Trust Your Mother’s Teaching
Have you ever received really, really good advice about something you were struggling with? You had no idea what to do, no framework even to decide on the next step, and then you shared your problem with someone and they gave you good advice?
When I thought about this question, my first answer was, ‘No, I can’t think of any time I got good advice and made a good decision’. Then I thought, ‘that can’t be’.
Then I realized that over the years I’ve received all kinds of good advice leading to good decisions, but I don’t know if I’ve ever given credit to the people who steered me in the right direction.
I think I figured it was my call, my decision, my action that led to such and such a good result.
That, in a nutshell, is a key reason we often don’t show enough gratitude to or appreciation of our parents. We receive all kinds of guidance, and wisdom and loving care.
We’re messed up by them, yes of course. And they’re miles from perfect. Yes we know that too. But by them we’re given a framework with which to interpret the world and understand ourselves and others. When they fail, we find that in others who become to us surrogate or replacement parents.
When it’s done right, that framework becomes who we are.
Hang on, you might say. Those are my values! That’s my way of thinking! That’s my way of voting! That’s my attitude to people in need! That’s my way to handle money, to deal with stress, to handle betrayal, to deal with failure or defeat.
[Buzzing noise] Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We learn it. We learn it all. And the earliest learning comes from our primary caregiver, and our primary caregiver is usually our mom. [Pause]
Now we may stray. We may make some unbelievably dumb choices that our mother would never have approved of. We do that because we don’t remain children. We grow up and we grow beyond being led by the hand by the one that bore us.
And we make choices often to distinguish ourselves from our parents, to prove to ourselves that we’re our own people. Sometimes those are just necessary calls we make. Sometimes they’re really dumb. Sometimes they are good.
But we’re profoundly influenced, usually, by our parents. Today’s passage is a general warning about avoiding immoral behavior, but it’s also a good general rule of thumb to follow:
Proverbs 6:20 My son, keep your father's commands and do not forsake your mother's teaching. 21 Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck. 22 When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. 23 For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, NIV
I’ve mentioned here before how one of my earliest memories is my mom saving my life, literally.
Cramped into a VW Van as a 3-year old, after being driven for hours and hours in Mexico, the side door sliding open, me bounding out of the van and running, running, running until my mom screamed my name out loud. Stopping in my tracks, no idea what was wrong.
Mom comes up to me and takes my hand and leads me just a little further along the path I had been running to this massive, seemingly bottomless gorge that I had been seconds from falling into, falling to my death into.
I gotta say, that likely made me realize that it’s a good thing to listen to mom.
Dropping out of school (being kicked out actually) when I was 16, my mom encouraged me to return to school for one last semester to see if it would work out in a new school; this was against the advice of my best friends at the time who believed school was for losers.
Did what she said. Found God while there. Discovered music while there. Mom’s advice is why I’m here today in a church I love that’s part of a mission I love, serving God who I love married to the woman I love with great kids that I love.
That was mom’s advice. I acted on it, yes. But if she hadn’t given it, my life would have gone a totally different direction. I shutter to think of the direction I was heading.
The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom literature. Ancient societies, before people in general could read and write, in ancient societies elders would often write down the most important truths and values, key lessons for life.
Often these lessons had to do with families, so the proverbs are often from father to son or from mother to son. Of course the proverbs apply just as well to daughters. I encourage you to read the book of Proverbs on your own time. There’s a treasure of understand in this book.
The book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon who was considered to be the wisest man on the planet. People would come from all over to hear his wisdom. Let’s look at this section of proverbs.
The word translated ‘keep’ here is a softening of the original Hebrew that also meant ‘guard’ and ‘watch over’ your father’s command.
The phrase ‘do not forsake’ here also includes the sense of ‘do not leave, do not reject, do not cast off’.
Keep, forsake. Keep, forsake. Those are our basic choices. Those are our choices when it comes to our parents, our moms and dads, and those are the choices when it comes to God.
Who here has ever moved from a large place to a smaller place? If you have then you know that you had to make tough choices.
