Motherhood “marks” a woman in both body and soul. Even moms that were not the biological vessel of birth for their children will tell you that they have marks on their body and their life! God has offered us a portrait of a mother in desperation for her child that shows the real makes of motherhood. It is clear that no matter who you read on the subject of parenting, all agree that parenting leaves a mark that is permanent on every parent. Bill Cosby shared: “No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.”
I love the words in the opening of ED Hill’s book, I’m not your Friend I’m your Parent: “You aren’t a perfect parent and never will be. Neither will I nor anyone else. Let that statement sink in. Deal with it. Your children will never ever be perfect from birth to death. But, unfortunately, we live in a world that strives for perfection. It’s the ultimate goal. We believe we must have perfect children and, therefore, we must be perfect parents. Both are impossible! Don’t give up, though, because what is possible is, through their own successes and failures, to teach our children the rules in life, how to behave, and why it’s important to keep on trying to do better so they can grow into happy, productive, loving adults. That’s our job as parents. It’s tedious, time-consuming, and it lasts a lifetime.”
If I am not going to have perfect children, then what is the “end game” of being a parent? It is to mark their life as they mark ours. Key Principle: Parenting is not just about what we “make them into”, it is about what we become as we draw them to loving Jesus.
Today I have chosen an unlikely text for Mother’s Day. I want to look at a woman who was an unlikely recipient of blessing from God. Tucked almost into the fold of Matthew’s Gospel is the story of a woman from Lebanon. She was of Canaanite background, but had enough understanding of God’s work among the Jewish people during the first century to know of Jesus’s identity and His mission. The story opens with a child that was desperately ill. The woman believed the child to be demonically possessed. She reached out for
the help of Jesus, and found Him as the answer to her problem.
Instead of talking around it, let’s take a moment and look at the story found in Matthew 15:21 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.” 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.” 24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 28Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
Like many of us, the child of this story was the beneficiary of a mother who would not give up. She saw opportunity to have the need of her child met, and she latched onto that opportunity — not letting go until she got her answer. Her child was stuck, and she was not going to allow that to remain. What parent cannot understand this? The most painful thing that I know of in this life is watching a
child go astray, or watching a child flounder in a problem, and being forced to stand by. His mother did what any of us would do.
We know precious little from this story about the child involved, but there is much we can know of the pattern this mother was shaping the child with… The big frame of parenting is not about the specific skills we train our children in, but whether we, both by example and teaching, move them closer to an intimate and loving relationship with Jesus – by showing them where REAL HELP comes from. If they develop a great walk with Him, the rest will work itself out. If they don’t – nothing else will ultimately matter. As a result, the act of parenting is “patterning and “discipling” a child to trust and to walk with Jesus.” Any other definition falls short.
Let’s zoom in our story. Remember, the life of Jesus as it is told in the Gospels can be broken into three basic component parts:
- First, the Gospel writers give us the background to Jesus’s birth and family until his baptism — a part we refer to as the “Pre-ministry narratives of Jesus”.
- Second, from the time of his baptism and first followers, until the time he was sure that the disciples understood his identity and purpose — the Popular ministry of Jesus was the time characterized by his teaching to the crowds and his withdrawals with the disciples to teach them privately.
- Third, the final stage of Jesus is ministry is told to us in the “Parting ministry of Jesus” — the urgency of his ministry in Perea followed by his Passion in Jerusalem.
The Gospel of Matthew is framed around the major sermons of Jesus. The most important thing to remember is that this Gospel gives us the “words of Jesus“, as opposed to Mark’s Gospel that tells us more of the works of Jesus. Because Matthew focuses on the speaking of Jesus, the exchange between the woman we just read in the story and Jesus Himself is the focus of Matthew’s narrative. The point of the story is what Jesus said, and how the woman responded. Her responses help us to understand the kind of mother that she had become.
Note in this story that we are not dealing with a woman raised in a Jewish family, nor did she have the likely privilege of a deep background in God’s Word. This should encourage you. Many of you grow up a part from a walk with God, and in a family that did not encourage you to walk with him. You may have felt that you started late, and that gave you a great disadvantage. I hope this woman’s story lifts you past that conclusion.
