The Boy With Two Moms.

The boy with two moms.

Let me start off our time together with a simple illustration of a man’s perspective.

This is a JOKE…I thought it was just a tiny bit funny…I also thought it was a uncomfortably true illustration of some extremely rare and perhaps even extinct man’s point of view.

-- One day Adam (of Adam and Eve fame) and his boys were out for a walk and happened upon the Garden of Eden. One of the boys said, “Dad, what is that place?” Adam responded, “Guys, that’s where your mother ate us out of house and home.”

Aren’t you glad that men have changed and that no man would ever really think that way today?

I was searching for God’s seed of inspiration yesterday. I realized that every year I have a lot of trouble getting started on a mother’s day sermon. Not that I don’t know a mother’s love which is a vast topic. Encouragement, hope prayers., comfort and worry. I am blessed to have a mother that lived in a way to demonstrate all these and more. Thing like discipline and direction. I recall the words go get me a switch more clearly than I can recall the physical pain that followed.

So, if I have a full relationship with my mother why in the world would I have any trouble with coming up with a message?

I read an article this week that helped me to find a reason it is called, “Your Mother’s Day sermon, Pastor”. By Joe McKeever. The gist of the article was about his experience meeting with other pastors. As mother’s day approached he would ask his pastoral friends about an upcoming mother’s day sermon. He said that he was surprised to find that so many pastors of all ages have trouble with the subject. He added that his granddaughter reminded him of something that was the core of the problem.

This is what he wrote,

I was pushing my 8-year-old granddaughter Abby in the swing in her front yard, our favorite place. She and her twin Erin had been learning about childbirth from their mother. Abby was not liking what she was learning. “I’m not going to have children, Grandpa,” she said. “It hurts too bad.”

My first thought was to say, “If your mother felt that way, you would not be here. And if your great-grandmothers felt that way, none of us would be here.” But what I said was, “You’re right. It does hurt. But the pain goes away, and you’re left with this beautiful child, and you decide that it was worth it.”

The child looked me square in the eyes and said, “You’re a man. What do you know?”

Rev. McKeever said that he had to admit that she was correct. That the subject of being a mother is one that men are on the outside looking in. That no man can ever really understand what mothers go through physically or emotionally or even the challenges that they go through.

Men can never have a perspective or clear idea to be able to speak well on the subject.

So, I have a choice, ignore the subject or hope that God leads me to speak something meaningful out of manly ignorance.

That led me to consider the scripture we read this morning. It tells of a time when the Israelites were in slavery to Egypt. The people were exploding in number and The Egyptians were afraid of what they might do if Egypt was challenged by an enemy.

They tried to enforce a form of after birth abortion but the mid wives would not participate. The people grew even more.

Eventually, Pharaoh declared that all male children would be thrown into the

Nile River.

The people in power made a decree to protect themselves. Evidentially the people were complying with the order. If they did not I am sure that they would be punished and probably killed. The story picks up with Moses Parents getting married.

Enter in on stage right a Levite couple. They are the parents of Moses. In particular this is where we meet Moses’ birth mother.

She has a male child and it says that she saw that he was a fine/beautiful child.

I will dare to say that most mothers see the beauty and potential of their children immediately on arrival in this world. Moses mother was not different. She did not want to comply with the order and throw her son into the river.

She hides her child for as long as possible from the authorities. I guess for a while she keeps a pillow under her tunic. But she knows that that won’t fool anyone for too long. There will be crying and bathing and at some point overseers will look in on the slave worker.