I know that many of you have delighted in watching how Jennie’s and my life has been turned upside down in the last 16 months since Andrew has come along.  I am sure it has been fun for you seasoned veterans to watch.  It has truly been a challenge at times and I know more challenging days are ahead, but of course it has been a blessing.  Being first time parents it can sometimes be a little challenging to know what to do and where to go for information.  As you know there is a ton of stuff out there for babies these days and I think we have most of it, all of it of course marketed to be the thing that makes parenting easier.  We have books like what to expect in the first year, and one of us has actually read it, we have parenting magazines and one of us reads those too.  We have received helpful advice and helping hands from countless friends and family for which we are extremely grateful. 

            Being a pastor however I thought it would be interesting to see what the Bible had to say about parenting.  So I Googled “biblical parenting” and 293000 hits came up.  Now I didn’t have time to check all 293000 hits but I explored a few and I found that many of them were similar and said the kind of things you might expect.  All of the web sites quoted scripture in one fashion or another.  Let me share an excerpt with you so you can get a little taste of the kind of advice I found.  “The basics of biblical parenting involve more than simply raising a child. Parents are directly responsible to God for more than providing food, shelter, and protection. When we adopt God’s standards as our own, we produce quality character that is different from a child’s natural inclinations. Proverbs 22:6 emphasizes the significance of biblical parenting: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” As parents turn to the Bible for instruction they are able to open up channels in their children’s lives so that God’s grace can flow in.  What are the basics of biblical parenting, and what hinders that flow? As parents we shape our children’s attitudes, actions, and associations. When we are inconsistent in delivering godly instruction and wisdom to our children, we practice ineffective parenting. When we place unreasonable demands by abusing our authority, we practice ineffective parenting. When we make anything more important than our children, we take another step away from love, and a step away from effective biblical parenting.”

            What I find interesting about the information I found on the web is that none of the Biblical parenting advice lifted up Moses’ mom as a role model of how to parent a child according to biblical standards.  I mean what could be more Biblical parenting than the actual example of a parent in the Bible, and not just any parent, but the parent of one of the biggest agents of God’s work in the entire Bible.  How could the story of Moses’ upbringing not be included in any work on Biblical parenting?  I guess the authorities don’t agree with the practices involved in Moses’ upbringing what with the midwives having to deceive the Pharaoh in order that he might even be born; going against Pharaoh’s edict for them to kill all the male Hebrew children.  Then Moses’ mom has to keep him under wraps for three months again breaking the law of the land.  Finally when she feels like the risk of keeping him hidden is just too great she bundles him up and floats him down the Nile.  Not exactly the kinds of behaviors we really expect from the parent of one of God’s big change agents.  Kind of makes you wonder what Moses’ baby book looked like; it would have had to have been more than a little depressing even though this story is in the Bible it does not seem to be a very good example of Biblical parenting.  However it is maybe more what we should expect when it comes to Biblical parenting than what we read on the Biblical parenting web sites.

              I am not suggesting that the Bible advocates treating our children with anything less than the utmost care, love, and nurture.  It is easy to look at what Moses’ mom does from one perspective and conclude that she is not much of a parent.  However we need to remember that she was doing the best she could given the extreme circumstances.  My guess is that under normal circumstances no mother is going to just let her baby float down the Nile basket or not.  But Moses’ mom was charged with parenting a hero of the faith, and while yet a baby she knew that he had already been chosen by God to do great things.  What looks from one perspective like a horrible instance of abandonment is really a last ditch effort to save the life of the child she loved and save the one who would lead God’s people out of Egypt.  I doubt very much that any of this came easy to Moses’ mom.  No matter how many times she might have considered the alternatives, no matter how many times she played the plan out in her mind, no matter how many times she tried to re-assure herself that God was going to make everything ok and this was all just a part of God’s plan to save God’s people, I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to put her baby boy in that basket and let him go, even with big sister Miriam watching.  I doubt she liked the plan and the sacrifices it required on her part but it should come as no surprise to us because what God requires of God’s people often involves sacrifice.

              I think the question that inevitably rises out of reading this passage is what are we willing to do, to what lengths are we willing to go to not only love our children but to love God and be obedient and faithful to God.  Thankfully it is extremely rare that God calls us to package up our children and float them down a river.  It is however more often the case that God calls us to some sort of self sacrifice.  In the first passage we read this morning Paul says: “I appeal to you therefore to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship.”  Paul then goes on about not being conformed to this world but renewing your minds so that you may discern the will of God, and presumably not only discern but do the will of God.   Finally Paul talks about the various gifts we are given by God and how we are to use them, holding nothing back, for God’s intended purpose.  Paul says surrender our bodies but what he is really talking about isn’t so much about flesh and blood as it is about surrendering our lives to God, wholly as in surrendering every part of our lives and allowing God to use us however God may choose. That is our calling to be obedient to God no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the cost.  That is exactly what Moses’ mother does and I think that makes her a good Biblical parent, though I still doubt we are likely to see her example on any Biblical parenting web sites any time soon.

              What kind of risks are we willing to take for God within our congregation?  What way out there thing are we willing to try because we believe it is a part of God’s plan for our lives and may be a part of God’s bigger plan for all of God’s people?  In June of 2007 Presbyterian News Service reported on a Baptist church in Johannesburg, South Africa, that really stepped out there and taken some risks by starting a unique mission of rescuing “throwaway” babies. After discovering an alarming rate of incidents of desperately poor migrant-worker mothers abandoning their newborns in dumpsters, the church established what it calls the Door of Hope. Cutting a hole through its high security wall (a regrettable necessity in the violent neighborhood in which it’s located), the church urged desperate mothers to anonymously place their newborn children inside this Door of Hope, knowing that the church will care for them.  The church took on the risk of lowering their defenses to accept and love these children God has called them to love.  They have also taken on the added challenge of caring for an unlimited number of children, a daunting task for sure.  At the time that this article was written, a little over a year ago, more than 500 infants have been saved, who otherwise would have died in the dumpsters.

            God can accomplish great things when we open our selves to being willing participants in God’s plan and giving our lives wholly over to God to use us as God would.  I know her actions will never qualify Moses’ mom for Biblical parenting role model of the year, but she is a role model for us as to how to follow God.  Not acting carelessly, not using trickery and deceit for our own gain, not recklessly abandoning our children via a makeshift basket and floating him or her down the river, but by giving everything over to God, even that which is most near and dear to us, so that God’s purposes may be fulfilled, taking bold risks knowing that God will see our best efforts through to completion.  May each of us in our lives and in our collective life as a congregation be so bold and be willing to take such risks in our living our lives wholly for God.  Amen.