Like a Child(27March2011)
Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus M8 (11 03 27)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Like a Child
Text: Mark 10:13-16
BIG IDEA: Jesus calls us to bless children and those who cannot repay us.
As a 10 year old—even though I was underage—I talked my way into getting a paper route with the Vancouver Sun… I was told by the paper shack manager I was too young… I responded by saying, “Sir, I’ve wanted to be a paper boy ever since I was five years old… how many of your other carriers can claim, they’ve been wanting to do their job for half of their life? I may be small, but come rain, snow, sleet or hail… I shall deliver…”
At least that’s what I remember… probably what I really said… “Come on… please give me the job!” I don’t remember how many papers I had on my route. I do remember in the front of my BMX, I had an ET style paper rack bolted to front my handle bars, filled with so many papers my bike ended up steering itself. Sometimes, I also had two paper bags one slung over each shoulder—like a Mexican gun fighter with really big guns and sometimes I wore one Sherpa style on my back with a strap over my forehead.
I know we don’t get many white Christmases here, but one year here in the Lower Mainland there was a big snow fall… too much snow for me to ride my bike… even too much snow for someone to drive a car… I remember looking out the window and dreading the fact that I would have to walk my entire route dragging my load behind me…
My mom tried to cheer me up by saying… “I can see how anxious you are, don’t worry… In the garage, there’s a sled… and I’ll help you pull…” At the age of 10 I didn’t know who God was, but looking there in snow, I had chance to see “God with some skin… wearing with mittens.”
This morning we're going to see a text which shows us how much God loves children. We see his love for children in the face of Jesus Christ who the Scriptures affirm is God with some skin – God in human flesh. As Dale Bruner has said all that God wants to show us about himself – he shows us in his Son Jesus Christ.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 10, verse 13:
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
We read in the text how people were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them and bless them, but Jesus’ disciples rebuked them. At this time Jesus’ students are hoping that Jesus will set up a kind of political kingdom where he will free the Jews from under the oppressive fist of Rome. So Jesus’ students naturally feel that Jesus should not be wasting his time with little children who do not wield political power, who can do nothing to advance their campaign, so they begin to hover around Jesus like over-scrupulous secret service agents with sun glasses and earphones and shoo away parents who want to bring their children to Jesus and have him bless them.
But Jesus is irate and he says, “Let the children come to me. Anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter in.” Then we read that he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them, and blessed them.
In Jesus’ day children were socially powerless. In his day, because many people were impoverished and living day to day, children would often die before reaching adolescence. In the poorest places like Egypt, scholars estimate that perhaps one-half of those born died by the age of twelve. Though this was not true of the Jews, poor families of some other cultures in the Roman world had a practice of discarding their babies if they thought they would be unable to support them. So many people in Jesus day didn’t feel children were necessarily a good long term investment.
Jesus again flips the values of the world upside down. He treats people--who are considered unimportant by the world--as precious.
Though there are many differences between Jesus’ first century world and our own, and there are many things that are still the same. In Jesus’ world, as in ours, people valued those with money, power, and beauty. That is certainly true of our world. Before becoming a parent, I travelled more often and most years I would achieve some kind of special elite status with Air Canada. I (unlike now) was regularly upgraded to executive class. When I discovered that I was going to get a free upgrade to executive class, I would feel happy. I thought if I fly today, the flight attendants will be nice to me. They will be attentive. I am not going to get treated like I am a nuisance (unless, of course, I act like one). I have never bought an executive class ticket. I can’t see myself ever buying one of those. They are so expensive. But when I have flown executive class, flight attendants assumed I must have money or be someone special. I got treated that way.
Jesus flips this value upside down. He treats people without money, without power, without prestige like they are passengers in first class. As we follow him, we are called to do the same. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to be a counter-cultural community. One of the ways we do that is by treating children, our elders (who in our time—unlike the ancient world—often feel invisible as they age), people of minority groups who have been discriminated against in our society (like the First nations people who have likely experienced more injustice than any other group in Canada)… like they are first class passengers…like they are really precious to God…because they are. It is very subtle and often unconscious, but we human beings, like those first disciples of Jesus, are drawn to treat people with money, power, beauty, status more favourably because we think they can advance us in some way.
