Mother’s Day Message - Sunday, May 9, 2021
Message on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1aGQ1B_CpA4?t=10
Happy Mother’s Day!
We’re so glad that you have joined us today as we celebrate moms today specifically and women in the church in general.
Today we are celebrating Mothers. We are doing that because, honestly, we have huge respect for Mom’s. We love our Moms. We honour and pray for you, because being a Mom is a high calling, and it is among the most challenging things, in a good way, that a human can undertake. There can be enormous joy in motherhood.
Our daughter Elia became a Mom last year and absolutely loves it. She and hubby Stephen want to have more. There are no words to express our joy at our grandson Stevie. Motherhood is fun, and it is exhausting. Motherhood is full of love, and it is full of barely any sleep.
Motherhood is full of receiving joy from her child, it is full of endless, draining self-giving that doesn’t pause. Motherhood is a thousand other joys and a thousand other loving sacrifices, and like I said, today we celebrate and honour our mothers.
Men can only second-hand at best appreciate all that goes into being a Mom, although being a Dad for sure likewise has its unique challenges. Fathers - you and I will have to wait until Fathers Day to talk about that.
So we are celebrating Moms today. And I thought that today would be a good time also to look at the role of women in the gospels and in the early church. Now, that could easily be a 12 part series, because women played a large role in Jesus’ ministry.
PPT: Women in the Bible
Whether we’re talking about the women who funded Jesus earthly ministry - Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Susanna; and many others, who we find listed in Luke chapter 8, or the women who showed up in the gospels as friends of Jesus, Mary and Martha in John chapter 11.
Or if we’re talking about women who were respected servants of Christ, and leaders in the early church - Priscilla, Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Paul’s dear friend Persis, Rufus’s mom who Paul says was like a mother to him or any number of other women - there’s a whole lot of women who were key in the church and in Christ’s earthly ministry.
Let’s consider for a few moments just a few of the women in the Bible and in the early church who had a great influence on the growth and development of the church.
PPT: Happy mothers Day Banner
First let’s consider the ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ included everyone, male and female, in His ministry. He ministered to men and to women in equal measure. And He ministered through men and women. When you think of it this was a powerful witness to the early church of God’s original design for a mutual partnership of women and men serving and leading together.
In every way, usually against cultural norms of the day, Jesus created a new community of people around Himself that showed harmony and participation between the sexes.
In order to really understand this, and how significant it is, we have to consider something very important about the lot of females, the standing of women in ancient cultures; we need to do this if we’re going to be able to grasp the extent of Jesus' strong affirmation of and inclusion of women in His ministry.
In ancient times, women were considered property, something owned by another, always a male. Property of who? At first they were property of their fathers. Then the ‘ownership’ of the female would transfer to the person who became her husband. That’s as good as it got for women.
There is a lot more detail that I could go into about the profound inequality of women in general in Jesus’ day. Frankly, that detail is just very depressing. The poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable, were widows and then orphans. In those days, the culture was such that if a woman was not “owned”, they were completely powerless and subject to the worst life can offer.
This is perhaps why the Bible defines “true religion” or authentic faith like this in James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
So I think that when we keep that background in mind, the very low status and respect that was given to women in general, it will help us to understand the VERY different way that Jesus treated women, included women, gifted women and empowered women.
We have time today to look at just 3 of the many women that Jesus called to Himself as disciples and who played a key role in Jesus ministry. First off, we have Joanna.
Joanna
As I mentioned briefly earlier, Jesus' entire earthly public ministry was funded by women. A key supporter was Joanna, the wife of Chuza.
Luke 8:1-3 After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susannna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
PPT JOANNA
So Joanna is a woman mentioned in the gospels who was healed by Jesus and later supported him and his disciples in their travels; she was also one of the women recorded in the Gospel of Luke as accompanying Jesus and the twelve, and who was a witness to Jesus' resurrection.
It was commonly taught that women should not socialize with men who were not their relatives, much less travel with them. In fact, Jewish men were to say little to women. Disregarding such traditions, Jesus allowed and encouraged Joanna and the other women to accompany his group of disciples, to be a part of them. Joanna herself risked social disapproval by associating with Jesus and the apostles.
Now, neither Jesus or his apostles did regular work as they went about preaching. Because of this, they didn’t have the means to pay for all the food and other things needed by a group of 20 or often more people.
Although they may have been received in some cases into people’s homes and shown hospitality, the fact that Christ and his apostles carried a “money box” suggests that they did not always rely on hospitality. Joanna, and the other women, covered the cost from their own resources.
So Out of their own means,” Joanna and many other women ministered to Jesus and the Twelve, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Luke is not saying that the women cooked the meals, washed the dishes, and mended the clothes.” Joanna and the other women used their money, goods, or property to provide for Jesus and their other companion in Jesus ministry.
