Mommy 9-1-1
Lamentations 4:1-4
Reality TV has become an icon of our culture. From Survivor parties to Fear Factor reruns, our culture has embraced the genre of reality TV, and now we can add to the list Nanny 911, and Supernanny, two reality shows whose premise is for parents with uncontrollable children to call in English nannies to help them solve their problems with their children. The official press release from the Fox Network’s Nanny 911 reads:
NANNY 911, a new unscripted series that follows a team of nannies armed with the dos and don’ts of child-rearing. Each nanny has a specific area of expertise, ranging from proper etiquette to controlling temper tantrums, and all are ready to help exhausted parents tackle the issues creating chaos in their home and whip their families into tip-top shape.
Are our families out of shape? As we survey the landscape of our culture, many would answer, “Yes, our families are out of shape.” They might look to last week’s Shreveport Times and call attention to an article about two missing children in Shreveport and Bossier as evidence that our families are out of shape. Those people might also reference the increasing amount of drug and alcohol abuse among our teenagers as evidence that our families are out of shape. They might also point to the high number of unwed pregnancies, or to the sky-rocketing rate of single parent families as sure signs that our families are out of shape. If they are out of shape, the proper call is not to Nanny 911, but rather to Mommy 911. Mothers are the ones who have the strength and ability to reshape the home and the family, and I wonder if it is not time to make that emergency call.
I have chosen a difficult passage of Scripture for this morning’s message. The passage is from Lamentations, and Lamentations are the laments of the weeping prophet Jeremiah. The words are born out of the bitterest tears of Jeremiah as he sits and watches his beloved Jerusalem laid siege by King Nebucadnezzer of Syria. But there is also a great rebuke in the tear-stained words of the prophet—a rebuke that is sharp and biting. The words are a rebuke directed at the most unexpected target.
What is the target of the prophet’s rebuke? The words of rebuke are not directed at some worthless father. In this age of absentee fathers, the experts tell us it is quite alright for children to be raised in home without a father, and we have come to accept it as much as the norm of a father in the home. Clovis Chappel tells the story in one of his old sermons of Little Johnny who had a dearly loved dog named Laddie. One day, while Johnny was at school, Laddie got into the street and paid the ultimate penalty for his mistake. Johnny’s mother was terribly distressed for she knew how much the old dog meant to Johnny. She lamented how she might tell him in a tender and loving way. Finally, she determined that the best way was to simply tell him the truth. So, when Johnny came home from school, she quite timidly said, “Johnny, Laddie was killed today.” To her surprise he said, “He was?” and then went on upstairs to play. Johnny’s sister was upstairs, and she began to give Johnny the details of the tragedy. All at once there was a loud wail from the upstairs, and Johnny came running back downstairs with tears streaming down his face. “Why are you crying so over what Sister told you when you didn’t seem to mind when I told you that Laddie was dead?” Struggling to speak through the tears, Johnny said, “I thought you said ‘Daddy’.”
But the prophet’s words are not for the fathers, but for the mothers. Jeremiah was a prophet, and prophets were called to say things that were biting and hard to hear. You must know that these words are indeed difficult for me to read, especially on this special day. This is Mother’s Day, the day we have set aside to honor her whose love is about the most beautiful and enriching that this world knows. This is a sentimental day when we are ready to let our tears flow freely as we remember with sweet joy she who held us, rocked us, and loved us to maturity. These words are out of place, jarring us to our foundation, and they arouse in us a little bit of antagonism and make us wonder if they are not just a little sacrilegious.
For it to be otherwise would dishonor us, and it would dishonor our mothers. To be jarred by the prophet’s words speaks of the loyalty we have toward our mothers. But Jeremiah’s words remind us of what we are prone to forget, and that is that motherhood in itself is neither a badge of goodness or greatness. A person can easily forget that motherhood is one of the deepest and sweetest secrets of human blessedness that God ever whispered. Unfortunately, some never heard the whisper, or they have forgotten they heard it, and it is to those women that Jeremiah directs his words.
