Sermon Starters: Mother's Day

I'm preaching tomorrow, d.v. It's Mother's Day, which takes precedence for us of course as American low church types. In Christian time, we're still in Eastertide. In fact this coming Thursday is Ascension Day, forty days after Easter. What to do, what to do?

The women of Easter?

Faithful Women
Text: Matthew 27:54-56; 28:1-10

1. Women were an important part of Jesus' story!

• Begin with some not so wonderful thoughts on women from ancient authors--Sirach, for example, a bad man is better than a righteous woman. Or the rabbis--glad I wasn't born as a ... or a woman...
• But notice the women in the gospels, especially Luke. Women traveled around Galilee with Jesus--they were the ones that supported his ministry materially (Luke 8:1-3). While others were enjoying their loaves and fishes, they were feeding Jesus!
• The women had followed him to Jerusalem, again, to take care of his needs (Matthew 27:55-56).
• These were the women that first saw Jesus after the resurrection (Matthew 28:8-10; John 20:10-18).
• Some of the male storytellers of the resurrection left them out (1 Cor. 15), BUT GOD DIDN'T!

2. These women followed and obeyed although they did not understand any more than the twelve and were afraid.

• John 19:25-27 Jesus' mother, Mary, is there at the cross--scary place to be. Except for John, where are the other disciples? Mary is there.
• The composite picture we get of Mary throughout is one of someone who wants to steer her son in the right direction. She thinks she knows what's best for him, but she also has an open mind.
• She corrects him for staying behind at the temple when he's 12 (Luke 2:48-51), but she still ponders his explanation in her heart.
• So she tries to pull him from the crowds--she doesn't think he's barking up the right tree (Mark 3:31-35).
• BUT she is there at the cross. Should we not see her in the background of Jesus' brother James' eventual belief?

• Matthew 28:8--the women are afraid BUT filled with joy, ran to tell
• Mark 16:8--Mark as it is leaves us hanging, will they not tell? This accentuates our sense of their terror.
• John 20:13--see how distraught Mary Magdalene is
• BUT where are the disciples?
• They are at the tomb. Peter and John only go because the women tell them about the tomb! They are the first to bear witness to the resurrection; they are in a sense the first apostles (where an apostle is someone sent to bear witness to the resurrection)

3. Women were important witnesses to the new covenant.

• Aside from Mary M. and the others, Junias appears to be an apostle in the fuller sense (Romans 16:7).
• The fact that women prophesy alongside men is a sign of the age of the new covenant (Acts 2:18).
• The coming of the Spirit is the coming of the new covenant (Heb. 8:8-12; Jer. 31:31-34; 2 Cor. 3:7-18; Rom. 2:15). So in Christ there is neither male nor female, for we all partake of the one Spirit (Gal. 3:26-28)--God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (Gal. 4:6).
• There were of course women prophets in the OT. One of the most important is Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), for she is treated as the highest spiritual authority in Israel at that time. Deborah, the military general, is also said to be a prophetess (Judges 4:4) in addition to being a judge of Israel and a mother (Judges 5:7).
• But these roles in the OT are more the exception. The Day of Pentecost implies that we should expect women to do these things normally in the age of the Spirit.
• So Philip has four prophetess daughters (Acts 21:9).
• The prayer and prophecy of women was the norm at Corinth. 1 Corinthians 11 gives them instructions on how to dress when they are praying and prophesying in worship, but it assumes they do prophecy--it never questions it.
• That means that the silence 1 Corinthians 14 urges of the Corinthian women cannot refer to spiritual speech!
• Priscilla is mentioned before her husband as one who instructed Apollos in the Christian faith (Acts 18:26). Yes, a woman teaching a man!
• Phoebe is a deacon of the church of Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1)--not a deaconness. This is the same masculine word used of the leaders of the Philippian church and of Timothy in 1 Tim. 4:6. If we take Romans 16 to be a part of Romans, then she is likely the one entrusted to take the letter of Romans to Rome.
• The church at Philippi may very well have met in the house of Lydia at first (Acts 16:15). Other women also had churches in their houses: Priscilla (Rom. 16), Nympha (Col. 4:15), possibly Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11).
• We see no restrictions anywhere here. Indeed, against this theological and practical trajectory, 1 Tim. 2:12, the sole verse that might push in the opposite direction, is puzzling. It is like the verse on the baptism for the dead or Jesus preaching to the dead or women wearing veils or Jacob making his cattle give birth to speckled offspring by looking at speckled rods in calfbirth. Its very logic is puzzling, for we know that not all women are more gullible than all men on all topics.
• It has all the marks of a "we'll ask Paul when we get to heaven" verse, a "that must have something to do with their time or with the situation at Ephesus" verse.

4. Women and men, don’t limit God in what He can and wants to do through you!

• Be like Jesus' mother, who did what she thought was right, but kept an open mind.
• Be like the women who supported Jesus, who gave when everyone else was taking.
• Be like the women at the tomb, who obeyed even thought they were puzzled and afraid.
• Be like the women of the Spirit in the New Testament, who spoke for the Lord in a culture that would have resisted their leadership and insight.
• Men and women, don't quench the Spirit!