Rejected Texts For a Mother’s Day Sermon

Moth­er’s Day is an odd Sun­day in most church­es. Pas­tors get up and talk about Proverbs 31 or some oth­er pre­dictible text, and then give every lady a rose.

I’m not actu­al­ly preach­ing this week­end (Paula is, as it turns out), but if I was I’d be look­ing for a more unusu­al angle. For instance, here are some less­er-known vers­es which touch on the theme of moth­er­hood.

1. Psalm 109:14 — may the sin of his moth­er nev­er be blot­ted out.
2. Isa­iah 50:1 — This is what the LORD says: “Where is your moth­er’s cer­tifi­cate of divorce with which I sent her away?
3. Jere­mi­ah 22:26 — I will hurl you and the moth­er who gave you birth into anoth­er coun­try, where nei­ther of you was born, and there you both will die.
4. Hosea 2:2 Rebuke your moth­er
5. Hosea 4:5 I will destroy your moth­er
6. Luke 12:53 They will be divid­ed, father against son and son against father, moth­er against daugh­ter and daugh­ter against moth­er, moth­er-in-law against daugh­ter-in-law and daugh­ter-in-law against moth­er-in-law.
7. Deuteron­o­my 22:7 You may take the young, but be sure to let the moth­er go
8. Exo­dus 23:19 Do not cook a young goat in its moth­er’s milk.
9. Job 17:14, CEV: say to the worms, “Hel­lo, moth­er!”
10. Lev 18:7, MSG She is your moth­er. Don’t have sex with her.

Maybe Proverbs 31 isn’t such a bad choice after all… 😉

Please note that most of these vers­es have been hor­ri­bly wrenched from their con­text to make them even less appro­pri­ate for a moth­er’s day ser­mon.