In Japanese culture there is a term, Ikkitousen, which roughly translates to “a warrior worth a thousand.” Throughout scripture there are examples of Ikki Tousen from the warriors three in King David’s retinue, see Chronicles, to Ishmael, son of Hagar. There are those who have slain the offspring of the Fallen, such as David himself, those whose name would become synonymous with great sojourns and expeditions, such as Moses, and those who would become the foundation on which the structure of salvation stands, such as Peter.
Great men, all, figures of epic proportion and heroes across time even when their actions lead in part to calamity. It is in remembering both the triumphs and the pitfalls of these individuals that we learn not just of exaltation but of the human struggle, the human condition, the sacrifice that leads to greatness and elevates from ordinary to extraordinary.
Maverick Minister, you might be asking yourself, what on Earth do all these great men have to do with Mother’s Day? I came here for a celebration of maternity, not an elevation of the patriarchy! Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this, and I think it’s a journey worth taking.
Mother, from the old Germanic Mōdor, a word also used to relate the following concepts: manner, in so much as one possesses good or honorable manner, style, in so much as the unique and authentic individual style attributed to one who is a master of a craft such as an author, artist, or a culture such as a people, tone, in so much as one’s tone, language, tenor, form, prose, essence, existence, self.
Incidentally, the opposite of modor is modortalan, or one who is reprehensible and ill-mannered.
Even in point of origin language celebrates the singular and perhaps at times unfathomable grace, power, necessity of mother and woman. In life we live hoping to leave behind a legacy worthy in the eyes of God, but we are every one of us as nothing without those women who endure, sacrifice, struggle and rail against devil and man to guide us, love us, teach us, clothe us, deliver us. There are many epic men of the Bible, but today I want to look at those women who are legendary.
In point of fact and by literal definition with regard to the process of conception, incubation and birth, to become mother is synonymous with sacrifice. For nine long months, give or take a few depending on a variety of factors, a woman transforms and transfigures her very body and being to become a living vessel to nourish her unborn, to provide food and nutrition, to provide a living suit of armor, and to at all times battle the forces of deviltry in both corporeal and incorporeal forms.
In the Biblical ideal world, this journey is endured with her husband as vanguard, but it is often a long and lonely vigil with complex sorties and ever present battlefields that whether in physicality or metaphysicality, mothers must endure on their own.
Often times, statistically speaking, the journey is not ideal. Often times the journey is carried out in literal solitude. At times the journey begins when one is very young, lacking life experience and resources. At times the journey begins when one is biologically speaking outside of the age of safety, putting mother and child at greater risk of illness or loss of life. At horrid times the journey is not one embarked upon by choice.
When I contemplated motherhood and scripture, the easy figure to examine is of course Mary, Mother of Christ. By no means do I mean her journey was easy; in fact, though this is admittedly by degree a speculation, one could wonder and consider the possibility that given the cultural standards of the day, Mary may have been treated with cruelty by those in her community and even her family for being heavy with child out of wedlock. No, what I mean by easy is the idea that if I say “Name a mother of the Bible”, I’m willing to hazard a guess most people will say “Mary”.
Who I’d like to consider however, is Hagar. When we join Hagar in Scripture, we find a woman placed in the unenviable position of being told by the woman she serves “Here’s the deal, you have to go sleep with my husband and bear us a child.” Imagine going from your ordinary life to becoming a slave to becoming a maidservant, then being told by the woman of the house “Go lay with my eighty-five year old husband and conceive”. Once said conception came to pass, we saw a massive rift form between master and servant, leading to Sarah complaining to her husband, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” Abraham replies “Your slave is in your hands, Do with her whatever you think best.”
Evidently what Sarah felt was best was to abuse Hagar until the latter had no choice but to flee to the wilderness. Now, I want to make an important distinction here about what happened here, and what comes next (and what comes after that). I’ve heard it said by individuals who feel, I’ll say less than positive about Scripture, that it shows a patriarchal hand that Ishmael, Hagar’s son, was saved and ascended to greatness solely because of God’s promise to Abraham to make Ishmael a nation for being his son. But, that promise is preceded by a promise God made to Hagar.
