Soundings: Children

I’m beginning a new sermon series today and as part of it I would like to reintroduce a book that we ought to know a little bit about as Christians. It’s called The Bible and if you didn’t bring one with you today, or weren’t presented with one while you were here this morning, you’ll find a copy in the pew racks. There are several reasons for this reintroduction. For one thing, I have a conviction that sermons ought to be biblical. Maybe you believe that, too. But I recognize that there are many ways of being biblical and I am willing to explore some new ways of doing that.

I have a bias toward the story of scripture. By that I mean that when I turn to the Bible I like to take one text and really wrestle with, get the shape of it, learn the background of it, and hear what God is saying through this particular story. Sometimes I will do that with allusions to other parts of the Bible or to the shape of the scriptures as a whole, but my belief is that God has so much to say in one passage that it’s worth giving it a deep listen.

Today we’re going to do it a little bit differently. We’re going to take a theme or a question and look at how it appears throughout the Bible. I’m calling this a sounding. You know, a sounding is when you take a line with a lead on it and drop it into a body of water to measure the depth. There are more sophisticated ways of doing that now, but that’s the image I want you to keep. Because what we’re going to do is to take a question and do a sounding through the Bible – going down to look at how the question looks from different perspectives in this book.

So that’s one reason for the introduction, but there are others, not the least of which is that it strikes me that we don’t know our primary book nearly well enough. And if we are going to look different from the rest of the world, which is one of the things I suggested last week we should be doing, then one of the things that makes us different or distinctive is the fact that we believe that God is speaking to us through this book. Well, if God is speaking to us through this book and we keep it closed and we remain ignorant of what it has to say, what does that say about how much we really mean what we say? So blow the dust off the covers and let’s do some soundings.

Now this kind of preaching is going to be a challenge for me. You know I’m a storyteller so I’m going to be tempted to linger at every stop to tell the story of how we got this or that verse. If I do that too much, though, we’re liable to be here awhile. So to help guide me along I’m going to offer some provocative propositions to order our journey. These are the things that I want you to be testing with me as we look at these Bible passages. You may also start to develop some provocative propositions of your own, which is just fine.

So, having said all that, let’s look at the question of the day, which is, “What does the Bible tell us about children?” And my first provocative proposition is: We think with children. We think with children.

I remember right after Joel was born. It was probably the first day we were home from the hospital and Suzanne was getting some much-needed sleep. I was sitting on the sofa with this tiny child and he looked at me. Now I know that for a four-day-old baby the world is an incomprehensible blur. It’s all shapes and colors and faces that are becoming more and more familiar. But, I could have sworn, when he looked at me that something very meaningful happened. It was like I was meeting something holy. To be honest, it was like I was meeting God.

I wrote about it in a poem that I shared at a Christmas Eve service one year. This little baby seized the initiative from me. And it was not so much that we met face to face as face to grace.
Now I’ve since learned in many ways that Joel is not God and I think he’s beginning to suspect that I’m not God either, but it is certainly true that people represent for us more than just the people that they are. They play roles in our lives. They are husband or wife, protector or provider, lover or nurturer, caregiver or mentor. This is particularly true for children. They carry meaning and the Bible is very aware of this.

Let’s do some soundings. Genesis chapter 33, verse 5: When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant." The children whom God has graciously given your servant. Isn’t this the most natural thing in the world to believe? When a child is born, we say that he or she is a blessing from God. So when Jacob and Esau meet up after twenty years of estrangement, one of the signs for Esau that Jacob had been blessed by God was his children. The children were a sign.

But there is a hurtful counterside to this story. If children mean blessing then the absence of children was often interpreted as a curse from God. All you have to do is go back a few chapters in Jacob’s story and hear the pain in Rachel’s voice. Genesis chapter 30, verse 1: When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"

Now, it’s really hard not to tell this whole story because there are a lot of strange things to note about Rachel’s situation. She and her sister were married to the same man and there were concubines and all sorts of other things that would make this a great HBO series but the relevant point for today is that in the worldview of people living in the times of Genesis, not having children was tantamount to death. Children represented the future, they represented security, and they represented God’s favor. Psalm 128 offers us a vision of what the good life was for a faithful Hebrew. Verse 3 says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.” But for those who were left out of that vision, no children could be interpreted as a curse. It’s something that we still carry around with us and there is still great pain for couples who struggle with infertility. We think with children.

This takes another form in the Bible. Children become the symbol of the nation and the nation’s hope. When Moses’ mother places him in a basket in the river there are echoes of other stories and foreshadowing of others. Exodus chapter 2, verse 3 describes the scene: Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, has ordered that all the male babies born to the Israelites be thrown into the Nile and killed. But Moses’ mother can’t do that so…”When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, [the word for basket here is only used one other place in the Bible – it’s what Noah builds – she’s building an ark] and she plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.” And if we fast forward in the story we know that Moses is going to lead God’s people to safety through the waters of the Red Sea. This child is not just a child. He is going to be a representative of the people.

Later Isaiah is going to give us lots of images for children who represent the hopes of the people. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14…you hear this verse every Christmas: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Later in chapter 9, verse 6 he says, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The expectations of the people are centered on a child. And in Jesus those hopes are fulfilled. In the infant Jesus those hopes are fulfilled.

