God REALLY loves the screw-up

Mark 2:16-18 ¹⁶When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" ¹⁷On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Every mother's day sitting at church every MALE pastor seems to think that the Proverbs 31 sermon would be the most appropriate sermon for that day. I think that someone needs to shake those pastor with a good hard and shake and say "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Why in the world would a screw-up mother who gets ONE day a year to have her children praise her when she doesn't deserve it or have a day when she is at least honored by Hallmark want to sit for an hour hearing about what a perfect mother is. But no, these pastors seem to think that the Proverbs31 woman will inspire these screw-up mothers on to greatness when in all actuality the screw-up mom sinks lower and lower in her pew while the excruciatingly painful description of the perfect woman/wife/mother is held up and honored and portray so eloquently. I've been a mom for 22 years and I have met maybe a handful of mom's who are even close to that prototype and I never actually met nor heard of a Proverbs 31 mom. Of course there is that mother of 20 kids, Michelle Dugger who is the ultimage Proverbs 31 mom on TV but everyone knows that reality TV is more drama than fictional sitcoms. The rest of us relish the idea of having our children love on us one day with undeserved compliments and home-made construction paper cards without any complaining or whining that day only to have our pastors burst our bubbles EVERY year by setting us the perfect fictional mother model that NO mother will ever be able to obtain this side of eternity. I think that this Mother's Day, I shall stay home and watch Joel Osteen on TV or the Internet. If I'm gonna avoid being convicted again of how I failed motherhood another year, I might as well be completely lied to and live in my short-lived fantasy world thinking I'm the greatest mother who ever lived and God is only gonna give me great times, great wealth, and great self-esteem. I am so glad that we have Mark 2: 16-18's principle to comfort us in our time of self condemnation. I think that God must love a screw-up because we are the ones who know how flawed we are. Luke's parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector give us screw-ups great comfort. The Pharisee is the self-confident, self-assured with high self-esteem person who praises God for his good life, thanking him that he is not a lowly tax collector. Then you have the tax collector, a complete and utter screw-up who most people loathe going into the temple, plagued by low self esteem and no self confidence and insecurity all his life, goes humbly before the Lord, head bowed waiting to be struck down and simply begging for mercy and another chance. Jesus tells us "I tell you8 that this man (the lowly tax collector) rather than the other went home justified before God. " God loves a broken and contrite spirit and there is no other mother more with a broken and contrite spirit as the 'screw-up' mom. Thank you Jesus for giving me a new mercy this morning.