What was the charge of Jeremiah against these mothers in Jerusalem? It was not the charge of unfaithfulness to their marriage. He didn’t charge them with being gossips, or of spending all their time at the beauty parlor, or of spending too much time at the club, or with the girls. No, but the charge he brought could include all those. He charged them with the crime of cruelty. Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness” Lament. 4:3 (KJV).
It amazes us as we sit remembering our sweet mothers that any mother could ever be cruel to her own children. We hate the images we see in our minds eye as we here news reports of mother’s who locked their children away in cages for disobedience, allowing them to waste away from malnutrition, and we ask, “How can a mother do such a thing?” There are a good number of vices in our world that we kind of turn a deaf ear to, but cruelty is not one of them. The gospel of Jesus Christ had caused the us to grow more sensitive till the sight of open cruelty makes us burn with indignation.
I spoke of a recent article in the Shreveport Times. In that article we are told that one of the mothers was charged with “cruelty to a juvenile” in the unexplained disappearance of her 21-month-old child. The baby was found unharmed (thank God!), but they have no idea how she got to the vacant house where she was found. It is thoughtless to us that a mother could be cruel to her own children.
What is the nature of their cruelty that Jeremiah speaks of? Strangely enough, Jeremiah doesn’t charge them with any positive cruelty upon their children. They were not inflicting any harm or danger upon their children, were not even putting them is harm’s way, to work in sweat shops or prostitute themselves.
So what was it that raised Jeremiah’s anger? Jeremiah likened these mother’s actions to the ostrich. The Bible doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of the ostrich because the ostrich buries her eggs in the dirt and leaves them. Jeremiah is speaking here of the cruelty of neglect. This is the mother who simply cannot be bothered. She is too busy with social engagements and having a good time, and yes, even making a living that she simply can’t be bothered with such small matters as her children.
Compare the mother that Jeremiah laments to what Ruth Bell Graham said of her children:
"If I cannot give my children a perfect mother I can at least given them more of the one they’ve got — and make that one more loving. I will be available, I will take time to listen, time to play, time to be home when they arrive from school, time to counsel and encourage."
Ruth Bell Graham’s words demonstrate the antithesis of Jeremiah’s rebuke. The first request of the Mommy 911 call is for time. Children need their mother’s time first and foremost, and if we would “whip our families” into shape it will be as mother’s and father’s give time to their children.
Why were these mothers neglecting their children? Not because they deliberately sought the harm of their children. Not because they wanted their children to suffer. What mother ever wants her child to suffer? Almost every mother wants only the best for her children, so what could be behind this neglect? I want to mention three possibilities.
First, these mothers failed to recognize the supreme value of children. Jeremiah says these mothers were taking the children, worth their weight in gold, and treating them like pots of clay (v. 2). Napolean Bonaparte is credited with saying, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Jeremiah knew that the nation that fails to give the child first place is headed for disaster. The disaster of Jerusalem was evident to Jeremiah as he sat weeping over the city. These laments foreshadow in a magnificent way our loving Savior sitting on a hillside outside Jerusalem looking down over his beloved city and crying:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me” Matthew 23:37 (NLT).
How many of us are crying over the shape of our families today?
And we, so much more than these people whom Jeremiah targeted with his rebuke, should see the value in our children. Why? Because we have the example of Jesus Christ. When his disciples wanted to know who was the greatest in the kingdom, what did Jesus do? He took a child and set it in their midst. It was Jesus who said that the angels of heaven had charge of these little ones. And it was Jesus who said it would be better if a millstone were hung around a person’s neck than to cause one of his little ones to be offended. That is the view Jesus has of children.
So what makes the children so supremely important? It is a spiritual answer, my friend. The child is the essence of faith and trust. They trust innocently and completely, and are quite content to depend on others for their needs. Notice I said they were the essence of faith and trust. I did not say the essence of obedience. They have much to teach us adults who have learned to trust only in our own devices, and in so doing, miss the depth of joy that comes from depending fully upon Christ.