There are SEVEN MARKS OF PARENTING that are well displayed by this Syro-Phoenician woman:
Mark 1: Hoped to gain the best for her child (came out)
Matthew 15:21 Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out..
The text tells us that the woman “came out” (Greek: “exerchomai”). She saw an opportunity. Those of us who are parents can surmise the background story. She had an uncontrollable daughter. She went looking for a solution wherever she could find…
She checked the blogs, combed the Internet, watched the Discovery Channel documentaries, sought out doctors, spoke to neighbors, and shared her problem with anyone who would listen. The bottom line is that in the process of searching she discovered that there was a possible answer found in someone named Jesus. She didn’t know him, nor did she know people that did know him. She had a shred of hope based on someone who heard information third-hand. She was desperate, but she heard he was coming. A mom’s world can hand on a shred of hope.
Just walking outside the house that day and crying out for Jesus’ help was an admission that she needed to reach beyond herself, her family, and even her people. I have no doubt in my mind that she felt like a failure in that moment. I have been a parent long enough to know that we often measure ourselves when we are looking at our children. Perhaps it is because we have been trained that our chief ministry is at home — and it is. An example:
(Rodney Buchanan): “Home is where the ministry is. We minister to each other. We minister to our children as we bring them up in the Christian faith and train them by word and example. Those who believe that only what happens outside the home is important have missed God’s greatest calling as we, both men and women, minister to the people in our homes. We bind their emotional wounds. We lift their sagging spirits. We allow people to be themselves. We show kindness when they have been beaten up by the world. We give smiles and hugs. We listen and try to understand. A woman’s place is many places, but her place is most importantly in the home…”
The teaching is true… but the problem with this teaching is that it can lead us to believe that our children’s responses are our responsibility — and they are not. You can do it right and they can refuse to receive it. The great Creator and Father of us all watched even his children make the wrong decision in the garden that He created for them. We can anticipate no less.
Yet, the desire to give her children the best possible future lead her to go outside and seek Jesus. The same should happen to us. If you want to have a child that walks with God, be a parent that seeks God for direction, help and strength. It was a good act of the good parent to look for answers — nothing extraordinary to those of us who have walked the floor with our children at night, and cared for them through every illness.
Mark 2: Put her child above her pride (Have mercy on me)
“…saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”
Alongside the initial mark of hopefulness we see another mark of parenting: the squashing of personal pride to shape another life. This one did not have a deep and rich background in a walk with God, but she knew enough about God to respect what He was doing among
others — the Jewish people that had been receiving healing at the hand of Jesus. She did not claim that she had a right to a healing — she begged for mercy. There is perhaps no other more overt symbol of humility than a person who casts himself to the ground to beg for mercy.
Part of parenting is facing the fact that you will not look good all the time. Kill your ego to live as a parent. Kids will say things that embarrass you. If you bruise easily, and you don’t recover when your ego is squashed — don’t have children.
I cannot remember who it was that said: “Parents are the bones children chew on to sharpen their teeth.” I have experienced it enough with teens over the years to know that it is in fact the truth. Sometimes children need to press the boundaries verbally — and you get the job as their parent. You are the safe testing ground for the fight they need to get out of their system, even when they don’t know why.
Mom, if that isn’t enough, they will criticize the most critical aspects of your job, and expect you to take it with good humor. I think of what Calvin Trillin said: “The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” Funny, but it tells us that we are often willing to laugh at a servant’s expense…
Not only will your children embarrass you, but people will lead you to believe that your job is not of great importance as a parent. I love the story Tony Campolo tells of his wife at a dinner party. On that rare occasion when his well-educated wife could go out among adults, she found some condescension among those elites that did not understand her priorities in child rearing:
She has a Ph.D. and is capable of pursuing a profitable and rewarding career. But she chose to stay home with her children when they were young, and that decision did not bother her at all, although it seemed to bother other people. People would ask her, “What do you do?” If she would answer, “I’m a homemaker. I stay home and take care of my children and my husband,” people would look embarrassed for her and cut the conversation short. So she decided to come up with a different response. The next time someone asked her what she did, she said, “I’m socializing two homo-sapiens in Judeo-Christian virtues so they will appropriate the eschatological values of utopia. What do you do?”
