"NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND"

Rev. Jim Petersen

9-23-07

First Congregational UCC-Great Falls, Montana

Text:   Isaiah 11:1-9;   Mark 10: 13-16 

The words are familiar, perhaps even favorites:  "Let the children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."  Jesus speaking to his disciples.

So familiar are these words, so prevalent is this picture on our Sunday School walls, that this is perhaps one of our most enduring and endearing images of Jesus, ranking right up there with Jesus and the lost lamb, as referenced two Sundays ago: the popular pastoral scene of Jesus meek & mild sitting on a hillside, flowers in bloom and birds singing, surrounded by children, some sitting in his lap, others at his feet, and all of them gazing up in rapt attention at his story telling.

The kind of picture we pastors have forever since tried to pull off in our children's sermons.  I tell you, it's a tough act to follow.

It wasn't so.  Oh, that Jesus reached out to the children, that he touched them and blessed them, and used them as an  illustration as to how we adults are to come to the Kingdom, this was so. Yes, this sounds entirely Jesus-like.  Just as Jesus approached lepers, talked to women, ministered to foreigners, and made Samaritans stars of his stories, Jesus extended himself to children.  This is what Jesus did, he reached out to the untouchables, those that had been discarded to the side of society, children included.

Look at the context of our lesson this morning.  This was no Rally Sunday we find here in Mark, with a Jolly Jumper waiting in the park across the street to reward the children, if not the parents, for being in church. 

No, look at the response of the ushers, who in this case are the disciples.  "The disciples rebuked those who brought the little children to Jesus."  "Rebuked" or "spoke sternly" as it is put in this morning's translation. In either case, strong stuff.  You get the message as presented by the gate keeping disciples, the children are not welcome in worship.

Why are the disciples trying to stop the people from bringing their children to Jesus?  Because it was not appropriate.  Children were not supposed to sit with the master.  So the disciples are just doing their job, as well as establishing a precedent, for ever since there has always been in every congregation a few faithful disciples among the membership who mutter, "Why do the kids have to start out in worship?"

The disciples are not mean people.  They do not have it out for the children.   They are simply representing the prevailing sentiment of their time.  They are maintaining the status quo of their society, in which children had no status.  Children were non-persons, not only not to be heard, but not to be seen either.

Understanding this helps us to realize how much Jesus was shaking up the status quo when he preached, "Let the children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these the kingdom of God belongs."  Do you hear this?  This is Jesus turning things upside down again. Yet another reason to nail him.

In Jesus day, children were not considered.  Period.  It was not until your Bar-Mitzvah, the coming of age, around 13, that you were considered a member of society.  In biblical times you went from childhood to adulthood, without passing the "go" of adolescence.  In other words, there were no teenagers.  You were either a child or an adult.  Of course, many of you are thinking, wouldn't this be great today.  Realize what we call teenage-hood or adolescence has only recently been acknowledged as a stage in life.  Peculiar as it is, this child development stuff, including the different stages in life, is pretty much post Dr. Spock, though don't blame him for it.

Back to biblical times, because of the teachings and example of Jesus, for the first time children were seen to be of importance not only as potential adults, but as children in and of themselves.  Passages like this in Mark are here to remind the church of this, for it was easy enough to forget this new and controversial teaching.

And so it was, the church, with Jesus Christ as head and cornerstone, became a most uncommon gathering of people.  People who would never get together otherwise, would come together as the church, male and female, who unless married would not gather in mixed crowds, unescorted singles were not seen in society, Jew and Greek, who did not converse unless for commercial purposes, natives and foreigners, slaves and free, and so forth, all together on equal and common ground in Christ.

Now add to this, children.  Children as persons of worth, as children, not for what they are to become, but already precious in God's sight.  Children were in church, too.  This was absolutely revolutionary.

Including the church's early practice of infant baptism, which had previously been a Hebrew act reserved for cleansing adults.  We can read about this in Acts where whole families were baptized, not just the adults.  This was extraordinary, a blessing for children as well, but in keeping with the teachings of the church.

It began when Jesus said, "Let the children come to me."

Of course, it did not stop there for the church.  And this is what is really amazing!  For together with its other outrageous teachings, the church said, this is not only true for our children, this is true for all children. The church said, we will not only be responsible for our children, we will be responsible for all children, and especially those children who are suffering in our society, because we are the people of God and every child is a child of God.

I tell you, it was a great awakening.  And in its new life one of the first things the church did in the Roman world was to pick the children off the streets who had been abandoned.  For abandonment was the most common means of birth control in the ancient world.  You didn't want the kid, you couldn't care for the kid, there were complications with the kid, you dumped it.

Except the church, who, under the Commandments of Christ, adopted the children, brought them into their homes or built homes for them, something never done before.  The church did this because as the body of Christ, it had eyes to see, the courage to care, and the capacity to make a difference.

And so it is the church historically has been the defender of children, the advocate for child care, the answer to the question, "Who will speak for the children?"  The answer: the church will.

