A Cry For Godly Mentors (Titus 2: 1-8)
Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Margret Nyegenye
The question most frequently asked is how do we keep our integrity in such a corrupted society? Paul was addressing a corrupted society (Titus 1:10-12) that desparately needed God. For Paul, to get a wife out of such a society, one needed to have a godly mentor who is older and that is why he invites older women to counsel young women. These women however ought to have lived a distinct God fearing life as in Titus 2:3.
Paul’s intention was to have godly, enjoyed and lasting marriages. Young women were to be trained to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled (2:4-5).
The society we live in today has quite a number of elderly women but very few genuine mentors. In this message I am defining mentoring in the context of character development. According to Anderson and Reese mentoring is “listening to the Holy spirit and to the life of the other.” Mentoring is a servants’ role. It is about discernment and learning to recorgnise where God is already present and active in the heart of the other. A mentor creates a safe space for hospitality, where a mentee can allow musks of life to shed in order to discover their freedom of authentic conversation.
Mentorship is investing life and time into the other.
A mentor must provide room for confidentiality in order to protect ones’ dignity and pain. A mentor needs to have three primary themes; intimacy with God, ultimate identity as a child of God and a unique voice for kingdom responsibility.
The above three coupled with the guidance of the Holy Spirit was mandatory for the old women to give guidance to the young ones. Mentorship today is done largely on social media, Aunties mainly in Buganda and peers. Fast foods have replaced our traditional nutritious dishes. Parents are encouraged to withdraw their daughters and sons from dream marriages to the reality. Marriage is real, it is not a movie, it is not a fashion to copy and paste, and it cannot be duplicated. Every marriage is unique, it has to be worked at with fear and trembling, it has to be kept until death; divorce is not God’s agenda for any marriage. As we celebrate Mary’s day, I call upon elders both women and men to embrace their God given role and the young ones to submit and be taught. For marriages to stand strong, mentorship must be done by God fearing people.
May God bless you.
The Very Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye
Ag Provost