I have no doubt after that encounter that the other people in the circle had much to say they thought was of greater importance. This reminds us that the job of the parent is incredibly important, though not treated so by many in our society. We are living in a time of many problem children because they were raised by problem parents who thought they could raise their children in some kind of “convenient state” — there is no such place. Personal pride is for the single person. Dale Carnegie was not wrong when he said: “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain — and most fools do.” Don’t take all the criticism so seriously, mom, to some extent – the pride of perfection went out with the first diaper pail.
Mark 3: Took the wound of her child’s pain (cruelly demon possessed)
“…my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”
Who cannot feel the pain of a woman who has to admit to something so damning as a child that is cruelly demon possessed? Is there anything harder to admit about your child than they appear to be uncontrollable? From the moment the child begins to grow inside of you, mom, a love bond plans by God begins to unfold. Difficulty will come into the life of your child — and God has made you to stand when the child cannot. One of the great writers of our time, Max Lucado, offers this intriguing explanation of the bond:
(A Gentle Thunder. p. 46ff – given with some small modification): Moms: WHY do you love your newborn child? I know, I know; it’s a silly question, but indulge me. Why do you? For months this baby has brought you pain. They’ve made you break out in pimples and waddle like a duck. Because of them you craved sardines and crackers and threw up in the morning. They punched you in the tummy. They occupied a space that wasn’t theirs and ate food they didn’t fix. You kept them warm. You kept them safe. You kept them fed. But did she say thank you? Are you kidding? She’s no more out of the womb than she starts to cry! The room is too cold, the blanket is too rough, the nurse is too mean. And who does she want? Mom. Don’t you ever get a break? I mean, who has been doing the work the last nine months? Why can’t Dad take over? But no, Dad won’t do. The baby wants Mom. She didn’t even tell you she was coming. She just came. And what a coming! She rendered you a barbarian. You screamed. You swore. You bit bullets and tore the sheets. And now look at you. Your back aches. Your head pounds. Your body is drenched in sweat. Every muscle strained and stretched. You should be angry, but are you? Far from it. On your face is a longer-than-forever love. They’ve done nothing for you; yet you love them. They’ve brought pain to your body and nausea to your morning, yet you treasure them. Their face is wrinkled and their eyes are dim, yet all you can talk about are her good looks and bright future. She’s going to wake you up every night for the next 6 weeks, but that doesn’t matter. I can see it on your face. You’re crazy about her. Why? Why does a mother love her newborn? Because the baby is hers? Even more. Because the baby is her. Her blood. Her flesh. Her sinew and spine. Her hope. Her legacy. It bothers her not that the baby gives nothing. She knows a newborn is helpless, weak. She knows babies don’t ask to come into this world. And God knows we didn’t either. We are his idea. We are his. His face. His eyes. His hands. His touch. We are Him.
Before we leave the note that the woman understood her child to be demon possessed, we should particularly focus on the fact that the woman understood there were more voices speaking into the life of her child than she could control. If you’re not sure about that, spend more time parenting. We represent one voice in their life, but the enemy also speaks – and we can help our children distinguish the voices, but we cannot choose for them who they will follow. Therein lies the pain.
Mark 4: Faced loneliness (He did not answer her)
Matthew 15:23 But He did not answer her a word…”
Did you ever open up your heart to God and feel that He put you on hold? Here she stood in her humiliation with her hand out to God — and He did not answer her a word. Parenting, even when it is a couples pursuit, is a lonely experience. You will die one thousand deaths for your child, and they will casually tell you later things that would have kept you up through the night worrying had they told you at the time they were experiencing it. You will cry out in the night for them. Yet, it was not that God did not hear her. Because He did not respond in her timeframe she could quickly have grown impatient. Thank God women around the world have maintained a level of patience:
Rodney Buchanan: “According to the United Nation’s statistics: “Women constitute over 50 percent of the world’s population. But
women do three-fourths of the world’s work, receive one-tenth of the world’s salaries, and own one one-hundredth of the world’s land.” Women are major players in keeping the world going, but get less than their share of the compensation. Yet, they keep going, because they are not doing it for the sake of monetary reward, but out of the satisfaction of being responsible — even though they may be doing more than their share. One bumper sticker read: “Real women don’t have hot flashes, they have power surges.” I think that must be true….”