Some days I do a morning workout at one of the near-by gyms. There is a young woman at one of the gyms I work out at who is very athletic. She’s attractive. And I notice that the guys in the gym are eager to talk to her, eager to spot her when she is lifting weights. The other day she did a countless number of reverse pull-ups. I was impressed (for the 3rd service. As I was working out with Antonio one time, I was getting prepared for a chin-up in my workout. I was able to do 26 in his presence motivated by the fear of not wanting to be humiliated in the presence of our boot camp instructor.) But she did a countless number that morning. I was curious and wanted to walk up to her and ask, “How many pull-ups have done thus far?” If you are attractive and athletic, you are just going to get more attention in the gym and in other social contexts.
What if we followed Jesus and adopted his upside values and treated people like they were precious, like they were first class passengers, like they were beautiful, as all people are in God’s sight, regardless of whether they had money, power, status or beauty as defined by the advertising industry? If we followed Jesus and really loved kids and our elders, those who are poor, and those who aren’t conventionally a beauty as defined by the advertising industry, those who cannot advance us in a worldly way our community would have a unique air in Vancouver. We would be different.
Here in the passage, we see that Jesus welcomed the children. He took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Here we see Jesus offering children, these powerless little people his time, his touch, his voice, his prayers.
Some of you may know Max and Esther Depree. They have a granddaughter named Zoe, the Greek word for life. Max said, “She was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, so small that my wedding ring could slide up her arm to her shoulder. The doctor who first examined her told us that she had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living three days.” When Max and Esther scrubbed up for their first visit and saw Zoe lying in her clear plastic incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, she had two IVs in her navel, one in her foot, a monitor on each side of her chest, and a respirator tube and a feeding tube in her mouth.
Max continues, “To complicate matters, Zoe's biological father had jumped ship the month before Zoe was born. Realizing this, a wise and caring nurse named Ruth gave me my instructions.”
"For the next several months, at least, you're the surrogate father. I want you to come to the hospital every day to visit Zoe, and when you come, I want you to rub her body and her legs and arms with the tip of your finger. While you're caressing her, you should tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch."
(Zoe miraculously survived and thrived.)
Children, our elders, and the forgotten people of the world need God’s voice and touch and so he gave us not only Jesus Christ, but wants to bring his voice and touch through us. Saint Teresa of Avila has said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”
(BTW, we never quite out grow our need for God’s voice and touch. Henri Nouwen perceptively observes: Success, popularity, and power are great temptations, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. We pursue success, popularity, power—but what we really want is the love and respect that come from these.)
But our text today is primarily about loving children and the young—and by offer children our time, touch (I know this is a sensitive word—but I obviously mean appropriate and not boundary violating touch), our voice and prayers.
A survey taken recently here in Canada shows that for young people today, family and friends, people in their faith community have greater impact as role models than celebrities: Taylor Lautner (in the Twilight Movies) or Miley Cyrus, or Justin Bieber.
A poll taken this year asked teenagers in US identify the person they admired most as a role model, other than their parents. More than two out of three of the teenagers said that their role models are the people they know best: a relative, a teacher, a coach, someone in their faith community, friends. (The survey also demonstrated that for most teenagers their primary role model was not a celebrity, a singer, an actor, an athlete, a politician.)
And like Jesus as we welcome children and offer them our time, touch, voice and prayers we never know the impact that we will make. Usually in the short-term we have no idea.
Forty years ago a Philadelphia congregation watched as three 9-year-old boys were baptized and joined the church. Not long after, unable to continue with its dwindling membership, the church sold the building and disbanded.
One of those boys was Dr. Tony Campolo, author and Christian sociologist at Eastern College, Pennsylvania. Several years ago he preached here at Tenth.
Tony Campolo remembers:
“Years later when I was doing research in the archives of our denominations, I decided to look up the church report for the year of my baptism. There was my name, and Dick White's. Dick now a missionary. Bert Newman, now a professor of theology at an African seminary, was also there. Then I read the church report for 'my' year: "It has not been a good year for our church. We have lost 27 members. Three joined, and they were only children."