In this way and others Joanna fulfilled her calling in Jesus: She was also, as I said, one of the witnesses at the cross. That’s a little about Joanna. An impressive woman.
Now a bit about Priscilla.
Priscilla
Priscilla and her husband Aquila were a first century Christian missionary married couple. Aquila is traditionally listed among the Seventy Disciples. They lived, worked, and traveled with the Apostle Paul, who described them as his "fellow workers in Christ Jesus".
In her marriage and partnership to Aquilla she provided a presence that strengthened the early Christian churches. Paul was generous in his recognition and acknowledgment of his indebtedness to both them. He said “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Romans 16:3–4.
Together, they are credited with instructing Apollos, a major evangelist of the first century, and explaining to him the way of God more accurately. That means that together, Priscilla and Aquila taught Apollos the fullness of the gospel (Acts 18:26).
It is thought by some to be possible, in light of her important role, that Priscilla was an elder in the church. Interestingly when people are trying to figure out who wrote the Book of Hebrews, or the Epistle to the Hebews, Priscilla's name is floated as the possible author. Now that is conjecture, of course, but it is very possible.
Some suggest that Priscilla was the author of the book of Hebrews, but that her name was omitted either to suppress its female authorship, or to keep the letter itself from suppression.
The cultural prejudice against women was so strong that even the early church may have not been able to acknowledge her authorship of the book, for practical reasons. In that culture that did not respect women in general, those receiving the letter even in the church may not have been taken seriously. Sad to say.
Luke in his gospel clearly shows Priscilla's activity in ministry and her interdependent relationship with her husband. She is certainly not Aquila’s property – as was customary as I mentioned earlier, in Greco-Roman society – but rather she was his full partner in ministry and marriage.
Of the 7 times Paul mentions this couple in the New Testament, he states Priscilla’s name first 5 times, followed by Aquila. At the very least this suggests that she had an equal standing in the church to her husband.
She is often thought to have been the first example of a female preacher or teacher in early church history.
Junia
Junia is mentioned just once in the New Testament, near the end of the Book of Romans. In Romans 16:7 Paul writes of 2 of his partners in the most glowing terms: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was”.
Let me point something out. If that read “Andronicus and Apollos”, or Peter and Paul”, or “Andrew and Levi” having been in Paul’s company in prison Paul AND that they are outstanding among the Apostles, that would not raise an eye, and of course it would be accepted at face value. They were outstanding among the apostles, they were exceptional Apostles, they were counted among the Apostles. They were awesome apostles. It simply follows.
But because Paul wrote this: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16:7, and because the idea of a female Apostle just doesn’t sit well with a lot of men because of the way they read the Scriptures, or because of personal bias against women in leadership, the meaning this passage passage is argued.
Often. “It must mean something else”, I hear men say. “Let’s say it’s ambiguous and say that it just means the apostles liked them a lot”. I hear that a lot. It doesn’t wash with me one bit. Junia was an outstanding example of an Apostle.
That’s all I’ll say about that for now.
So I haven’t had time to mention Mary and Martha, Jesus’ own mother Mary, a couple of other Marys, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Mary Magdalene and Persis. Phoebe, a deacon of the early church. There are just SO MANY women who were faithful followers of Jesus. And as with the men they were given spiritual gifts in order to serve the church. Their gifts were teaching, proclaiming, serving, prophesying, leading, financing...you name it.
And as with the men, they grew in their faith, were found faithful in small things and were thus trusted with greater things. They did what we must do as followers of Christ: they demonstrated a long obedience in the same direction. And so they earned for themselves the honour and recognition of being among the earliest followers of Jesus and leaders in the church.
And to be honest, in my experience over my years in ministry, I have found that women in leadership positions in the church excel in their love for God, their grasp and application of Scripture, their desire for connection with the body of Christ, and their passion for following Jesus. That’s just as plain as day to me. I have so many examples that I could of this truth.
So may we honour the women in our midst as the body of Christ.
We honour the women who attend our fellowship, who serve our congregation. We honour the women who lead in our Bible studies. You know who you are. We honour our female pastors who love us and lead us so well. We honour our Elders, most of them female, who love and care for and pray for each of us. We honour the older women who have raised their children and still their lives are focussed largely on their kid’s troubles and their well-being. You know who you are.
We honour the young moms struggling and loving and holding fast to their children and their faith in Jesus. We honour the spiritual moms among us who may or may not have raised their own kids from the cradle but who nevertheless care for and disciple and nurture others in life and faith. And We honour women. We just do. We honour you and we esteem you and you will forever have a place to love, to heal, to serve, to lead at this local body of believers that folks refer to as Church at the Mission.
May we all - including the men who are listening - practice honouring God by honouring the women that He created by His own purpose and foreknowledge. Mothers, women...be blessed today as you are celebrated at home and in the church, to the glory of God. In The name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
