Message for Children's Sunday - November 18, 2012
"There was once someone who . . . "
Scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Mark 10:13-16
Opening Prayer
Loving God, may our eyes and hearts be opened to hear your Gospel in fresh ways
that can both inspire and move us to serve you in new ways.
And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you. Amen
The passage in Mark is one of the most famous in all of Scripture, Jesus welcoming the children. The image is seen all over the place, in paintings, sculptures and stain glass, here at St. Andrew's Wesley in the North Trancept. Next to the crucifixion, and Jesus as the Good Shepherd, it is the most popular subject that artists through the centuries have taken up. I remember one of my Sunday School classroom's as a child at North Surrey United, it was the United Church Women's / the UCW's lounge. We would gather around a table with a beautiful lace cloth on it and some industrial strength plastic over top, on the wall next to the table hung a large painting of Jesus surrounded by children and where he held one child's face in his hands looking deeply into their eyes as the child spoke to him. I remember gazing up at that painting and thinking Jesus must've been a good listener because he listened with his eyes too and then imagined that I was that child . . .
In the Gospel of Mark, the disciples, despite being with Jesus continuously, seeing what he cared about and hearing the words he spoke, they continued to fail dismally to understand what he was about. They just could not get with the program.
And they missed it yet again when they tried preventing the children from coming to Jesus. In some translations of the Bible they use the word stop, in the King James they use the word, forbid. However, I love the use of the word hinder in other translations. . . it is such a great word, much more insidious than forbid or stop . . . I was originally going to go with the sermon title, "do not hinder them . . . ." but I was encouraged to go with a more positive, open title.
What did Jesus do when the disciples tried to hinder the children? As Caleb read "He was indignant." The Gospel of Mark highlights Jesus' emotions more than the other Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke didn't even describe Jesus as angry, let alone indignant!
It would have been a tradition in those days to bring small children to a great rabbi so that they could bless them and pray for them. Unfortunately, Children in those days were very low down in the chain of importance and possibly would have been looked upon as an unnecessary distraction or interruption, not worthy of Jesus' time.
The Mark passage is universally acclaimed as one of the loveliest stories in the New Testament. "Let the children come to me," Jesus said. But the passage in its implications, is one of the most challenging and disturbing because it throws traditional logic and ways of thinking out the window when Jesus said, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’
Adults are to be more like children? Aren't children supposed to act like adults, emulate adults, don't we often measure how good a child is by how adult-like they can be?
This passage is one that we read each time we celebrate the baptism of a child in our church. Gathered around the font we hear these words and before the act of baptism happens, questions are asked, questions not only of the parents and godparents, but questions of us as the church family for that child.
Question: Do you, the people of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church receive these children into the Church, promise your love, support and care to them and their family as they live and grow in Christ?
And we respond by saying . . .We do, by the grace of God. We do, by the grace of God.
Today on Children's Sunday - a day where churches across the country lift up the needs and celebrate the gifts of children in their own communities and around the world . . . I would like to spend some time remembering the promises that we as a community of faith make to our children and do some wondering . . . .
I wonder how we may create space for children to deepen their connection to the Holy, to God, helping to remove any barriers in their way
I wonder how we might endeavour to not hinder children with our own pre-conceived ideas and thoughts enabling them to be the creative and expressive theologians they are.
I wonder how we might live our faith so that children see and know . . . that we love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul.
Many of you know that we offer Godly Play in Church School. "Godly play" is a term coined by Jerome Berryman to describe an approach to children's spiritual formation that is based on creating a sacred space in which to present the stories of our faith, wonder about them together, and then allow the children open-ended opportunities to engage the story on their own terms.
The Godly Play Foundation created a reflection titled, "The Theology of the Child," that I would like to share parts of, with you now.
When we think about the theology of childhood,
we are thinking about something very, very big, and part of a great mystery
We think about our words for something beyond words – like Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer or Father/Mother, Son, Spirit
The mystery of Relationship grounds our efforts to search for what it means to be human; what it might mean to be a Child of God.
Why is it important for us to understand the spiritual life of the child? Of course, it helps us as teachers, as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends who want to serve the children in our care. But it is also soooo very important to our identity as Christians – because Jesus calls us to become like children. Jesus never told us though how to do that. and I wonder if he meant for us to come close to children and maybe learn to know what they know.
As people of faith we believe that there is a divine imprint written upon every person, every child.
It is not something we can see, like the colour of their hair or eyes, or something we can measure, like their height or weight. We believe, no we know it is there. The divine imprint is written upon the soul, deep within the heart of every person born in this world.
Sometimes people behave as if children are just empty vessels, (holding up the vase, and showing how it is "empty")
something for us to fill with knowledge and information about God. (Gesture with one hand as if pouring something in to the vase)
But . . . you know --- they do not come to us empty……….. (putting hand in vase and drawing out the shimmery fabric)
there is the divine spark that’s inside each child and each one of us. The part that knows God, rather than knows “about” God.
Children come to us with their own spark, and with their own experience of God, that elusive Presence who plays hide and seek, peek a boo with us – that sometimes feels so close, and other times, far and beyond us.
Children may have been told about the Church God
the one that people have told them how to think and feel about.