We simply don’t know the impact we can have when we offer a child or a young person the gifts of our time, touch, voice, and prayers.
In this our passage we’re looking at today we see that ministry to children is very close to Jesus’ heart and therefore very close to God’s heart. If you are a parent one of your most important ministries is your family.
Mother Teresa was once approached by a woman named Colleen Evans. Colleen had just heard about Mother Teresa’s work among the poor in Calcutta, India. Colleen was inspired. She wanted to do something significant for the kingdom of God. She approached Mother Teresa and asked, “Mother, you are doing something great for God. I want to do something great for God. Can you give me some word of counsel?” Mother Teresa looked at her and said, “Are you married?” Colleen said, “Yes.” She said, “If you want to something great, go home and love your husband. Do you have children?” “Yes.” “Go home and love your children.”
Many women and men, of course, will have a vocation that is broader than simply the immediate family. We can be called to another occupation, perhaps a ministry beyond our family. But if we are parents, one of the greatest ministries we will ever have, and likely one of the least glamorous, is to serve as a pastor to our own children—to offer them our time, touch, voice, and prayers. Whether we do or do not have children of our own, we can love children.
As a number of people have observed, it’s often someone other than a parent who has the greatest spiritual impact on a young person life because the parent-child relationship can become so complicated. So, if don’t have children don’t think you can’t have an impact on a child. Your very presence in someone’s life can make an impact—even when they seem not that interested.
When I was single, I used to spend time with a few kids. One of the kids was about 10 years old. One afternoon when I was at his house, I saw that he had a football in the garage and picked it up. “Do you like football?” I asked. “I really don’t know how to play football,” Ethan replied. (One of the reasons, he may not have known how to play football was that his dad died when he was a younger boy.) It had been a long time since I had played football, but I grabbed the ball and showed Ethan how to how to spread his fingers across the laces, cock the ball behind his ear, and release it and snap his wrist counter clockwise. We spent part of the afternoon throwing the football back and forth. He didn’t seem that interested, but it was a way to pass the time. A few weeks later, his mom told me that he keeps telling her, “Mom, this is how you throw a ball.” He took the ball with him wherever he went--including tagging along with his mother on a grocery store errand.
Sometimes, kids may not seem that interested when we’re them. Sometimes they may seem a little bored, but the impact can be greater than we are aware at the time.
Why do we have all kinds of ministries to children? It’s because children are precious to Jesus and the kingdom of God belongs to people with childlike qualities:
We are starting a new ministry called LiveWire (show poster) in May, and we are hoping that many kids in Grades 6 and 7 will come to the church after school, 3 days a week, to hang out.
Alvin Ram (show photo) will serve as the ministry leader. Alvin is from Vancouver, and has been involved in youth ministry at his church in Victoria (where he has been living while completing his BA at UVic) and through the Youth Custody system where he has been helping troubled youth make life and faith choices. He loves to use basketball as a way to reach out to youth. Our hope and prayer is that through sports, art, cooking, and other fun activities, Alvin and his team will build mentoring relationships with kids from grade 6 and 7 in our neighbourhood.
We want to impact these kids before they reach high school, to help them envision their future as a good place where they can make a positive difference in the world. We will encourage them to become part of the Tenth community, and respond to God’s love for them and his good plan for their lives. If you are interested in getting involved, offering some your time, touch, voice and prayers please contact our children’s ministry pastor Catherine at Catherine@tenth.ca
Another way that we can touch a child’s life is through sponsorship.
Moses Pulei Massai is a man I know from Kenya. Moses grew up a Massai in a home made of cow dung and sticks, and as an adolescent had to kill a lion with his hands as part of his ritual toward manhood. He started school late because his dad doubted it was possible to hold a spear and knife in one hand and books in the other. But his mom really wanted him to get an education, so about age 9 with the sponsorship of World Vision he was able to attend school and also had access to medicine that his family otherwise could not afford when he was sick. During his final year in high school, Moses became a follower of Jesus at a World Vision sponsored youth camp in my senior year of high school. He was eventually able to come to North America and got a PhD in theology. He now teaches theology in both North America and Africa.
