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Click to hear this sermon sermon061210
All God's Children Rejoice: The Children We Know - Isaiah 11: 1-10; Mark 9: 33-37
Danny Dutton, an 8 year old in Chula Vista, California, was given a homework assignment - "Explain God." Here is what he wrote:
One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to walk and talk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.
God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.
God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your mom and dad's head asking for something they said you shouldn't have.
Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church.
Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind like His Father and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said OK. His Dad (God) appreciated everything He had done and all His hard work on earth and so He told Him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary only more important.
You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to hear you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the time.
You should always go to Church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip Church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong! And, besides, the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.
If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark or when you can't swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.
But you shouldn't just always think about what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and God can take me back anytime He pleases. And that's why I believe in God. Signed, Danny Dutton.
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Our Old Testament lesson looks forward to the day when 'a little child shall lead them.' In today's New Testament lesson, Jesus holds a child in his arms as an example for the adults. I don't know who that little child would be, but I think Danny Dutton has a pretty good head start on the job. Obviously, he has been hanging around people of faith, who have been going to church on Sunday rather than to the beach.
I'd like to talk about children for the last few sermons of this year, because as Jesus shows us in that scripture story, talking about children is an important way to talk to adults about what is really important. Today I want to talk about the children we know in our daily lives, and in this church. Next Sunday I want to talk about the children we don't know, in our society and around the world. Then I want to talk about the child God sent, His only begotten Son. And then finally, on New Year's Eve Day I want to talk about the child in each of us, and the new possibilities God is giving us for 2007.
Every Sunday morning service - and today's is no exception - we are blessed by children. That is not true for a lot of churches anymore; but we are blessed by many of them. They come up for children's time, and they are like springtime in the life of the church. They are cute and beautiful, but they are so much more than cute and beautiful - they are wise and thoughtful and searching. Every Children’s Time in our service is like Jesus once again holding a child up in front of the disciples and saying, "This is what it means to be in the Kingdom of Heaven. You become like this, and God is sure to welcome you." Sometimes the children say something that makes us laugh, and we have to be careful about that, because it can be embarrassing when people laugh at what you say. But also, sometimes, when we laugh because something is cute, we might miss the truth that has been expressed; our children say what we are sometimes too shy or too 'mature' to say. But, if we're honest, we've wondered the same things ourselves.
Another thing that happens in Children’s Time is that sometimes when a child raises his or her hand to speak into the microphone, there is a parent or two in the congregation leaning forward in their seats and thinking, "Oh dear." One of my lovely children once informed the whole congregation that I burp loud after I drink beer. In fact, it was 'root' beer, but that was lost in translation. I always figure that parents get a free pass for whatever their kids say during Children's Time.
But, in all seriousness, God bless the parents in our congregation - like Mary and
Joseph, you are true heroes. In many cases, when your child was born, and you took on that huge responsibility, you made a decision that your child would have the advantage of a faith foundation. In other cases, that decision came later on. So you presented your child for baptism, and now you are fulfilling your parental vows that you made at that time. And you're doing it in a time when society is more and more calling such a decision into question; you're doing it when there are ten million other alternatives for a Sunday morning; you're doing it when you're tired and when your child is not always cooperative in getting ready for church. I believe you are giving your child a lifelong gift. Thank God for the parents, and in some cases, the grandparents or other relatives who have their kids in church today.
But this is not just a sermon for parents; it's for all of us. As Hillary Rodham Clinton said a few years back, it takes a village. In that village there are many who have never had children; there are many whose children are grown and gone; there are some who have lost children - all of us are important. It takes a whole community to raise a generation that can meet the challenges of the world that is coming. We have some strong reasons to be pretty humble about what our children and their children will be facing - it will not be a very pretty world we leave them; it will be a world full of bombs and guns; it will be a world that is going to struggle for a long time to rebuild the resources we've depleted; it will be a world with many nations - ours included - in serious debt; it will be a world of wide inequalities between rich and poor, and diseases that have just barely been addressed. The Bible says that the sins of parents will be visited upon children for many generations, and we seem to be making sure of it. It takes a village, it takes a responsible government, it takes everybody working as a community to create the new humanity that can hold out hope for the world we have made.
But a new generation brings hope by definition. Someone has said that we talk a lot about what kind of world we are leaving to our children, when what really matters is what kind of children we are leaving to the world. Which of the children will lead into a better future? Which will find the solutions, keep the faith strong, teach decency and love, preach grace and hope? All of us are answering that question by the way we live our lives in front of the young ones, by the children’s' ministries we support, and by the lessons we are ready to learn from the children and youth. We like to say that they are the church of the future. Jesus picked up a child and said, "No, this is the church of today. This is the example you must follow. This is the hope for the world."
This time of year is the perfect time to think on these things, because children are
certainly excited about what's happening. What does the Christmas story offer to our young people? First of all, it offers the value of simple heroes. We live in a celebrity culture, and our children are asked to pay attention to Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton and Bart Simpson and Terrell Owens and assorted other role models. People get attention today by being rich and famous and outrageous. In the middle of that, we have a story of Mary and Joseph and unnamed shepherds and humbled Wise Men - people who simply and courageously did what God asked them to do - not for status or popularity, but just to be faithful. That's a good thing to point out to our children and ourselves.
There is gift-giving in the Christmas story - but nothing that resembles the frenzy of our malls, or the explosion of wrapping paper around our Christmas trees, or the accumulation of debt that marks Christmas for so many families today. There was nothing much commercial in God's Christmas in Bethlehem - but rather a genuine sharing of what each had to give, with God's gift being greatest of all. And that is a good thing to point out to the children and ourselves.
And third, and most important, there is salvation in the Christmas story. Hiding underneath the tinsel and garland, the Jingle Bell Rock and the Santa's elves, the bright lights and the TV specials - God is doing something very special. The meaning of the nativity is never very far from the shadow of three crosses on a hill, and a world that was in desperate need of a Savior, and a God who broke His own heart, so that you and I would have a chance for something beyond the darkness and despair that so often characterizes this earthly life. The fact that so many people miss the true meaning of Christmas is merely a reflection of the fact that so many people miss the true meaning of life by focusing on the wrong things. But in the coming of Jesus, God is doing something very spiritual and wonderful - salvation is coming into the world. And we might think, well, that's adult stuff. Christmas for kids is about presents and magic and Santa. We'll teach them that religious stuff later on.
But Jesus held a child in front of those quarreling adults, and said, "This is how you enter the kingdom of God." So let's teach our kids about Jesus. Like Danny Dutton, they might not get all the details right, but neither do you, and neither do I. The essential part -the birth of love and hope and salvation into a sad and lonely world - maybe the children understand that better than anybody. And maybe, when the world finally gets it, when the nations finally embrace peace, and the wealthy share their riches, and gentleness replaces crudeness, and love casts out fear - maybe, it will be because we finally paid attention to the wisdom and the beauty and the love of the children. And all God's children will rejoice, and Christmas will truly happen.
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