But they have their own experience with the God of power with no name. If we look and listen with children carefully, we might see some of the wisdom in their original vision of God.
I wonder how we can help children learn that this God of power with no name and the Church God is the same?
Children don’t just want to know about God; they want to know God. As we grow older, other things crowd out our natural, inborn connection to the sacred. Our lives fill with all kinds of things.
Our culture offers us:
Sports, games, endless entertainment, social media, the pursuit of success; the pursuit of stuff; Grades ; Status with peers . . . .
These all compete for the attention of our children, each and every day.
All of us, no matter our age, have existential boundaries that frame our lives, limits we can't get around. These boundaries are part of our existence. They are part of what it means to be human. And they are the same whether we are 2 or 22, 52 or 102.
All of us have to confront the limits of being alone – we come into the world alone, even if we are born with a twin –no one else lives inside our own skin.
We confront what it means to be free. At different points in our lives, we run up against the lack, the threat and the joy of freedom.
We confront the search for meaning – who am I? How did I get here? What am I supposed to do? What’s this life really all about?
And we confront the limit of our mortality . . . . death… how long will my life last, and when and what will the end be like.
What our culture offers is not bad, well not all bad
The problem is that they aren't able to answer the big questions in our lives.
Since these questions are so big, how can we help children find their way? What is the best way for children to remember the divine imprint on their lives? (touching the shimmery fabric)
What things can we give children to help them with this deep work? One gift we can give children is religious language. Religious language, verbal and non-verbal, is a way to make meaning of these existential limits and a way to connect with the God they know about
with the God they know
It’s a religious language of words (lift and place Bible on table)
and also of gestures (prayer postion and hallelujah signing)
and objects (get Christ Candle an place on table)
and space, and time and silence.
Religious language is a way to make these existential concerns visible and tangible so we can work with them.
How can a child get into this stuff, the spirituality of their human condition?
The key ways children do this are through STORY and PLAY – these are their native languages, through which religious language can also become their own.
How can we recognize real play in which this skill might lurk?
Play is voluntary - no one makes you do it (play with a yoyo and then place on the table)
Play is fun
Play goes its own ways, we follow it, it can't be controlled (feather)
play is done for its own sake - like skimming a stone across the water
Play absorbs us, the creativity in us, it takes concentration (paint brush)
Children play games of “as if” based on what they have seen – as if they are driving a bus as if they are parents or Spiderman or a Jedi Knight
They also play “what if” games. Based on what they haven’t seen – what if we could ride a dinosaur to outerspace?
What if everyone was kind to each other – all the time? What if there was no more war? What if every child male and female could go to school in the world? What if every person had a safe place to call home?
This kind of play is important to us as Christians because – isn’t that what we need to imagine the Kingdom of God?
So Play is children’s work. and their Godly Play needs our respect.
Another gift we can give children is a safe place. Like an egg contained by its shell, children need us to provide a safe container in which to do this important spiritual work. (holding an egg)
We need to provide a safe enough space for children to feel it is OK to open up to their spiritual needs. It might also include protecting that space from the careless intrusion of adults or treating children as sources of amusement or entertainment or irrelevant (laughing at their responses, disregarding their wonderings, or imagination) undermining the seriousness of what the child and God might be really doing. A safe place is where difficult or unfinished business can be parked and returned to when the time is right – a place where ritual helps you enter in and leave.
We can give children the stories of Scripture, the Bible that have sustained people for generations. It can help us to know who we are in the larger story and children may find that they are part of the great family that numbers as many as the grains of sand in the desert and the stars in the sky.
We can give them community – like the church.
At its best, it can be a place where we learn to recognize our own authentic selves.
where we continue to work together to help create sacred space for all!
where we recognize the divine spark / imprint in each one of us!
where we not only talk about our faith but live our faith with children showing them in the ways we care for each other and creation, with our words and our actions!
where we care for parents in their most important role; creating spaces for them for learning, for support, not glaring at them when their child makes a sound!
where we channel the indignation of Jesus ad stand up and speak out, when we see or hear about children's rights being abuse, here in Vancouver or around the world!
where we value children as part of the present not only the future recognizing that supporting ministry with children is all of our responsibility, and our joy!
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus again and again reminds us of the importance of children, the gifts they bring and their ability to receive the kingdom, the realm of God.
Young Children look to their parents, to the caring adults in their lives for all that they receive. They depend on their presence, they trust that they will be there when they need them - to listen fully as they wonder, imagine, doubt and question, they rest in the knowledge that they are loved unconditionally and they know that in good times and in tough times they will not be alone but held in arms that welcome and comfort them.
I believe that for those of us no longer children, we can embrace that same kind of trust, that same kind of dependence, that same knowledge that we too, are not alone, that each one of us, as a child of God, may lean into those arms and rest, and be comforted, be listened to and be blessed . . . for God is our God, God alone.
There was once someone (holding the Christ Candle)
who had such respect, such reverence for what is within the heart of a child, that he became a child himself. When he grew to be a man, he seemed to know who children really were and they seemed to know who he really was. He came close to children, and they came close to him.
And he blessed them. And He calls us to bless children too. Perhaps then we may catch a glimpse into the very heart of God. Amen
Jennifer Cunnings
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