About Being a Mom
Luke 11:27 – 28
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael Harvey Koplitz
Luke 11:27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised
her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that carried You, and the breasts at
which You nursed!” 28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the
word of God and follow it.”
In Luke chapter 11, verses 27 and 28, we have a short transition narrative that deals
with the role of women being moms in the Scripture. Jesus responded by taking the
mother's beatitude about his mother, Mary, and expanding it into following God’s
word. Preachers usually talk about following the word of God and concentrating on
verse 28. However, I want to take a look at the implications of verse 27 because I think
there’s a lot there that we can look at.
Animal instinct tells us that moms are driven to do whatever they have to do to protect
their children. I like watching videos of lions in the African wildlife preserves. It is
wonderful what lionesses will do for their young. It is also impressive to watch what
other female animals do for their young, even risking their lives to save their children.
With humans it’s a bit different, but the same concept is still there. Okay, that sounds
like an oxymoron. What I mean is someone is not going to try to eat children, but rather
we have to protect children from elements of our society. There are people out there
that have kidnapped children and placed them into situations that are just horrific. And
mothers try very hard to protect their children. They have to because our society has
changed so much.
Let me expand on that just for a moment. When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s, I
lived in the town of Rosedale, which is in the borough of Queens in New York City.
My mother would just tell us in the summer to get out of the house and not come back
until lunch, and then after lunch she would tell us to leave and not come back until
dinner. She had no concept of what we were doing. However, the dangers that we have
today didn’t exist, at least in my little part of the world.
I remember at seven years old going to the Valley Stream Mall with several guys. We
actually rode our bicycles about 1 mile (1.61 km) to the mall. We would lock up our
bicycles on a bicycle rack and rummage through the mall. Back then Macy’s was on one
end of the mall and Gimbels was on the other. Malls like this still exist today, but many
are being torn down and turned into town centers. On summer days when it was very
hot, we went into Macy’s or Goebbels because they had air conditioning. We would
become a disturbance at times and escorted out of the store.
I like going into Gimbels and going to the basement because in the lower level they had
United States stamps on sale. They also had a display window showing all the United
States stamps that they had available for sale. I became a stamp collector, and I loved
going to Gimbels looking at the stamps that I could never own because they were so
expensive. As a side note, I was able to buy almost all the stamps that I wanted as a kid.
Good thing I had an excellent job before I went into ministry.
When Jim Henson created the show Dinosaurs, he had one episode that I really clung
to. In that episode the parents had to take a test to get a license to have children. I truly
wish that they had such a thing for humans back in the 1960s because, being honest
with you, my parents were not exceptional. My mother didn’t care what we did during
the day and never questioned it. My father worked, and when he was home, did not
want to be bothered with his kids; he wanted to sit and watch TV. There were a couple
of times that I can think of in my childhood when it would have been really nice if my
mother would have stepped in to help me. But I’m not going to go through those past
things because it’ll take far too long and is not necessary. What I can say to you is I
learned how not to be a parent by seeing how bad my parents were.
Before I asked my lovely bride to marry me, I did bring up the thoughts in my head
about what kind of mom she would be. She constantly exceeds my expectations of how
a mom should deal with her children. She was fantastic with them throughout all the
years, and now they’re all grown adults with their kids, and she is still fantastic with
them. Furthermore, she is always concerned about their welfare, even though our oldest
has just turned 40 years old. I will also tell you, as the father, I am also still concerned,
but not as deeply as she is. I find that wonderful trait in her, that I wish I would’ve
learned more about, but the model that I had for parents was horrible.
The verse saying, Blessed be Mary, who bore Jesus, tells us how much the church
honored Mary for what she did. Think of how scared she must’ve been when an angel
showed up in her bedroom and said, You will become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She
was betrothed but not yet married, and she was going to give birth to a child who was
not going to be a child of her to-be husband. However, she followed what the angel
said because the angel brought to her the message from God.
I can imagine that Mary was an outstanding mother to Jesus through his formative years
and was with him throughout his ministry. We see her popping in and out of the
Gospels from time to time. We know that she was at the cross and how she was broken,
as she had to watch her son die.
The English name Mary is actually Miriam in the Bible. The names Jesus and Mary came
to us from Aramaic to Greek to German and eventually, with some Latin, to English.
So ,we want to know something about Mary; we can do this by going back to the name
Miriam. The root word that Miriam comes from means strife. It means that Miriam was
going to have to deal with some strife and difficulties in her life. Think of the strife that
Mary went through when she watched what was happening to her son on the cross.
Mary could have turned her eyes away or stayed away from the cross. Rather, she stayed
with her son to the bitter end and was there for him. We should stop and offer a blessing
to all mothers who are dedicated to their children. Unfortunately, there are many
women who shouldn’t have had kids, and I include my mother in that. Of course, if she
didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now, so it’s better for me that I
learned lessons about how not to be a parent and recognize how difficult it is to raise
children. Through all the difficulty of raising children, it is a blessing from God to help
raise a soul and teach them about God.
Blessed be all of you who are moms. I’m also going to include some other people in
this blessing because there are people who may not be biological mothers, but if you
offer a mothering spirit, you are part of the verse 28 that blesses Mary because it also
blesses you. I pray that those of you who are moms and those of you who are, let’s say
acting or adopted moms, continue to take care of the souls that God has entrusted to
you. Help them come to understand the ways of the Lord and the salvation that comes
through an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Be like Mary and be there with
them always. A message to the men is to help the women in your lives that are
mothering others. It is a blessing for men to help women and other people to grow and
learn about the Lord and to reach for the righteousness that comes from following God
through Jesus Christ.
