in which they found themselves. Their mothering was instrumental in God's saving of his people.

             We need subversive mothers in North America now just as in Egypt then. Walter Brueggeman is an Old Testament Professor in Georgia. He likens the exile experience of the Jews in Babylon to that of Christians in North America. He says, “Christians and the church are exiles in a secular culture, like the Jews in Babylon who had to practice their faith in an environment that was indifferent, if not hostile. I believe the metaphor of exile is a fair, imaginative description of the crisis in which we find ourselves.” Dr.Brueggeman's analysis is that a crisis in American life has been brought on by the failure of social institutions, resulting in a sense of loss, powerlessness, fear, displacement, and a profound anxiety. He urges Christians to nurture an alternative community that demonstrates the difference between conventional life and what he calls ‘baptismal living’.

             The anniversary of V-E day brings back memories, especially for Dutch people, of the harsh conditions they endured under Nazi rule. Scarcity of food meant people had to live on potatoes for months on end; some had to subsist on tulip bulbs to eat. Fathers joined the underground, secretly co-operating with our own Allied forces to loosen Hitler’s racist death-grip. Mothers helped in other ways, such as running messages for the Resistance, risking abuse and imprisonment if they got caught. Friends – sisters and brothers in Christ– today, even more than in those tense days as the balance of power teetered towards the end of World War II – today we need even more vigilance and resistance that is just as dedicated, just as devoted and willing to risk for the cause of right, if we are to fend off the evil principalities that would entrap society today in the ploys of the Destroyer.

             Mothers have a key role to play (with the Holy Spirit's help) in intentionally nurturing the mind of Christ in children in a society that would only too gladly program them otherwise. Jean Fleming says of this formative role, “The aspect of mothering that excites me most is knowing I am making a permanent difference in my children's lives. I am a woman of influence. I impart values, stimulate creativity, develop compassion, modify weaknesses, and nurture strengths. I can open life up to another individual. And I can open an individual up to life.

             “When I read my child a story I am doing far more than entertaining him. I am expanding his world with language, words, thoughts, and imagination. When I sit beside a child's bed at night to talk and pray, I'm doing far more than cultivating a bedtime ritual. I'm tuning in to what he is thinking, catching up on his day, listening for fears, hopes, and questions. This personal time gives me an opportunity to point him to the Lord Jesus Christ and His relevance to the situations my child faces.”

             She emphasizes the key teaching role a mother has to play in the development of a child's worldview, saying, “God's command to teach our children is an assignment with enough breadth and depth to occupy the talents of the most able woman. It requires full use of her abilities, energy, and resources. But she will find opportunities to teach in every nook and cranny of life – opportunities far more numerous than we might think. So, let's roll up our sleeves and plunge in. We have so much to learn, so much to teach. May God bless our feeble efforts and accomplish his purposes in our children's lives.”

A True Under-Cover Agent

             So mothers, don't be discouraged. You have an indispensable role to play in society – both supporting its good aspects and subverting it when it's off-track. The agents you're training to carry out this mission are your children. God wants to bless you and your family by the results of your noble priorities. Where to begin? Would you believe by pulling your apron over your head?

             Suzanna Wesley was the mother of 19 children, including John and Charles Wesley. These latter two had a profound impact on English and world society. Suzanna learned the secret of under-cover operations. Once she was asked how, with so many children, she could find a place alone to pray. She said, “Often I just pull my apron over my head and it becomes my prayer closet.”

             Let's start there – with prayer, seeking the Lord’s direction on how to raise up godly offspring that may affect dozens, hundreds, even thousands as the Wesley brothers and the Methodist movement did. Then perhaps not just your husband and children, but future generations, will rise up and call you blessed. Let’s pray.