Intro: Women’s retreat where we wrote laments. All groups ended up lamenting busyness . 

Who this woman is and trends affecting her

Distorted theology of the body

•       Americans spend more than $8 billion annually on cosmetic surgery.

•       Four in ten teenage girls in the UK consider plastic surgery.

•       His-and-hers treatments

•       Mother-daughter treatments

•       Treatments as gifts  

•       Average cost of a nose job = $4,000

•       Average cost of “fixing” upper and lower eyelids = $4,000

•       Cost to support 10 orphans/year in a developing country = $4,000 

 

1 Peter 3;3–5

“We don't just wake up thinking we have a $4000 need. We take that big step a hundred tiny steps at a time till we actually believe we have the need. I hope that I teach my children by example a different path of the hundred little steps…
I also hope that I'm successful teaching them that knowing when to ‘stop’ is many times more important than knowing when to begin.”   --Ann, mother of two girls

 

Distorted theology of single life

•       Babyboomers are 500 percent more likely than their parents to be single by choice, chance, or divorce.

•       There are five million more American women than men.

•       The post-baby boom generations are marrying later, having kids later, and often blowing off marriage and kids.   

• The moms of singles in our Bible studies need to hear 1 Cor 7.

•       Our singles need to hear 1 Cor. 7.

•       Church needs to be a comfortable place for all kinds of family structures, not just nuclear.

 

1 Corinthians 7:7-9 teaches:  

•       Good to stay unmarried

•       Better to marry than to burn

•       Virgins remain unmarried 

•       If you marry, you have not sinned

•       Unmarried woman concerned with things of the Lord

•       Married woman concerned with her husband

   

Highly Caffeinated

 Hoops and Yoyo: Is “Too Much Caffeine” an Oxymoron?

  Caffeine Consumption May Be the Least Troubling of Our Habits

  Up to six cups coffee/day seems okay, but don’t forget to factor chocolate in caffeine consumption

   

Hard Working

 

  24 percent of top corporate officers are women

47 percent of medical students are women

50 percent of undergraduate business students are women

About 75 percent of women 25 to 54 years old are either working or actively seeking jobs, up from around 40 percent in the late 1950’s.  

                --NY Times, March 2006

 

Nearly a third of married women now earn more money than their husbands.

–NY Times, August 24, 2006

 

The Travel Industry Association in Washington found that in the 4 years 2000-2004 the percentage  of female business travelers went up from 39 to 43 percent. 

 

  Conflicted

 I've been talking to some moms lately—smart, educated moms— who wonder “Is it even biblically okay for a wife/mom to contribute to the economics of their households?” 

 Notes on Titus 2 and the meaning of “Homeworkers”

Think Proverbs 31:

•       A mom

•       Selling belts

•       Buying a vineyard from her own income

•       Well-to-do but still contributing to economics of household

 Dorothy L. Sayers 60+ years ago noted (in Are Women Human?) that much of the restlessness of women happened after the more interesting, mind-engaging work was taken from the domicile (international trade, equipment purchase, negotiation, people contact) and put in factories.

 Couples began to see raising kids as women's work rather than as a partnership (“moms parent; dads baby-sit”). 

 We say that the ideal is for moms to be at home, but that's only half of the story. The ideal is for both parents to be equally present. 

 The divorce rate skyrocketed when men took off for the factories and left their wives at home. It was as high, in fact, as it is now--at a time when it was much more difficult to separate. The effect of the Industrial Revolution on the family was devastating.

 1 Tim. 5:8 – Does it teach husband as sole breadwinner?

 1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 3 Honor widows who are really in need. 4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. 6 But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.  7 Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. 8 If someone (tis) does not provide for "one’s own" (idiwn) of relatives (oikeiwn), the faith having denied and is worse than an unbeliever. [All gender-neutral words used here].

 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

•       Taught as a proof-text for man as breadwinner 

•       Verse has three to six male pronouns in most English translations

•       In Greek it is “someone” and “one's own,” not “he/his.”

•       Context is talking of widows and caring for them, and the passage is actually more focused on women caring for their aged family members than it is on men.

•       See 1 Tim 5:16: If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need.

 

Bottom line: We are rich. We may not think we're rich compared to Bill Gates, but more than two billion people on our planet live on less than two dollars a day. Who among them would raise the question about whether it is godly for a woman to earn income?  

