Saturday, May 12, 2018
Mothering in difficult times

Proverbs 31:2
What, my son?  And what, son of my womb?  And what, son of my vows?

Wine, women, and song. A centuries-old saying referred to as a Hendiatris. A hendiatris refers to three words used together, for emphasis, in an effort to convey a single idea. In the case of the hendiatris –wine, women, and song – the idea being considered is of a hedonistic lifestyle – living for pleasure alone, if it feels good do it!!

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. This was the new hendiatris that spoke to the hedonistic lifestyle by the time we got to the 1970s when vices were updated. Wine, women and song has roots in literature and music as early as the 1600s in Europe. But the Hippies of the 1970s gave us this new phrase. Again, it was music and literature where the new idea was both conveyed and cemented.

Today it would still be sex, still be drugs, still be music … all with reckless abandon.

Proverbs 31 is a celebration of strong women. Most people are familiar with the virtuous woman described there starting at verse 10. That exemplary woman of wise speech, level-headed decision making, sound business acumen, competent manager, beacon in the community, loving mother, dedicated wife and pretty woman, is what all the men that I know are desiring and looking for. Me too.

But there is another very strong woman in Proverbs 31 that doesn’t get much attention. This is a woman mothering in difficult times.  She appears to be a single woman and though seemingly from a royal family is confronting the challenges of raising her son to be an exemplary man. She seems bent on turning him away from wine, women and song, or if you prefer, from sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This mother sees perilous times and warns her son about the hedonistic lifestyle.

The passage, Proverbs 31:1-9, seems to suggest that the son, King Lemuel, heeded his mother’s teaching. The words recorded are his words with attribution to his mother. “The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him” Proverbs 31:1

Lemuel’s mother gave him two warnings and one charge. Her first warning was about sex. “Do not give your strength to women, Nor your ways to that which destroys kings.” Proverbs 31:3. In other words, don’t use your position and power, nor your strength and looks maybe, to draw many women to yourself, or establish a harem, and indulge yourself in wanton sexual exploits.

The second warning given to Lemuel by his mother was that he should avoid alcohol. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, It is not for kings to drink wine, Nor for princes intoxicating drink;” Proverbs 31:4. The Queen Mother emphasised the importance of maintaining sound judgement.

And then she charged him to work for justice and fairness and to ensure that the poor, and the marginalised, and the underprivileged had a voice.

The Queen Mother confronted a hedonistic environment and charged the son of her vows to live a life that did not give into it. Not only are we unaware of who this Lemuel was, we are also unaware of his father. We don’t know where is his father in all of this. Whether she was a widowed single parent struggling against the tide because her husband had died in war, or whether her husband was present but had given into the vices of women and strong drink we may just speculate. But this woman was taking the bull by the horns to straighten things out.

So many women today are confronting the same issues in our societies. Single mothers abound because of war, sickness and disease, and the like. However, a lot of them are the products of family breakdown of one kind or another. Many of these breakdowns find their roots in the hedonistic lifestyle. Too many men have had their lives and families shipwrecked by wine, women, and song.

But to Queen Mothers today, the issues of King Lemuel’s time, thousands of years ago, were the same issues of the 1600s, and were the same issues of the 1970s, and they are the same issues today –wine, women and song – vice, sexual immorality, and philosophies of life that undermine the pursuit of God.

Vice, primarily alcohol then, is still high on the list and often leads to drunkenness, and related disorders like violence, abuse, accident, and so on. But we have updated to a broad range of natural and synthetic substances that are now abused. The opioid crisis is the most recent demonstration of substances abuse that leads to degraded thinking and reasoning and, as a consequence, a fruitless life that ends badly, often taking others with it.

Sexual immorality, a view that sex is for anytime, anyplace, with anyone, no need for commitment, security, purity; it is just like the last meal, no real memory of taste. As a side issue, the problem of sexual immorality was primarily a male problem. Today the problem of sexual immorality definitely cannot be made the responsibility of any one gender.

Hedonism, an old philosophy. Hedonism is a school of ethics which argues that pleasure is the only thing that’s inherently good. The basic idea behind hedonistic thought is that pleasure is the only thing that has real value. This is often used as a justification for evaluating actions in terms of how much pleasure and how little pain they produce. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize this net pleasure, pleasure minus pain.

The challenge of motherhood in these difficult days in which we are living, is to understand the times, understand the impact of what is happening with the environment, with technology and science, with arts, culture and entertainment and to understand how these impact on righteousness and justice and to recapture an understanding of our role as affecting all of creation not just some souls. Romans 8:19-21

With all of this said. Happy Mother’s Day

Prayer focus:

Let us pray today for the mothers we know who are struggling, against the odds, to bring up their children right.

In His Grace
Pastor Alex