How appropriate for us that at our 26^th General Synod of the United Church of Christ this past summer, celebrating our 50^th year as a denomination by that name, one of the keynote speakers was thorn-in-the-side Marion Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children's Defense Fund.  Do you have her DVD, Ray?  I bet she was good, eh?  We should get together and listen to her sometime.

We tend to toss it to the government the issue of child care, and then complain about how much it costs and how ineffective it is.  Or we put it on the public schools, and then complain about how much it costs and hand out failing grades.

Of course, we are the government and we are the public school and, praise God, we are the church, commanded to care for the children in all these ways.  And not just our children, but all children, for they all belong to God.

So we care for our children, and we care for the child who has never been to Sunday School, and likely never will be.  We care for our children and we care for the child who was conceived out of and born into a world of drugs and chemical abuse, addicted in utero; for the child who was born into a broken family and condemned to poverty for no other reason than birth, in this great nation of ours where one out of eight citizens lives in poverty, 40% of whom are children; for the child whose description of abuse is beyond appalling, you wouldn't believe it, though Lyle Hamilton, Kama's dad, will be here next month to tell us stories from the Intermountain Children's Home in Helena, which we support; for the child who has nobody to read to them, nobody to play with them, nobody to watch over them, nobody to care for them, nobody to provide for them.  We do it for them.

You sometimes read the quote, you can tell the greatness of a nation in how it treats its poor.  Although I have also read, you can tell the greatness of a nation in how it treats its children.  But maybe together is even more telling.  You can tell the greatness of a nation in how it treats its poor children.

Throughout history most nations have ignored their poor children.  They go unnoticed.  Neglected.  Denied.  Hoping they'll disappear.  Just like in the Bible when the disciples "rebuked" the parents for bringing the children to Jesus, who in turn, rebuked the disciples, saying, "Let the children come to me...for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."

In another scene the chapter before this morning's reading in Mark, Jesus takes a child and sits the child in the midst of his disciples.  Then Jesus says, "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.  And whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sends me."  (9:36-37)

It doesn't get any clearer than this.  The early church understood perfectly what Jesus meant.  And so began the Christian ministry of caring for those least able to care for themselves, the children in need.

So it is we do Christian Education Sunday today.  In two weeks we'll do "Neighbors-in-Need Sunday."  Then we'll hand out Bibles to the fourth graders the following Sunday, and have Lyle here the Sunday after that on what is called "Children's Sabbath Sunday," established by Marian Wright Edelman and her Children's Defense Fund. 

Of course, we'll do red ribbons and collect blankets as well, concluding with "Make A Difference Day,"  all in the month of October, just warming up to the holidays.  Oh, it is so great to be the church of Jesus Christ.  It's what we do.  And it matters.

A personal illustration from this past summer.  We were at Sara Anderson's wedding reception.

JJ was having a good time, especially hanging out with the lovely bridesmaids and dancing.  JJ likes wedding receptions, which is a good thing for as a "Preacher's Kid" he goes to a few. 

Jaybe Floyd noticed this, and as we were sitting talking, she commented to me how social JJ had become, and what a change this was from his earlier quiet years.  The same comment Shannon Anderson made after church last Sunday, as JJ was chatting with you, though I'm sure you picked up on the change as you did the chicken dance together at the reception.

Jaybe asked me what brought on the change, how had he become so social?  I responded with a generic answer, "Well, I suppose as he has developed better language skills, he feels more comfortable expressing himself.

I thought that was a good question, and wondered myself, so I decided to ask JJ himself, "JJ you were having so much fun at the reception, talking to everyone and being so friendly and nice.  Why is that, you did not used to do that?"

And JJ answered, "I'm just like you, Dad.  I watch you.  You are friendly.  You talk to everybody and are nice.  So I'm like you."  Well, I guess it does matter.

The little boy was also about ten, standing in front of the shoe store.  He was peering through the large display window, shivering in the cold.  Snow had begun to fall.  He was barefoot.

A lady on her way home from church drove by in a car, and noticed this scene, right down to the boy's bare feet.  She found a parking spot in the next block and walked back to the store.   Approaching the boy she asked, "My dear child, why are you looking so earnestly in the window?"

 "I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," replied the little boy.

The lady took him by the hand and went into the store.  She asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy.  Then she asked if she might have a basin of warm water and a towel.  The clerk complied.

The woman sat the boy down, removed her gloves, knelt at the basin, and washed the boy's feet, drying them with the towel.  By this time the clerk had returned with the socks.  Placing a pair on the boy's feet, she then proceeded to purchase him a pair of shoes, and had the remaining socks wrapped and given to him.

Stroking him on the head she said, "No doubt, my young friend, you will feel more comfortable now."  As she turned to go, the wide-eyed boy caught her by the hand and looking into her face with tears in his eyes, asked, "Are you God's wife?"

The answer is, "Yes!"

AMEN.