Mark 5: Persistently sought God for her child, even when discouraged (She keeps shouting at us)
“…And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.
Here is a mark we need to pay a special attention to: persistence is the mark of a good parent. Persistence will help you maintain a consistency in your walk — so that you can pattern a child well. Others around you will call you away from your task, both knowingly in a knowingly, but you must face that your primary responsibility is not your personal happiness, but the shaping of the
life you brought into the world. Not every moment of the parent is a happy one:
James Dobson tells about a time he came home when his son, Ryan, was a small baby. It had been a terrible day for his wife. Ryan had been sick, & had cried all day long. Once, as she was changing his diapers, the telephone rang & Shirley reached over to answer it before fastening up his diapers. Just then Ryan had an attack of diarrhea. She cleaned up that mess & put him in clean, sweet-smelling clothes. Then she took him into the living room & fed him. As she was burping him he threw up all over himself, and her, and the couch, too. Dobson writes, “When I came home I could smell the aroma of motherhood everywhere.” Shirley cried out to him, “Was all of this in my contract?”
What happens when the parent gives up on their responsibility? The tragic results are all around us. Even when discouraged by others, seek God for your child. Do it today. Do it daily. Don’t stop.
Mark 6: Tried to understand God’s bigger plans (even the dogs feed…)
24 But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
God had a great plan to reach the world through His own selected people, the Jews. Jesus’ focus was on “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, not the Gentile world around. He promised to reach the Gentile world through the hands and feet of his disciples. He told Peter that he would use the likes of him to reach into the Gentile cities — like Caesarea where Cornelius lived (Acts 10). Yet, Jesus’ personal focus was not to reach all of the surrounding Gentile villagers. When He encountered this woman, Jesus’ intent was that she understand His mission. When she demonstrated that she understood the position of her people as beneath the work God had to do in Israel, she showed that she understood the bigger frame of God’s plan.
She asked for crumbs, not the bread. Misreading this passage could lead you to conclude that God does not think all people are important — that is not the case. The fact is that Jesus came with a plan to reach the people that God had promised the Messiah to. Paul later argues that in their temporary rejection for this time, the opening to the Gentile had come. This woman understood the target of Jesus, and demonstrated that in her words.
Wise is the man or woman of God that asks God to do things that are in harmony with his plan and purpose as revealed in His Word. When we ask otherwise, we ask amiss. God does not force our children to follow Him. If we ask God to force them to be saved, God will say no. Biblically speaking, God holds us responsible to make a choice to follow Him.
Mark 7: Sees God at work in her children and her life (it shall be done)..
28 Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
When we walk with the Lord, and we act on His Word, we share in the delight of watching him at work in our world. It will calm at the cost of our own freedom. Victory comes through surrender to Him and to His Word. What is true in life is true in parenting. Yet, I suspect that many moms understand the value of giving up. I can think of no story that better says it been this one:
The story is told – out of WW 2 & the holocaust that took the lives of millions of people – of Solomon Rosenberg & his family. It is a true story. Solomon Rosenberg & his wife & their 2 sons & his mother & father were arrested & placed in a Nazi concentration camp. It was a labor camp, & the rules were simple. “As long as you can do your work, you are permitted to live. When you become too weak to do your work, then you are exterminated.” Rosenberg watched his mother & father marched off to their deaths, & he knew that next would be his youngest son, David, because David had always been a frail child. Every evening Rosenberg came back into the barracks after his hours of labor & searched for the faces of his family. When he found them they would huddle together, embrace one another, & thank God for another day of life. One day Rosenberg came back & didn’t see those familiar faces. He finally discovered his oldest son, Joshua, in a corner, huddled, weeping, & praying. He said, “Josh, tell me it’s not true.” Joshua turned & said, “It is true, poppa. Today David was not strong enough to do his work. So they came for him.” “But where is your mother?” asked Mr. Rosenberg. “Oh poppa,” he said, “When they came for David, he was afraid & he cried. Momma said, `There is nothing to be afraid of, David,’ & she took his hand & went with him.” That is motherhood. (sermon central illustrations).
Parenting leaves a mark on all of us who participate in it. It is, in fact, a contact sport. Parenting is not just about what we “make them into”, it is about what we become as we draw them to loving Jesus.