We minister to women by helping them care for their aging family members.

•       People are living longer

•       Percentage of those over 65 with disabilities is higher than 25 percent; varies by state

•       Pensions harder to come by

 

Technically Literate

Almost a billion people are using cell phones around the world and the number is growing in many countries at 20-30% per year. In another five years the number is expected to double.

Women are more likely than men to see online information as a “glut”
and to penetrate into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. They tend to treat information-gathering online as a more textured,  interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.  --Dec 2005, Pew Internet Study

As of April 2006, 71 percent of adult women use the Internet

Female Internet Users By Age

Ages    18-29  88%

            30-49  84%

            50-64  71%

            65+     32%

By Race/ethnicity

White, Non-Hispanic             73%
Black, Non-Hispanic              61%
English-speaking Hispanic    76%

By Community type

Urban             75%

Suburban        75%

Rural               63%

 

By dial-up vs. high-speed connections at home

 

Dial-up                        34%

High speed                  62%

 

 

Solutions: Fight the idols of productivity and ambition with Sabbath rest.

 

Our culture (both secular and Christian) values noise, glam, celebrity

 

1 Thessalonians 4:11 – Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life…

“Keep a Sabbath day--and take vacations. The longer I freelance, the more I value a weekly day of worship and rest and two weeks of vacation at once.  It takes me four days to begin to unwind, so a week is not long enough.” –A magazine editor

An Interview with Eugene Peterson.

Mary DeMuth’s Anatomy of a Family Sabbath.

 

“We are working our way towards a day of rest - my husband is a minister at a tiny church, so Saturdays tend to be more of a Sabbath for us. [We do] some chores in the morning, but then no media of any kind for the rest of the day - and something out of the crock pot for lunch the following day is a must. We read and play games and nap and revel.” –Julie, a pastor’s wife

Erin, wife, mother of three girls, artist, college degreed, loves Starbucks: “I know we can't get back to the Garden, but observing the Sabbath and delighting in our Creator and in His creation is a near-Eden experience.”

From a writer/speaker after reading The Sabbath:  One of the first things I read was about how today’s currency is measured in time… [Heschel’s] words made me look at observing the Sabbath less like a rule and more as an act of worship – giving God my time not to do anything – but to rest. 

For many people this is probably one of those “duh” moments – but for me viewing the Sabbath as an act of worship changed my entire attitude. I wanted to do this not for me – but for God. I never realized how precious my “work” time had become to me – and how difficult it would be to let go of just 24 hours.

I decided the most practical thing was to observe a Sabbath from Saturday sundown to Sunday sunset. This allowed me to prepare for Monday morning responsibilities on Sunday evening when necessary. (I wish I was better at planning ahead.)  The first week I so enjoyed the day of rest and family time – but found myself starting to reach for my laptop several times or wanting to attend to some household chore. But I was determined that this time would be consecrated to God

The huge surprise for me came the following week. Although I enjoyed the rest on Sunday, by midweek I was astonished by how much I was accomplishing – and how much more peaceful I felt. I wasn’t doing anything differently regarding my schedule, but it seemed things were just falling into place. Like God was blessing me for this tiny act of obedience. I feel almost silly saying it,  but it was like God was performing a miracle in my daily work and in me. 

Needless to say – observance of the Sabbath (sunset to sunset) each weekend is not only something I look forward to – but something that has increased my intimacy with God.

How can we minister to the tech-savvy, overworked smart girl?

•       Model quietness.

•       Help her to slow down.

•       Affirm simplicity.

•       Encourage opportunities to express her walk with God in a low-tech way

•       Teach her to interact with God authentically:

She has learned too much to believe that life is inright, outright, upright, downright happy all the time when it’s really stressful.

Encourage Authenticity: Teach Her to Mourn in the Spirit

 

Prayer acrostic: ACTS Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.

“Always start with adoration, no matter how you feel,” one writer said, “because we should thank God for who He is, not what He has done for us.”

  Later I went to a church that rearranged the ACTS acrostic to spell CATS: “Confess first because God can’t hear you if you regard iniquity in your heart” (based on a rigid interpretation of Ps. 66:18).

 Problem with this formula: Leaves out the most common form of psalm in The Bible—the lament.

 

What is a lament? Short for lamentation. A prayer in which we moan and wail.

