So why take 35 minutes today to focus on a holiday that is not biblical…it seems to have come from a holiday called "Mothering Sunday" in England that some lady named Anne Jarvis brought to the US… about a century ago.

I want to look at women/mothers, today …because… it is, in fact, something the Bible we should occasionally do.

It's in the last chapter of Proverbs… the famous Proverbs 31 chapter… This chapter lists all the characteristics of what sounds like a super-woman. Let me give you a taste:

Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?  She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. 13 She finds wool and flax and busily spins it. 14 She is like a merchant’s ship, bringing her food from afar. 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls. 16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it; with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17 She is energetic and strong, a hard worker. 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night. (NLT)

I'm going to point our some things about these verses that you may not have ever heard…but first let me show you what comes at the end of this chapter: I think it's a good basis for why we should, indeed, celebrate mother's day.

 31:28 Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her:

That's the foundation of what we are doing nationally.. today: We're even told what the children and husband are supposed to say to this wonderful woman.

Like a hallmark card… (Play Sue's card)

I need to give you some perspective here… This was written at a time when woman were not valued at the level they are today in this country. Woman were second class citizens… in some cultures almost like personal property. In the societies, living around the Old Testament, God followers… and in the Roman society around the New Testament believers ….. women were seldom elevated to positions of honor…. So you’re a mother…big deal. Your function is to bring sons into society that will lead their community and their world.

In that kind of a setting…the writer of Proverbs 31 is going way out on a limb… lauding the personal characteristics of his mother and attributing powerful actions to her that were beyond societies norms. He purposely paints her as a superwoman:

19 Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber. 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. 21 She has no fear of winter for her household, for everyone has warm clothes.  22 She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 

When the wife is so efficiently busy…. what is left for husband to do?

Now let me tell you something you may not know… Jews believe that this was written by Solomon (Le-mu-el = Belonging to God)…not in honor of one of his (many) wives, or even Bathsheba..his mother, but in honor of his great-great grandmother.

Solomon gives more effort to this than he does his other writings. How do I know? Because he spaced it all into 22 verses… the same number of letters that are in the Hebrew alphabet. Then he carefully arranges to start each verse with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (like Jeremiah in Lamentations)

This was an important piece of literature to Solomon…. (Le-mu-el = Belonging to God)

Who was (by the way) Solomon's great-great-grandmother?______________

Ruth (That's important…I'll explain why…)

Lets talk….

There are 2930 people mentioned in the Bible

That gap may seem lopsided…but the reality is, that God's Word lifted many of those 327 women to a place of importance and prominence that nowhere else in society did.

From Eve, to Esther, to Mary the mother of Jesus, to prominent women in the early church….women, in the Bible, were not scorned… but looked up to and lauded.

The New Testament's following Jesus linage through Mary, his mother, is unheard of anywhere else in literature. (lineages were always traced through the father) Jesus gave huge prominence to the women who ministered alongside him…

But let me take you back to Proverbs 31:

If King Solomon (Lemuel) did write this glowing passage about his great-great grandmother Ruth…why is that so significant? Ruth is certainly somebody we all admire…a whole book in the Old Testament is devoted to her life..

Elimilech and Naomi leave Israel and move to Moab. Their sons marry Moabite women one named Ruth. Dad dies…sons die… Naomi tells her daughter in laws to stay in Moab and make new lives for themselves but Ruth stays with her mother in law. In a touching story that will bring a tear to your eyes Ruth marries Boaz and eventually becomes the grandmother of King David… Solomon's dad.

Well what's wrong with that??? She's a Moabite….she's not Jewish. God's going to stick a foreigner in the lineage of David and Solomon that eventually becomes the lineage of the Messiah…Jesus Christ?

And she wasn't just any foreigner. The entire Moabite race started when Lot's daughter got him drunk and slept with him, and got pregnant by her own dad. …. God banned Moabites from worship with the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 23:3-4 “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. (NLT)

So here is Solomon publicly lauding a women who was:

-The wrong race

-Out of the wrong family

-Tainted by the Past

-Hounded by other peoples sin

-Scared by family scandal

According to ancient Jewish thought (if this is really Solomon talking about Ruth) she gets a whole chapter, in Proverbs written about her.. making her out to be a super-woman… a model for all who would follow. God gives the same, seemingly unfit, woman a whole book in the Bible named after her (Ruth) …and a place in the lineage of the Savior of the world.

That should tell you ladies in this room something about, not just Solomon, but God

God places an unusually high value on women…. He does not use the value, measuring stick that the rest of society uses.

And Ruth is not the only woman mentioned in connection with the coming Messiah. How many others do you know about? ________________Besides Eve… (who led Adam and the whole human race into sin by eating the fruit in the garden) J …..

The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, specifically mention five women. Every single one of the women Matthew names are people who's history comes with a question mark.

Solomon's grandmother was a women named Rahab…what was Rahab's claim to fame? …feeding poor children in the slums?... (prostitute)

Tamar- Tamar's 15 seconds of fame, in the Bible, comes from her being the victim of yet another incestuous, family relationship. Now why would God want to draw attention to that? If our heritage has questionable missing links in it; we certainly don't advertise that the world…. But God did….why?

Bathsheba's in the list. When you think of Bathsheba…what do you always think of…..her adultery with King David. 3000 years later that's what we all remember about her… yet God made sure you knew that he used her for His eternal ends.

Why would God go to so much trouble to point out that these kind of women were all part of the line he used to bring his Messiah into the world. Why did God let these women's tainted blood lead to the salvation of the world?

We think nothing but warm thoughts about Mary the mother of Jesus…. But what kind of bad thoughts did most of Mary's Jewish neighbors think about her until the day she died. They thought she was loose…a fornicator who had gotten away with sin.

 31:28 Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!”

Principle #5 - Both Solomon and God praised women that others would have been hesitant to praise. (So should we…)

        I owe you…for your LOVE. It was devoted and deep.

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Solomon may not actually have known Ruth. Maybe he was repeating what he had heard others say…. Or maybe he was just giving her the benefit of the doubt.

A) Her worth is inestimable - She is worth more than rubies. V:10 He was giving her the highest rating he could think of… the most valuable commodity he could think of.

B) She is to be given confidence and trust. V:11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.

D) She is described being beautiful in her hands, arms, mouth, tongue, but never once is it related to what she physically looks like… in fact…