An Angel of the Lord finds Hagar in the wilderness by a well and asks her “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” Hagar tells the angel that she is running from Sarah, to which the Angel tells her “Go back to your mistress and submit to her. I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
Hagar in faith of the promise of protection for her child returns to a woman she knows will abuse her, stating to the angel “You are the God who sees me. I have now seen the One who sees me.”
In faith Hagar sacrifices, returning to what she knows to be a dreadful, painful situation for the sake of the promise of the elevation of her child. Well, time goes on, approximately fourteen years, and when Abraham’s son through Sarah, Isaac, is weaned Sarah witnesses Ishmael mocking Isaac and that familiar anger returns with a swiftness. What’s interesting here is we see motherhood exercised in two different ways. With regard to Sarah, she acts in a manner she feels secures the sanctity of her household and her son telling Abraham “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” Though her actions are cruel, her motivation stems from her wanting the biggest share of success and elevation to go to her direct offspring.
Abraham is reluctant to do so, though Scripture states clearly his concern is for his son rather than Ishmael and Hagar. God then makes Abraham a promise, which is really more him relaying to Abraham the promise he’d already made to Hagar, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
The next day Hagar and her son are sent off with water and food to wander in the Desert of Beersheba. To get a little perspective, take a moment (I’ll wait) and google this place; it looks horrible. Now imagine you have none of the modern survival gear you have now. No GPS, no solar battery, no state of the art weatherproof clothing, no weapons, no cruelty free vegan trail mix, just you, your son, a water flask between you, some food and the clothes on your back. I can’t even begin to imagine how utterly decimated Hagar must have felt, but, Hagar was a mother, a mother with a son who had been cut off and disowned, a mother who was a slave cast aside with no idea where shelter would come from, where food would come from, or what horrors she might have to endure to ensure the survival of her son.
Hagar soldiered on for her child until the supplies ran out. Unable to bear having to watch her son die, Hagar placed him beneath shade and went alone to perish in the wilderness “a bowshot” away. Even in choosing death, she first placed her son where he could at least die comfortably, and though Scripture states her thought was “I cannot bear to watch the boy die”, one could also see the inverse of not forcing him to watch her die either.
As Hagar prepared to accept the cruel conclusion of a lifetime of suffering, again the Angel of the Lord came to her. “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
God fulfills his promise and opens her eyes, showing her a well of water where she and her son are able to drink and fight on to survive. And, Ishmael would grow up to become an archer in the desert, a leader of men, a father of a nation. Hagar would go on to hand pick Ishamael’s bride, and one can reasonably extrapolate she did so with the greatest love and care. And true, Ishmael becomes a name of epic proportions synonymous with adventure, excitement, chaos and fortune, however Hagar through her faith, her sacrifice, through her obedience, through her sheer force of will, is become legendary.
Contemplate your mother. Contemplate your wife. Contemplate your sister. Contemplate your friend. Contemplate the women who have had to endure a world where men like Marlon Brando can assault them on a crowded movie set and go through life without repercussions. Contemplate a world where in North Korea there is a saying among women that goes “Women are weak, but mothers are strong”, denoting how in a regime where women have very little in the way of rights if any, a mother will scrape, battle, sacrifice, rally for her child to survive, whether crawling across a frozen lake with riflemen waiting overhead or scraping together every penny she has to send her child off to a nation where they might live a better life.
Contemplate a being that will work the same job as a man and get paid a fraction of the amount, that will watch her child grow in a world she knows will deal with him or her harshly and without measure or mercy. Contemplate a being that would rather endure abuse of every kind if it means feeding her child one more meal.
Contemplate the love, the stentorian power, the condition of sacrifice and unending warfare, who is our protector, our teacher, our caretaker, our source of comfort, our place of joy, our cheerleader, and our dame in the literal sense, a female knight who leads her household to salvation, edification, triumph. I urge you all to contemplate the mystery that is mother, and to give the women in your life and even the strangers on the street the reverence, respect and love that is their due, not because it is mother’s day…
But because they are legendary, and by God, they deserve it.