It's All About Who?

It’s All About Who?

The Issue of Selfishness, And How Mothers Teach Us The Right Way To Live

May 8, 2005 1 Samuel 1:19-28

Intro:

A Spanish proverb reads “An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.”

“Legally, a husband is the head of the house and a pedestrian has the right of way. Both are perfectly safe and within their rights as long as they do not try to confirm it!” - George E. Bergman.

“The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she’d have children if she had it to do over again. “Yes,” she replied. “But not the same ones.” - Reader’s Digest.

“No man is poor who has had a godly mother.” - A. Lincoln

“One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she may be ill, or that something serious had happened. He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?" She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did today?"

"Yes" was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn’t do it."

It’s All About You?????

Two weeks ago I promised that today I would continue our series on critical issues in our world by talking about a Christian perspective on death and dying. Then I realized that it is Mother’s Day, and if I kept that promise I might be able to speak on that topic from personal experience… So instead I want to talk about a different issue.

Can I begin by venting a little? There is a phrase, which I keep seeing everywhere, which really drives me nuts. It’s the phrase, “It’s All About You.” It keeps cropping up, in marketing places everywhere. I first got offended by it at Bonnie Doon Mall, as the key phrase of their –get this – Christmas marketing campaign. You know, Christmas, the season of giving gifts to others – well that was now “all about you” and about giving yourself a present – and how backwards is that? I saw it on a billboard the other day, I think for another mall. Last Christmas I got a free CD from the Christian bookstore because I spent more than a certain amount of money – it was a Christmas CD, about Jesus coming to earth, subtitled – “It’s All About You”. The incarnation of the God of the Universe, to bring the Kingdom of God to earth, and guess what – it is all about me! I even saw it recently in an advertisement for a Christian conference, as part of the “conference overview”. The reason it bothers me so much is because it is so completely and totally false. Nothing is “all about me”, and the more I try to make it “all about me” the more miserable I’ll become.

A Sane Institution In An Insane World:

I thank God that we still have one sane institution in an insane world – motherhood. Perhaps the only place where self-giving, self-sacrificing, self-denial is still respected, admired, and celebrated. And I know some of you will even question that, from your own experience, but in our larger society I think the observation holds.

The one group in our society that knows, better than any other, that “It’s all about you” is a big lie, is mothers. Moms know that is a lie when they get up at 3am to feed a screaming baby, when they wash the 10th load of laundry of the day, when their main hope of the day is to be able to brush their teeth before noon, when they spend more time in the car driving kids around than they do in bed asleep, and when they lie awake worrying because it is midnight and the teenager hasn’t come home yet.