Sunday's Sermon@Highlands

People often talk about the Bible as a patriarchal document, a story of women as property, chattel, poorly treated and marginalized. There certainly is some of that. But, on this Mother’s Day, let’s see it for what it is; a book filled with courageous, determined, loving mothers, mothers of Biblical proportions.

Except for the myth that Eve is Mother of all of us, the first mother making an appearance in the Bible becomes, ironically, the mother of Islam. Ever notice that? The first mother in the Bible is Hagar. Hagar is an Egyptian slave girl serving Abraham and Sarah. Sarah can’t have children and so she suggests to her husband that he have a child with the slave girl. "Behold now,’ says Sarah, “the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." So, Abraham “went in to her.” Hagar becomes pregnant and Sarah has second thoughts.

When Sarah looks upon the slave girl as her belly grows rounder by the day, her resentment cannot be contained. Sarah deals harshly with the pregnant slave girl who will give birth to Abraham’s child. Hagar flees Abraham’s home but an Angel of the Lord sends her back, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her." The angel of the LORD assured, "I will greatly multiply your descendants that they cannot be numbered.” Doesn’t that sound much like the promise God made to Abraham?

Behold, the Angel of the Lord continued, you shall bear a son; you shall call his name Ishmael.” Then the Angel says, “He shall be a wild ass of a man, (how reassuring that must have been). 

Hagar returns. Ishmael is born. God then wills that the very elderly Sarah becomes pregnant. She gives birth to Isaac. The two boys play together. Sarah’s jealousy burns and she casts Hagar and her son into the desert. Hagar fears her young son will die but the angel reappears and assures her that not only will he live but that God will make of him a great nation. Thus, Islam is born from the same Abrahamic roots as Judaism and later Christianity.

Then there were the women who defied the Pharaoh’s order to kill all the male Hebrew babies. Pharaoh orders that all the male babies be killed at birth. The midwives refuse his order. So, the king of Egypt called the midwives, and said to them, "Why do I see so many male Hebrew babies playing around here? Why have you done this? Why are these boys even alive?

The midwives lay it on the strength and the physical makeup of the Hebrew wives. They said to Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are done delivering their babies before the midwife comes to them." So, God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God he gave them families.” 

Moses, the liberator of the Hebrew people is saved when his mother hid him a basket along the Nile where he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who risked her life and arranges to have the mother of Moses nurse the child and because of these mothers and daughters, Moses lives, frees the slaves and leads them to the promised land, where along the way, he meets God on Mt. Sinai and receives the 10 Commandments, one of which says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.”

There was Hannah whose great faithfulness led her to dedicate her son Samuel to God’s service, She conceived a child name Samuel, who became one of the great prophets of Israel, helping it transition from the time of the prophets to the era of the kings. Praising God Hannah prayed, "My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in the LORD.

Next is tragedy of Bathsheba. She conceives a child when King David raped her. The text is unclear about whether she ever knew that the King had her husband killed to cover up his crime. But, after a period of mourning, she comes to the palace and becomes one of David’s wives.

As if the story needed to get sadder, because of David’s great sin, 2^nd Samuel says, “the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David,” and Bathsheba’s baby dies. The scripture then focusses on David’s grief and says nothing of Bathsheba’s. After a period of time, “David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the LORD,” we are told, “loved him.”

Bible readers hear nothing more about Bathsheba but, we do learn about the kind of man Solomon became and it seems fair to say that Solomon did not get his wisdom and good, high character from his father.

 

One day, two women, whom the Bible says were prostitutes, came to the king and stood before him and put his wisdom and character to the test. As I thought about this story and researched commentaries on it, I found a preacher who used this story to say that in our world there are good mothers who care about their children and bad mothers who do not. I seethed.

It’s the sort of thing I ran into from judges and prosecutors, social workers, legislators and others when I was the director of the Wyoming Department of Family Services. Many of them had some version of identifying some mothers as bad, uncaring. Well, yes, I met a lot of mothers who had hard times caring for their children but I never met one who didn’t love their children. I met many who because of addiction or mental illness or because they had been abandoned by the men who impregnated them, could not adequately provide for their children but I never met one who didn’t love their child.

And so, it was with the women standing in front of Solomon, the son of Bathsheba and David. I don’t know why the writer goes out of his way to identify these mothers as prostitutes; adds nothing to the story. They are mothers and are there because they love their children and are seeking Solomon’s help in untangling a dispute. A terrible thing has happened. The two women shared a house. They each gave birth at about the same time. There is no indication that the fathers of either child are in the picture.

There is a terrible accident. One of the mothers rolls over on her baby as they slept. The baby is smothered to death. In her grief, that mother makes a terrible decision. She substitutes the dead baby for the living child of her friend. An argument ensues between the two women and they go to Solomon to decide the matter. One woman said, “The living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.” The other answered, “No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.” No paternity tests are available; just the wisdom of the son of Bathsheba.

Solomon asked that a sword be brought to him. Since the women disagree and there is no way for Solomon to know the truth, each of the women will get one-half of the child. The king believes he knows who the mother is by her willingness to sacrifice the child to the other woman rather than having her child harmed.

The Bible stories are filled with stories about mothers; mothers who endure, mothers who sacrifice, mothers who deceive, mothers who answer God’s call, mothers with patience, faith, strength, mothers who believe in their children and in their God.

The Bible would tell a far different story if not for these women. Yes, the Bible has been used by church leaders to put women in their place on the margins of the life of the church. Throughout the Bible, the text refers to he and his and men and sons.

Proverbs is a great example. Readers are warned to beware of the evil seductress, but the reverse doesn’t occur: never does the book warn women to beware of a male seducer, men like King David. The authors say living with a contentious woman is terrible. Proverbs praises a “noble wife.” She is wise, benevolent, hard-working, an entrepreneur, and loved by her sons and husband. Daughters are not mentioned. There is no counterpart to the “noble wife” text.

It is not just the OT. 1 Timothy 2. The author is discussing worship and begins by stating that “men should pray” and “women should dress themselves modestly and decently.” But, we should not take the understandings of thousands of years ago and cut and paste them on out times. We know better. We know how much less the church would be without the full participation of women.

We know how much less the Bible would be without the stories of the mother whose son who became Islam, the mother whose son formed the roots of Judaism and Christianity, the mother who save Moses so that he could deliver the Israelites from Pharaoh, the mother of the last Prophet of Israel and Bathsheba who gave life to the great King Solomon.

Gender equality may not have been the norm two or three millennia ago, but it is essential to answering God’s call and we should all be thankful we are a part of a faith community that honors the contributions of the women around us. The Bible story would not be complete without the contributions of courageous, brave, wise, faithful women and neither would be the church.