Later on in this service you are going to have an opportunity to hear about an opportunity to sponsor World Vision children—many of you are already sponsoring a child through World Vision, or Compassion, or through International China Concern, or through some other ministry organization. If you are not in the practice of sponsoring a child, and you would like to, there is no pressure, this is simply an opportunity to serve a child.
Before that, how do we become people who welcome children, who welcome people who do not have power, status or beauty in the worldly sense (who have an open heart toward our elders)? How do we follow Jesus and become counter-cultural? How do we become his hands, his feet, his eyes, his heart in our world?
In our passage, Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Jesus looked at the children, welcomed them, and said, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Jesus doesn’t say the Kingdom of God belongs to these children, but to such as these. Jesus is saying that in order to receive the gift of God’s kingdom and of God’s life, we must become like children.
Jesus says, Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Unless we become as a little child, we will never enter the kingdom of God.
This is, of course, a metaphor. Jesus here is not romantizing children. Jesus had many younger siblings, so he knew first hand that children can be irritating. They can be annoying. They can be selfish. He is not idealizing children. He not saying “become childish.” He is saying become childlike.
In what ways?
A young child is completely dependent on a parent or a caregiver for their existence. Our 2 1/2 year old son Joey is completely dependent on us as parents. His favorite expression “Mommies—apple juice… Mommy… hungry.”
Joey cannot make macaroni and cheese for himself or even cut an apple for himself. He is dependent on us – and especially on his mommy.
Young children can't negotiate (slightly older children can be very persuasive negotiators).
In the same way, if we are to receive the kingdom of God, if we are to experience life with God, then we need to be utterly dependent on him. Like a young child we can’t negotiate. We can’t say “I have accomplished this and that, therefore you must accept me.” Like a child we come to God utterly dependent, acknowledging there is nothing we can do to scrub away our sins. We acknowledge that we are completely relying on Christ’s sacrificial death for us on the cross for our sins in order to be forgiven. We are wholly relying on the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life to guide us into the way of God.
In order to receive the kingdom we must become childlike in our dependence on God.
There is also another quality of childlikeness that comes to mind. Again, one of the things that I am observing about our 2 ½ year old son Joey is that he lives with an air of confidence that he will be loved by everyone. When he talks, even though most of his talk is gibberish, he expects people to listen and find him interesting. There is a part of me that is fully aware that he will be rudely awakened by the reality of the world at some point. He will be rejected. He will be hurt by someone. But as a little child he expects that people will love him.
And that is the way we are to relate to God—utterly dependent, but also confident of his love for us. As we grasp how deep his love for us is, we will become people who are able to love children, our elders, people without money power status, or worldly beauty.
As I have shared with some of you before, when I was a teenager in high school, I was incredibly insecure. I know most teenagers are insecure, but I was far more insecure than most. I made it my goal to become part of the popular crowd, to become part of the “in” crowd, to be part of the bad boy athlete crowd. I worked really hard and I made it in…just barely, but I did make it in.
One of the things that irked me most was when some kid, some nerd, some loser would try to sit in proximity to our group. I made a point of trying to shoo them away or saying to my friends “we just can’t let people like that sit close to us or our image is going to tank. What will people think?”
Then I met Jesus Christ and my life began to change. One of the kids in my high school who was considered uncool, a nerd, someone who we actually shooed away from the part of the hallway that we “owned,” gave his life to Christ and started coming to my church and our youth group. I started having lunch with him in the school cafeteria. A couple of people started coming up to me and to my sister, too, who started going to the school, would whisper, “Why is it that you are not hanging out with the cool crowd anymore and you are hanging out with this guy?” I thought, “Here is a great irony. I was part of this really popular group and feeling so insecure, but because now that I have this deep sense that God loves me, for the first time in a very, very long time, I am feeling secure and good about myself.” So I had the freedom to connect with this person who is not doing anything for my social image, but I want to connect with because he is my brother in Christ.
