“Respecting Motherhood”
Text: 1 Peter 3:1-7
5-14-2023
In the name of our risen Lord and Savior, dear friends in Christ. I once heard a story about a man who came home from work one day, completely tuckered out. And he was feeling sorry for himself. So that night in his prayers he asked the Lord to switch him and his wife. That way, he could stay home all day rather than going back to his tiring work. And God granted his wish. The next morning, the alarm woke him up at 6 a.m. and he was a woman. He hustled to get breakfast ready and lunches packed for the kids. Once he got everyone off to school and work, he cleaned up the dishes and started picking up the house. By 1:00 he had the beds made and 3 loads of laundry done. After a shopping trip to the grocery store, he got snacks ready for the kids who were due home from school. He then ran one kid to soccer and another to ballet and quickly back home to prepare supper. After the dishes were done, he helped the kids with homework and baths and laid out their clothes for the next day. By 10:00 he was totally exhausted and went to bed. The next morning, he knelt down and prayed, “Lord, I’ve learned my lesson. I now appreciate all the work my wife does. Please, switch me back to being the husband.” And the Lord answered, “My son, I will gladly grant your wish but you’ll have to wait 9 months because last night you got pregnant!”
That is obviously just a bit of humor. And no, contrary to what our modern culture says, men cannot get pregnant. Be that as it may, this fictitious story illustrates a sad phenomenon in our world today: The role of motherhood is often unappreciated and, at times, even despised. If a high school girl says that after graduation her ambition is to get married and raise a family, she’ll be mocked for it. As if her life will be worthless and unfulfilling if she doesn’t pursue some kind of a career outside the home. That is certainly not how the Bible looks at motherhood. The Bible treats Moms with great honor and respect. Base on that, Martin Luther once said that the role of a mother is an even higher calling than being a Pastor!
So how did we get to where we are today with motherhood being devalued and disrespected? The answer is that we’ve lost respect for womanhood in general. And disrespect for motherhood naturally followed. This dishonoring of womanhood began when the lines between men and women were blurred. The modern feminist movement introduced the idea that there is no difference between the sexes. As a result, the distinct nature of males and females was lost. And more specifically, the gentle beauty and attractiveness of femininity was lost too.
Listen again to what St. Peter says in our Epistle about the true beauty of a Christian woman: “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” Don’t be mistaken. Peter is not saying it’s wrong for a woman to get her hair done, wear jewelry, nice clothes or even makeup and perfume. No, but he says that a woman’s true beauty comes from within. All the rest is just window dressing that can be removed. But the inner beauty of a Christian woman is imperishable (permanent) because it goes to her core.
I have been blessed to know many Christian women who understand this and have that inner beauty; that unfading attractiveness which is very valuable to God. Think of those elderly women you know whose face is wrinkled, hair is white, fingers may be bent with arthritis, and their legs won’t hardly carry them anymore. And yet, they have that gentle spirit and radiant, inner beauty. Do you recognize that in them? If you do, you’re seeing the beauty of their souls. Personally, I have been blessed to have a mother and grandmothers who displayed it. And although my wife still looks like she’s 29, it shines within her. I am happy to say that she passed it on to my 2 daughters and praise God, my daughter-in-law possesses that inner beauty too.
But friends, we’ve dropped the ball somewhere along the way in the last 75 years or so. Somehow, we’ve taught a whole generation the exact opposite of what God’s Word teaches about womanhood and by extension, motherhood. We’ve lost sight of the beauty of that inner woman and along with it comes disrespect. Longer ago I saw a popular slogan that was printed on t-shirts that said “Expect Respect.” That’s good, especially when we’re talking about womanhood. Ladies, you ought to “Expect Respect.” Have you ever wondered what happened to some of the old customs where men would show respect for women? For instance, men used to open the door for a lady, push her chair in when they sat down at the table, tip their hats to a woman, and men definitely didn’t curse in front of them. Why have these all but disappeared? Well, part of the answer is that if you don’t “Expect Respect” you won’t get it.
I give my parents a lot of credit in this regard. They insisted on my brothers and me showing respect towards women, especially when it came to our Mom. My last spanking was the result of disrespecting my mother. No, scratch that. It wasn’t a spanking. It was an old fashioned whoopin.’ I was about 13 years old and I had publicly disrespected my Mom. My Dad corrected my problem. I deserved every bit of it and you can be sure that I never repeated my folly! That day I learned to show respect to my mother, and women in general, no matter how grown up I thought I was. Why aren’t we teaching this to our boys and girls today? Oh, I know, we’re afraid we’ll get the cops called on us. But imagine how much better our world would be if proper respect towards women and mothers was still being not only taught but demanded.
However, there is another side to that coin. Regardless of your age ladies, you have to respect yourselves first before you can expect anyone else to respect you. This is one of the saddest things we see today in relation to womanhood. I’ve counseled more than my share of women who were involved in sexual relationships outside of marriage as well as living together before their wedding. And one of the main problems we have to address is the respect issue. What does it say when a woman willingly gives her body away to one boyfriend after another? The message is, “I don’t respect myself.” If a woman cooks and cleans and sleeps with a man but doesn’t demand that he make the commitment to a faithful marriage, in essence she’s saying “I don’t respect myself.”
I’ve got news for you though. No woman can respect herself until she sees her worth in God’s eyes. That goes for men too. Peter says that the beautiful inner self “in God’s sight is very precious.” What is it that makes a soul so valuable to God? It’s certainly not our own goodness. The prophet Isaiah tells us that all our self-righteous good works are like filthy rags to God. They add no inner beauty to our souls. No, that inner beauty comes from the righteousness of Jesus Christ that believers have received. His atoning death on the cross has created a beautiful new person inside of us. That’s what God sees. And that’s what gives us our worth in His sight. So, we can honestly say, “I am worthy of respect because Jesus loved me so much that He died to pay the price for my sins.” With that kind of confidence, we can learn to respect ourselves.
And that brings us right back to respecting motherhood. You’ll notice that in our text Peter makes a link between a woman’s inner beauty and her submissiveness to her husband. I know, to some people “submissiveness” is a four-letter word, but it’s not. It’s a 14-letter word. Seriously, though, if we understood what God means by “submitting” then we’d begin to see how it shapes the inner beauty of a Christian woman. St. Paul clarifies this for us in Ephesians 5. In verse 21 he says we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That verse usually gets skipped. THEN he says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” That’s important because you see, it’s an act of faith for a Godly wife to submit to her husband’s leadership in the family. It doesn’t mean she’s inferior. Rather, she recognizes that in reality she’s not merely submitting to her husband but to Christ her Lord. It’s that act of faith which Peter points to as the inner beauty of a Christian woman. And that inner beauty of her faith makes her worthy of respect both as a woman and as a mother. That’s why Peter went on to say “husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life…” This respect is so important that Peter warns if we screw it up it’ll put a barrier between us and God and He won’t listen to our prayers until we straighten it out!
When a wife and mother faithfully lives out her respect for the Lord it reveals her inner beauty. By showing love for her husband and family, a Christian woman is showing respect for herself as a precious child of God. And as her worth in God’s sight is displayed in her Godly living, she shows the world that she’s worthy of respect from the rest of us. No mother on the face of this earth is perfect because they’re all sinners just like we are. But Christian mothers are worthy of respect because they are forgiven sinners who are living out their lives, confident of the honorable vocation of motherhood which God has entrusted them with. Praise God for the women He has honored by making them our mothers. And may God fill our hearts with love and respect for all the Godly Christian women who He has blessed us with. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!