The Mother Ostrich - Hairkuts

1 The Mother Ostrich 1 The Mother Ostrich Lamentations 4:3, "The daughter of My people have become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness." This text is quite at home in the book of Lamentations because the book of Lamentations is a lament! This book by Jeremiah staggers under the weight of grief. Every word is baptized with tears. However, it is more than a lament, it is a sharp and cutting rebuke that is full of hot indignation. Jeremiah swings God s rebukes in honest anger, as if it were a whip. The terrible wrongs that are being perpetrated before his eyes broke his heart and aroused his soul to battle. He could not look upon it without protest. Jeremiah was quite a daring man to cry against the mothers of his day. I must admit that it takes all the courage I can muster to even repeat his words - and on Mother 's Day too!

2 There is no crown so glorious that can be placed upon a woman than, when motherhood is at its best! But Jeremiah is daring as to remind us of what we are very prone to forget. Mother - hood in itself is not, necessarily, a badge of either goodness or greatness. A thoughtless, flippant, and self-centered woman is not necessarily transformed into a saint just because she becomes a Mother . There are those who remain vain, and selfish, and heartless to the end of their lives. There are those who live and die without ever realizing that, in becoming mothers, one of the deepest and sweetest voices of human blessings is whispering to them, but they are not listening. It is against this kind of Mother that the prophet brought his bitter accusation. What is the charge that he made against the mothers of that far-off day? He did not charge them with unfaithfulness to their marriage vows. He did not charge them with being mere giddy, gossiping gad-abouts. He did not accuse them of spending a great deal of time at places of amusements.

3 He did not accuse them of blowing smoke into the tender eyes of their babies or keeping them awake at night by loud parties. His charge against them would include all these - but a lot more, than just these. He charged them with the ugly crime of cruelty. Jeremiah, speaking for God, said, The daughter of My people is become cruel like the ostriches of the wilderness. Cruelty, at its worst, is indifference to suffering and pain. Cruelty is never beautiful. It is always ugly. It is a sin against which we of today are peculiarly hostile, especially in its cruder forms. We hate cruelty, perhaps more than any generation that the world has ever seen. There are a great many vices that we view with indifference. There are a good many sins that we have learned to endure - to even fondle and embrace - but cruelty is not one of them. It is because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it's influence throughout the world that we have grown more sensitive to the cruelty of man and today the sight of gross cruelty causes us to burn with indignation.

4 Our news tells of some men who were being pestered by a mangy dog that haunted their filling station. The dog was homeless and there was no one who would claim it. In order to be rid of this dog and out of sheer cruelty these men dashed a bit of gasoline on him and struck a match to him. In spite of the fact that the dog had no master, the perpetrators of this cruel deed The Mother Ostrich 2did not escape. The people of the community were so aroused that they had them arrested and they had to spend some time in jail. We all cry out, They deserved it, because they were needlessly cruel. It was this crime of cruelty that God s prophet charged these mothers with and it was a charge a cruelty that was infinitely worse than that of these thoughtless men. They were accused of being cruel to their own children. What is the nature of their cruelty? It was not the aggressive type of cruelty that Jeremiah accused them of. These mothers were not accused of inflicting any positive wrong on their children.

5 They were not thrusting them into some sweat shop to do man's work with their undeveloped bodies. They were not inflicting on them any physical harm. Had you accused them of doing so, they would have told you that they never laid a hand on their children. Their children knew nothing of kicks and cuffs. There are some children today, sad to say, who have maimed bodies because of aggressively cruel mothers. But, these mothers to whom Jeremiah was speaking, had never inflicted bodily harm upon their children. What form, then, did this cruelty take? The Prophet says that it was a cruelty like that practiced by the Ostrich . The writers of the Bible do not think highly of this bird. The Ostrich , in Scripture, is a symbol of cruelty and forgetfulness. Job describes her in this graphic fashion, She leaveth her eggs in the earth, warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they wee not hers (Job 39:13).

6 The cruelty of the Mother that enraged Jeremiah was the cruelty of neglect. She could not be bothered. She was too busy having a good time. She had too many social engagements, belongs to too many activities, to be worried by such small matters of her children. A person can be so absorbed in saving the world that they have no time for the saving of their own home. Why were these mothers so cruelly neglecting their children? Their neglect was not born out of ill-will. There wasn't a Mother among them that set out to deliberately make her child a menace to society. Nor was their cruelty born out of utter indifference. It is a rare Mother who does not yearn for the best for her child. What, then, lies back of this neglect? I am sure that there were a number of reasons and I want to mention just a few: 1. These mothers failed to recognize the fact that every child is of supreme value. Jeremiah charges that they were taking the fine gold of childhood, and treating it as if it were commonplace earthenware.

7 One historian, studying the downfall of the Roman Empire, charges that it was due to the failure of her mothers. There was a time, the days of Rome's greatness, when the mothers The Mother Ostrich 3displayed their sons as their jewels. But they lost their sense of the supreme value of the child, and then came Rome's days of darkness and, finally, her downfall. Jeremiah was wise enough to know that the nation that fails to give the child first place is headed for disaster. That's the reason his rebuke is so hot and passionate. It's surely easier for us to set a proper value upon our children than for those of that far-off day. Since their day, Jesus has come and He is the supreme champion of the children. When His disciples asked, Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus did not point to any king or philosopher, He took a little child and set him in the midst. So important are children, Jesus tells us that the angels of highest rank are the ones that have the care of children.

8 In heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father. So important are the children that Jesus solemnly warns against despising or undervaluing this treasure, Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. So important are they that Jesus warns, Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Why are children so vastly important? They are the makers of tomorrow. Soon everything that we possess is going to slip from our nerveless fingers into the hands of our children. That is worthy of consideration! But that is not the sole secret of a child's vast importance. Children are not important because of their physical strength. They are not important because they are money-makers. In this respect they are a liability, rather than an asset. Children are supreme, not because they are the highest and most intelligent of animals.

9 Jesus put the child first because He recognized the supreme worth of the spiritual. Only as we share Christ's convictions will we ever give our children their place of supreme importance. 2. These mothers neglected their children because they failed to realize the terrible tragedy that is born of neglect All of us realize how deadly it would be to neglect our children in the realm of the physical. All a Mother has to do to bring about death to her baby is to simply let it alone. Neglect of the physical needs spells disaster. - We all readily recognize that. While pastor in New York City we became involved in a missions program called "Missions for Millions, where we planted store-front missions in the various areas of New York City. I found mothers who, because they would receive more welfare from the government for every baby they had, would have as many babies as they possibly could. These mothers were on drugs and would use the money they received for drugs.

10 These pinched-faced little children, who were left to fed for themselves, were literally starving to death. Most of them died before they were even toddlers. Some of the mothers were finally arrested and tried for murder and sent to jail. We would say that the sentence was just. But children have other hungers than just physical. They hunger for the Bread of Life and they thirst for the Water of Life! The Mother Ostrich 4 Some years back, the White House called in carefully selected leaders of children organizations and they met to study of the welfare of America's children. The statement they made was, For every child spiritual and moral training to help them to stand firm under the pressures of life. Oh, did I tell you that this happened in 1930? The spiritual and moral training is what is being sadly neglected today in countless homes - and in our nation! Many of our children are being raised as pagans in paganism. They are as utterly devoid of any religious training as if their father and Mother were both confirmed atheists.