It is as we meet Jesus Christ, as our hearts are filled with a sense of his love for us, as we come to Jesus like a little child, and let him bless us, then we can turn and offer our time, our touch, voice and prayers and our blessing to children, to elders, and people who are on the margins of our life. We can give kids and others our time, touch, voice and prayers to people who can do nothing to advance us – because in Christ we have already been advanced – in Christ we've already been offered everything that matters.
(Jay Calder and World Vision Video)
The Way of Jesus M8 (11 03 27)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Like a Child
Text: Mark 10:13-16
BIG IDEA: Jesus calls us to bless children and those who cannot repay us.
As a 10 year old—even though I was underage—I talked my way into getting a paper route with the Vancouver Sun… I was told by the paper shack manager I was too young… I responded by saying, “Sir, I’ve wanted to be a paper boy ever since I was five years old… how many of your other carriers can claim, they’ve been wanting to do their job for half of their life? I may be small, but come rain, snow, sleet or hail… I shall deliver…”
At least that’s what I remember… probably what I really said… “Come on… please give me the job!” I don’t remember how many papers I had on my route. I do remember in the front of my BMX, I had an ET style paper rack bolted to front my handle bars, filled with so many papers my bike ended up steering itself. Sometimes, I also had two paper bags one slung over each shoulder—like a Mexican gun fighter with really big guns and sometimes I wore one Sherpa style on my back with a strap over my forehead.
I know we don’t get many white Christmases here, but one year here in the Lower Mainland there was a big snow fall… too much snow for me to ride my bike… even too much snow for someone to drive a car… I remember looking out the window and dreading the fact that I would have to walk my entire route dragging my load behind me…
My mom tried to cheer me up by saying… “I can see how anxious you are, don’t worry… In the garage, there’s a sled… and I’ll help you pull…” At the age of 10 I didn’t know who God was, but looking there in snow, I had chance to see “God with some skin… wearing with mittens.”
This morning we're going to see a text which shows us how much God loves children. We see his love for children in the face of Jesus Christ who the Scriptures affirm is God with some skin – God in human flesh. As Dale Bruner has said all that God wants to show us about himself – he shows us in his Son Jesus Christ.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark 10, verse 13:
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
We read in the text how people were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them and bless them, but Jesus’ disciples rebuked them. At this time Jesus’ students are hoping that Jesus will set up a kind of political kingdom where he will free the Jews from under the oppressive fist of Rome. So Jesus’ students naturally feel that Jesus should not be wasting his time with little children who do not wield political power, who can do nothing to advance their campaign, so they begin to hover around Jesus like over-scrupulous secret service agents with sun glasses and earphones and shoo away parents who want to bring their children to Jesus and have him bless them.
But Jesus is irate and he says, “Let the children come to me. Anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter in.” Then we read that he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them, and blessed them.
In Jesus’ day children were socially powerless. In his day, because many people were impoverished and living day to day, children would often die before reaching adolescence. In the poorest places like Egypt, scholars estimate that perhaps one-half of those born died by the age of twelve. Though this was not true of the Jews, poor families of some other cultures in the Roman world had a practice of discarding their babies if they thought they would be unable to support them. So many people in Jesus day didn’t feel children were necessarily a good long term investment.
Jesus again flips the values of the world upside down. He treats people--who are considered unimportant by the world--as precious.
Though there are many differences between Jesus’ first century world and our own, and there are many things that are still the same. In Jesus’ world, as in ours, people valued those with money, power, and beauty. That is certainly true of our world. Before becoming a parent, I travelled more often and most years I would achieve some kind of special elite status with Air Canada. I (unlike now) was regularly upgraded to executive class. When I discovered that I was going to get a free upgrade to executive class, I would feel happy. I thought if I fly today, the flight attendants will be nice to me. They will be attentive. I am not going to get treated like I am a nuisance (unless, of course, I act like one). I have never bought an executive class ticket. I can’t see myself ever buying one of those. They are so expensive. But when I have flown executive class, flight attendants assumed I must have money or be someone special. I got treated that way.