  Perhaps if we followed inspired examples of legitimized whining—if we spent more time fussing to God than to therapists—we’d write fewer checks for couch time.

While psalms of lament don’t always fit into a handy formula any more than prayer itself does, we do see some frequently recurring elements in lament psalms:

(1) an introductory appeal;

(2) a description of the psalmist’s plight (the lament itself);

(3) a formal request  

(4) Sometimes we also see evidence that the psalmist has received an oracle from God in response. Perhaps a prophet delivered a word or the psalmist had a dream through which the Lord spoke (see Heb. 1:1).

(5) Following such an oracle, the lament often ends in an expression of confidence or praise, though we don’t always see a “happy ending.” We see all of these elements in Psalm 12.

 

Psalm 12: Model for Lament (includes all elements)

 

Intro: “Help, Yahweh, for the devout one has ceased” (v. 1).

Plight: “The faithful have vanished from the face of the land. The unholy speak nothingness, each one with his neighbor, From a divided heart they speak flattery (vv. 1–2). In this case the psalmist complains that evil people have used their words to inflict pain, using smooth speech to injure.

  Solution: As in many laments in Psalm 12 the psalmist goes on to say what he wants the Lord to do.

  About curses: Sometimes at this point in a lament, we read that curses are called down on enemies. This pre-dates the New Testament ethic in which both Jesus and Paul exhort believers to bless their enemies rather than cursing them. Nevertheless today we pray for God to bless our enemies within the long-term context of looking toward the day when God will right all wrongs (cf. 1 Thess. 1:6–10). In Psalm 12 we see the author’s desire for the Lord to bring justice commensurate with the pain—in other words, cut off the very body parts used for inflicting harm: “May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, And the tongue speaking exaggerations—Which say, ‘We’ll talk big; We can say whatever we want. Who is master over us?’” (vv. 3–4). 

In the present age when God has spoken through His Son and we have the completed Word and the Spirit, we don’t generally expect to receive an oracle or audible words from God in response to our prayers. But in the psalmist’s day, he might have expected to hear from God through a prophet, a dream, or the Urim and Thummim (articles placed in the high priest’s breastplate used to discern God’s will in decision making).

  God’s response: Often a lament psalm will leave out God’s actual words in response to the prayer, but it still includes the psalmist’s expression of confidence in the message that has come from God. Psalm 12, however, actually records God’s response: “‘Because of the violence done to the afflicted, Because of the groaning of the oppressed, Now I will arise,’” says Yahweh. ‘I will provide safety for the one who gasps for it.’”  

  Praise: Such words from God, whether recorded in the psalm, are generally followed by expressions of praise. Yet Psalm 88 ends with the writer seemingly as depressed as when he started. As a result this psalm became a favorite to me during my darkest days. I identified with someone who felt only grief for a time. Nevertheless most of the psalms move from trauma to trust. Consider the final expression of confidence in Psalm 12: “Yahweh’s words are words of purity—silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified completely. You, Yahweh, You will preserve the victims. You will protect him from this generation continuously, for all around criminals walk to and fro while people exalt worthlessness.”

 We need to see Yahweh’s “words” here as a specific revelation given for the psalmist’s situation, rather than as a more general reference to the Word of God as a unity of Bible books.

 Psalm 6 – Lament for When We’ve Messed Up

Illustration: Filling the car with diesel

  Jon telling me, “Your husband’s going to kill you! You have to know how to talk to him.”

  Just as we understand there are “rules” for such human relationships, there are “rules” for persuading God to turn away from his anger, even though we deserve it. When we have offended God, how can we persuade Him not to discipline us in His anger?

Psalm 6 - Written by David, but there’s nothing that tells us his exact circumstances. We’ll see a little later in the passage that he was probably ill. In fact, he was nearly dead. And he links this illness with some disobedience in his life. Perhaps it was after he sinned with Bathsheba. Perhaps it was that he had failed to discipline his son for murdering his brother, and now that same son was pursuing him. We really don’t know. Yet what we do know is that he recognizes he deserves the anger.

Verse one. It’s like he’s saying, “Go ahead and rebuke me; go ahead and discipline me.” But he asks, just “Don’t rebuke me in anger; don’t discipline me in wrath. The word order in Hebrew further emphasizes this: “Not in your anger rebuke me and not in your wrath discipline me.”