What to keep, what to throw out. Usually it comes down to what you treasure the most, what has impacted you the most.
The challenge from this proverb is to hold on to the best wisdom, the best advice, the wisest council. Keep your father’s commands.
The word ‘command’ in this passage is mitzvah (you’ve heard of a bar- or bat- mitzvah). It can refer to human or divine commands. Ideally when the human affirms the divine.
Why does the book of Proverbs encourage us to hang on to the best commands? Wouldn’t we just do that naturally?
The truth is the best commands are often the toughest. Love God, love people. Live a holy life, live a life of virtue. These commands struggle against my innate selfishness, my desire to get what I want when I want it.
So we’re challenged to keep and not discard the commands of our parents that honour the commands of God.
We’re told to guard and watch over the place these commands have in our lives, to bind them to us, to walk day to day with a deep awareness of them.
Here’s why. Life is hard. Really, really hard.
The commands of God, expressed through the lives of godly parents, and even when our parents don’t know God, yet have wisdom to share (all true wisdom is from God any way), these commands are an anchor for our souls.
It is hard to walk a straight and narrow path. Anyone here found it easy to walk a righteous path? Of course not. It is tough. ‘When you walk, they will guide you’.
Who here has struggled with bad dreams resulting in some way from bad choices you made?
Staying in a destructive relationship. Getting wasted and doing stupid things.
Who here has laid awake at night regretting your choices, regretting this mistake, reliving this bad call, trying to fix what happened in your mind…in vain of course.
When we live God’s way, when we follow his commands and follow wisdom, we very simply make better choices. Much better choices. Choices that don’t haunt us.
Choices that don’t poke at our conscience, that don’t make us live in regret. ‘When you sleep, (the commands) will watch over you’. You will sleep well knowing you have done well. That’s a priceless gift.
Likewise when we awake to a new day, we can awake looking forward to what is to come rather than spending our waking ours regretting the things we’ve done that we cannot change. [Pause]
But here’s the thing. We’re told to heed the commands of God, and to keep guard over the good commands of our moms and dads.
And we should aspire to this wisdom. But if we’re honest, we can aspire all we want. We’ll still fall short.
We’re not called to obey God’s commands in order to earn ourselves right standing with God. We don’t, we can’t earn anything.
If anyone tells you a person can get to heaven or be in right relationship with God based on their own merit, their own righteousness, you can politely tell them that they are gravely mistaken.
The commands of God, and our inability to fulfill those commands point so, so clearly to our need for a Saviour.
Someone who will stand in the gap. Someone who will pay the price when we fall short as we so often do. Someone who will lift us up when we fall. Someone who will love us no matter what.
That’s what Jesus came to do. He came to be your Saviour, to be the One who would live a perfect life, really almost in demonstration of how we cannot live a perfect life.
And then that perfect man would go to the cross and suffer so that when we fall, when we fail God, when we fail our parents, when we fail ourselves, we have an advocate.
We have One who stands in our place. One who takes our guilt and failure upon himself and returns to us beauty for the ashes we are able to give Him. Thanks be to God for Jesus. Amen?
You know, I love my mom. I loved my dad. Each of them are precious to me. Each of them messed me up in some ways.
But more importantly each of them did their best to pass on to me their best thinking, their greatest wisdom.
My father is gone now. Did I thank you for the condolences and for the huge number of you who came to his memorial service? Thank you. Thank you. I felt God’s strength in your presence with me on that very difficult day.
Now it’s just my mom. And I love my mom. I’m what you call a fiercely devoted son. My mom’s well-being and her happiness and her relationship with God are among the very most important things to me.
I give thanks for my mother, Eleanor Parker. What an amazing and dignified and beautiful person she is.
I give thanks today for all moms.
May we keep and not forsake wise commands and wise instruction. May such wisdom be bound upon our hearts forever.
May we see the commands of God, the Word of God, for what it is, a light unto our path and a lamp unto our feet, and may we always look to Jesus, the Word made flesh, God who imparts wisdom and strength, patience and love to our wonderful moms.
Amen.