Jesus flips this value upside down. He treats people without money, without power, without prestige like they are passengers in first class. As we follow him, we are called to do the same. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to be a counter-cultural community. One of the ways we do that is by treating children, our elders (who in our time—unlike the ancient world—often feel invisible as they age), people of minority groups who have been discriminated against in our society (like the First nations people who have likely experienced more injustice than any other group in Canada)… like they are first class passengers…like they are really precious to God…because they are. It is very subtle and often unconscious, but we human beings, like those first disciples of Jesus, are drawn to treat people with money, power, beauty, status more favourably because we think they can advance us in some way.
Some days I do a morning workout at one of the near-by gyms. There is a young woman at one of the gyms I work out at who is very athletic. She’s attractive. And I notice that the guys in the gym are eager to talk to her, eager to spot her when she is lifting weights. The other day she did a countless number of reverse pull-ups. I was impressed (for the 3rd service. As I was working out with Antonio one time, I was getting prepared for a chin-up in my workout. I was able to do 26 in his presence motivated by the fear of not wanting to be humiliated in the presence of our boot camp instructor.) But she did a countless number that morning. I was curious and wanted to walk up to her and ask, “How many pull-ups have done thus far?” If you are attractive and athletic, you are just going to get more attention in the gym and in other social contexts.
What if we followed Jesus and adopted his upside values and treated people like they were precious, like they were first class passengers, like they were beautiful, as all people are in God’s sight, regardless of whether they had money, power, status or beauty as defined by the advertising industry? If we followed Jesus and really loved kids and our elders, those who are poor, and those who aren’t conventionally a beauty as defined by the advertising industry, those who cannot advance us in a worldly way our community would have a unique air in Vancouver. We would be different.
Here in the passage, we see that Jesus welcomed the children. He took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Here we see Jesus offering children, these powerless little people his time, his touch, his voice, his prayers.
Some of you may know Max and Esther Depree. They have a granddaughter named Zoe, the Greek word for life. Max said, “She was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, so small that my wedding ring could slide up her arm to her shoulder. The doctor who first examined her told us that she had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living three days.” When Max and Esther scrubbed up for their first visit and saw Zoe lying in her clear plastic incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit, she had two IVs in her navel, one in her foot, a monitor on each side of her chest, and a respirator tube and a feeding tube in her mouth.
Max continues, “To complicate matters, Zoe's biological father had jumped ship the month before Zoe was born. Realizing this, a wise and caring nurse named Ruth gave me my instructions.”
"For the next several months, at least, you're the surrogate father. I want you to come to the hospital every day to visit Zoe, and when you come, I want you to rub her body and her legs and arms with the tip of your finger. While you're caressing her, you should tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch."
(Zoe miraculously survived and thrived.)
Children, our elders, and the forgotten people of the world need God’s voice and touch and so he gave us not only Jesus Christ, but wants to bring his voice and touch through us. Saint Teresa of Avila has said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”
(BTW, we never quite out grow our need for God’s voice and touch. Henri Nouwen perceptively observes: Success, popularity, and power are great temptations, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. We pursue success, popularity, power—but what we really want is the love and respect that come from these.)
But our text today is primarily about loving children and the young—and by offer children our time, touch (I know this is a sensitive word—but I obviously mean appropriate and not boundary violating touch), our voice and prayers.
A survey taken recently here in Canada shows that for young people today, family and friends, people in their faith community have greater impact as role models than celebrities: Taylor Lautner (in the Twilight Movies) or Miley Cyrus, or Justin Bieber.
A poll taken this year asked teenagers in US identify the person they admired most as a role model, other than their parents. More than two out of three of the teenagers said that their role models are the people they know best: a relative, a teacher, a coach, someone in their faith community, friends. (The survey also demonstrated that for most teenagers their primary role model was not a celebrity, a singer, an actor, an athlete, a politician.)
And like Jesus as we welcome children and offer them our time, touch, voice and prayers we never know the impact that we will make. Usually in the short-term we have no idea.
Forty years ago a Philadelphia congregation watched as three 9-year-old boys were baptized and joined the church. Not long after, unable to continue with its dwindling membership, the church sold the building and disbanded.
