WALDROP: Your mother is beyond comparison

There are many positive images of mothers in the Bible. Some of us may identify our mothers with most of them; others with some of them; still others may not identify our mothers with any of them. In fact, there are problems with comparing our mothers to Biblical mothers, or to any other mother for that matter.
Biblical mothers lived in a different culture thousands of years ago where social and marital roles, as well as religious and psychological standing, make precise comparisons to modern mothers difficult. Even comparing mothers living today can easily miss the fact that no two mothers live in exactly the same set of circumstances that shaped their early childhoods and later lives. Life is too complicated to say who does, or does not, live “up to” (or down to) someone else’s experience. An excellent mother today may not have been considered so in Biblical times; and vice versa: an excellent Biblical mother then might not be rated so highly by today’s standards.

Take Rebekah, for example. She was married to Isaac and became the mother of Jacob and Esau. Neither she nor Isaac had been married before and they had children only with each other, the only “traditional family” among the earliest patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). While the New Testament commends her pristine family (Rom. 9:10), she had serious flaws as a mother, strongly favoring one son (Jacob) over the other (Esau) and competing with her husband whose favoritism was opposite hers (Gen 25:27; Gen. 27:5ff. and 42-45). Is Rebekah an ideal for your mother? No, strength for strength, weakness for weakness, your mother was the best for you.

Then there is that classic mother described in the 31st chapter of Proverbs. Her son holds her up as “the best” and she certainly ranks way up there: businesswoman and entrepreneur, wife, philanthropist and all around “do-gooder,” but was she a better mother than yours? Most “superwomen” aren’t.

In the New Testament, there is no more famous mother than Mary, Jesus’ mother. Yet, she had her flaws, too, so much so that Jesus had to set boundaries for her several times: 1) when she tried to choreograph his first miracle (John 2:3-4); 2) when she allowed him, at age twelve, to get lost at the annual religious festival; and then 3)misunderstood his explanation of why he was there (Luke 2:41-50); 4) when she intruded into one of his teaching sessions, falsely assuming that “mother trumps ministry” (Mark 3:31-35), and 5) when Jesus’ mother and family heard reports that he was not eating properly and had possibly “gone out of his mind,” they went out to restrain him” (Mark 3:20-21 NRSV), apparently believing the accusations against him.

What about the creator of Mother’s Day herself, Anna Jarvis? Surely, she would inch out your mother in the Halls of Motherhood. Actually, no, she never had children or married. Moreover, she spent the rest of her life, and parental inheritance, to overturn what became of her Mother’s Day. She sued the governor of New York and criticized Eleanor Roosevelt, for their involvement in Mother’s Day celebrations, once being arrested herself for public protests.

Today, there are mothers in movies, books and television, as well as in real life. We could sing their praises for quite some time.

But let’s be done with comparisons to other mothers. We are not here today because of any of them. We are celebrating our own mothers and you know as well as anyone whose mother deserves your attention Sunday — don’t you?