So one thing that you see throughout the Bible up until the coming of Jesus is that children carry a whole lot of symbolic value. God gives the people images of the future and these images often have a child in them. It’s important to realize how unusual this is. In early societies people tried NOT to give special significance to children. Infant mortality was high. Death was far more common than today. Childhood was not a stage of life people paid a lot of attention to. If you survived until adulthood, then you were significant. But here in the Bible we have a society where children had significance. And Jesus only deepens that significance by welcoming children.

So if you accept, (as you surely should), that my first provocative proposition is right and that we do think with children, then there are three other provocative propositions that are even more important. It’s one thing to recognize what we do…it’s another thing to know what we should do. So here’s something important to remember as we get there. Though children may symbolize many things for adults, children are people, too. This is provocative proposition number 2. Children are people, too. They don’t just live in stories that other people write about them. They are not just playing a role in a play where adults have all the leading roles. They are people in their own right.

That’s biblical, too. Children are showing up at some unlikely places, especially in the stories of Jesus. When Jesus feeds the multitudes, the gospels are very clear about noting who was there. Look at Matthew chapter 15, verse 38: “Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.” Children were there and they get mentioned, even if they don’t get counted.

When the disciples try to push children away who are coming to see Jesus, they are reflecting the bias of the society that children are less important than the adults who were following Jesus. But how does Jesus respond? Look at Luke chapter 18, verse 16: Jesus called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." The children matter! In fact, they are models for the disciples to follow.

And then look at Matthew chapter 21, verse 15. To me this is the most fascinating passage of all. We sing songs like “Tell Me the Story of Jesus”, which talks about the children shouting “Hosanna” and waving the branches of the palm tree. But what they are doing is a political act. It makes the leaders nervous. Look at this verse:

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became angry and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself'?"

So children are people, too and that leads to two parallel dangers for us as people who care about and have responsibilities for children. The first danger is that we will neglect our role as parents, disciplinarians, mentors, and elders. This is especially a danger for us in our youth-oriented society where no one wants to be the adult. But provocative proposition number 3 is that children thrive with discipline.

Now in a different age the first stop in talking about discipline would be something like Proverbs chapter 13, verse 24, which says, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” That usually gets shortened to the old saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” But in an age where we have heard horrible stories about child abuse and beatings that children have suffered, we want a little more than this. Discipline is not the same thing as corporal punishment. I know there a lot of folks who believe that if we just brought back the paddle the education system would be a whole lot better, but I don’t think that’s true.

Discipline is about training, not punishment. We are called to love our children – and by our children I mean the children of our whole community – by telling them who they are and how they should live…by caring enough to correct them when they go astray…and by giving them a grounding in what is right and what is wrong. The bible talks about it in terms of storytelling. When the Passover is celebrated the instructions, found in Exodus chapter 12, starting with verse 24, say:

“You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this observance?' you shall say, 'It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.'"

Children need our stories. They need to hear how we know what to do, where we made mistakes, and how we listen for God. Children need to come to church and to learn the language of our faith. This is discipline, too.

Finally, there is this: We think with children and the danger we run into is that we will forget that they are actually people in their own right with their own fears and needs and dreams and their own future. So we dare not neglect our role in offering them guidance. But my last provocative proposition is this: We also dare not stop learning from children for they are gifts from God.

Jesus points us to this lesson. Matthew chapter 18, verses 2 through 6:
[Jesus] called a child, whom he put among them, and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What could Jesus possibly mean by this? He doesn’t say. Jerome Berryman, an Episcopal priest who has studied the connections between Christianity and the Montessori Method that we are using in our new school here, writes about this passage:

Jesus did not define the child he told us to be like. To discover what we are to be like if we are to be spiritually mature we must consult Jesus parabolic sayings and actions in scripture, take a deeper look at the children around us, and inquire into [our] own childhood. Jesus’ parabolic method forces us to discover what adult maturity is for ourselves. He refuses to tell us more than where to look. It is the experience of that discovery, which prepares us to enter God’s domain.[i]

So something in the experience of a child can give us a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. In fact, to become like a child is the key.

This week we started welcoming a bunch of kids here to Franktown. 12 preschoolers who are going to be regulars here. There were some tears and some stressful moments. And that was just the adults. But there is something miraculous about the first day of school. Everything is new. There are new experiences to be had. There are new relationships to be formed. And those children trusted Gillian and trusted their parents and trust us that what we say about them, we believe. They are God’s gift.

Last week I quoted Casting Crowns. Today I want to quote another Christian group – Jars of Clay. They have a song that is old now. It must be 10 years old, and it’s called “Like a Child.” In the song a little girl’s voice repeats things that seem so simple they can’t possibly be true, can they? She sings, “I’ve got joy like a fountain.” And she says, “Be kind to others.” And then she says, “In Jesus Christ, your son.” And then the chorus kicks in:

They say that love can heal the broken
They say that hope can make you see
They say that faith can find a Savior
If you would follow and believe
with faith like a child

Here’s the greatest promise of a biblical perspective on children. If we get it right we can claim the greatest gift. Read John chapter 1, verse 12: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” You know the greatest thing you can be called? To those who believe, God gives the power to become children of God. There’s a child who needs you and you need to be a child. Thanks be to God.

Luke 18:15-17 (NRSV)People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

[i] Jerome Berryman, “CHILDREN AND MATURE SPIRITUALITY”, 2005. http://www.godlyplay.org/uploads/pages/downloads/Children__Mature_Spirituality.pdf