Secondly, these mothers may have failed to realize the terrible tragedy that is born of neglect. The media of our culture provides ample evidence that this is true of some mothers today. It is easy for us to recognize the deadliness of physical neglect. We know what happens to an infant left alone. It dies. We know what happens to a child lock away in a room, or a closet, or heaven forbid, a cage. It dies from lack of attention. Neglect in the physical realm spells disaster. Any sentence passed on a mother who treats her children in such a way we feel to be well deserved.
But there are hungers that go beyond the physical. Our children hunger for the Bread of Life, and they are thirsty for the life-giving waters of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah tells us:
The parched tongues of their little ones stick with thirst to the roofs of their mouths. The children cry for bread, but no one has any to give them (v. 4).
McDonald’s cheeseburgers and Perky’s Pizza will never quench the real hunger of our children, and Kool-aid Jammers and Powerade will never quench the thirst of our children. The hunger and thirst of our children is born out of their faith and trust, and it is the hunger and thirst for spiritual and moral training, and it is just that training that is missing from so many homes today. Even those of us in the church are often negligent in quenching the hunger and thirst of our children.
The cost of that negligence cannot be estimated. We are called as parents to give that moral and spiritual training. Widespread moral breakdown occurs when there is a lack of spiritual and moral training, and that training must begin in the home. The moral and spiritual training of the children has historically been the specialty of the mother.
Abraham Lincoln once said that everything he learned in life that was meaningful he learned from his mother. On the night he was elected President of the United States he refused to allow anyone to announce the results of the election until he had wired his mother with the news and he was certain she received it.
Finally, I believe some mothers fail to recognize the rewards for the mother willing to pay the price that motherhood involves. The greatest things a mother can do is love and train her children. What are the rewards that come from being a mother? There is the reward of learning to be like Christ. What do I mean? I mean it is costly to be a mom. Mary, the mother of Jesus stood by the cross and watched her son die. Clovis Chappel said the “place of motherhood at its best is beside the cross.” But lest we weep, we must realize that this daily dying to self for her children is the most Christ-like example most children ever receive.
A schoolteacher asked a boy this question: Suppose your mother baked a pie and there were six of you — your mother, your father and four children. What percentage of the pie would you get?
"One-fifth," replied the boy.
The teacher responded, "I’m afraid you don’t know your fractions. Remember, there are six of you."
"I know,” said the boy, "but you don’t know my mother. She would say she didn’t want any pie so we could have more."
The sacrifice of the mother, through her daily giving to her family, compels us to rise up and call her blessed.
There is also the reward of raising strong sons and daughters. I am reminded of a certain mother. She is a slave, but one day, she gives birth to a beautiful son. A death sentence is passed by the ruler on all male children, but this mother cannot allow it. For three months she hides her son, and then one day she takes a basket and lines it with pitch and prayer, places that baby boy in the basket and sets it afloat in the river. It’s not long until that infant, sentenced to death, is back in the arms of its mother. For a few short years, she loves him and trains him. He is eventually taken from her home, but because of her faithfulness we are able to read these words:
“It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” Hebrews 11:24 (NLT).
It was Moses’ own faith, but he learned that faith at his mother’s knee. So shall we!
A call placed to Mommy 911 will be the call that “whips our families into shape. A call to Mommy 911 will be the call that builds a moral and spiritual foundation in our families. A call to Mommy 911 will be the call that brings lasting rewards into eternity. We don’t need Nanny 911, we don’t even need Supernanny. We need mothers who realize their God-given grace to love their children. We need Mommy 911.
This sermon is a contemporary adaptation of a sermon by Clovis Chappel from his Sermons for Special Days. I gratefully acknowledge Rev. Chappel’s gifted communication style as I adapt this sermon to a contemporary audience.