One of those boys was Dr. Tony Campolo, author and Christian sociologist at Eastern College, Pennsylvania. Several years ago he preached here at Tenth.
Tony Campolo remembers:
“Years later when I was doing research in the archives of our denominations, I decided to look up the church report for the year of my baptism. There was my name, and Dick White's. Dick now a missionary. Bert Newman, now a professor of theology at an African seminary, was also there. Then I read the church report for 'my' year: "It has not been a good year for our church. We have lost 27 members. Three joined, and they were only children."
We simply don’t know the impact we can have when we offer a child or a young person the gifts of our time, touch, voice, and prayers.
In this our passage we’re looking at today we see that ministry to children is very close to Jesus’ heart and therefore very close to God’s heart. If you are a parent one of your most important ministries is your family.
Mother Teresa was once approached by a woman named Colleen Evans. Colleen had just heard about Mother Teresa’s work among the poor in Calcutta, India. Colleen was inspired. She wanted to do something significant for the kingdom of God. She approached Mother Teresa and asked, “Mother, you are doing something great for God. I want to do something great for God. Can you give me some word of counsel?” Mother Teresa looked at her and said, “Are you married?” Colleen said, “Yes.” She said, “If you want to something great, go home and love your husband. Do you have children?” “Yes.” “Go home and love your children.”
Many women and men, of course, will have a vocation that is broader than simply the immediate family. We can be called to another occupation, perhaps a ministry beyond our family. But if we are parents, one of the greatest ministries we will ever have, and likely one of the least glamorous, is to serve as a pastor to our own children—to offer them our time, touch, voice, and prayers. Whether we do or do not have children of our own, we can love children.
As a number of people have observed, it’s often someone other than a parent who has the greatest spiritual impact on a young person life because the parent-child relationship can become so complicated. So, if don’t have children don’t think you can’t have an impact on a child. Your very presence in someone’s life can make an impact—even when they seem not that interested.
When I was single, I used to spend time with a few kids. One of the kids was about 10 years old. One afternoon when I was at his house, I saw that he had a football in the garage and picked it up. “Do you like football?” I asked. “I really don’t know how to play football,” Ethan replied. (One of the reasons, he may not have known how to play football was that his dad died when he was a younger boy.) It had been a long time since I had played football, but I grabbed the ball and showed Ethan how to how to spread his fingers across the laces, cock the ball behind his ear, and release it and snap his wrist counter clockwise. We spent part of the afternoon throwing the football back and forth. He didn’t seem that interested, but it was a way to pass the time. A few weeks later, his mom told me that he keeps telling her, “Mom, this is how you throw a ball.” He took the ball with him wherever he went--including tagging along with his mother on a grocery store errand.
Sometimes, kids may not seem that interested when we’re them. Sometimes they may seem a little bored, but the impact can be greater than we are aware at the time.
Why do we have all kinds of ministries to children? It’s because children are precious to Jesus and the kingdom of God belongs to people with childlike qualities:
We are starting a new ministry called LiveWire (show poster) in May, and we are hoping that many kids in Grades 6 and 7 will come to the church after school, 3 days a week, to hang out.
Alvin Ram (show photo) will serve as the ministry leader. Alvin is from Vancouver, and has been involved in youth ministry at his church in Victoria (where he has been living while completing his BA at UVic) and through the Youth Custody system where he has been helping troubled youth make life and faith choices. He loves to use basketball as a way to reach out to youth. Our hope and prayer is that through sports, art, cooking, and other fun activities, Alvin and his team will build mentoring relationships with kids from grade 6 and 7 in our neighbourhood.
We want to impact these kids before they reach high school, to help them envision their future as a good place where they can make a positive difference in the world. We will encourage them to become part of the Tenth community, and respond to God’s love for them and his good plan for their lives. If you are interested in getting involved, offering some your time, touch, voice and prayers please contact our children’s ministry pastor Catherine at Catherine@tenth.ca
Another way that we can touch a child’s life is through sponsorship.
Moses Pulei Massai is a man I know from Kenya. Moses grew up a Massai in a home made of cow dung and sticks, and as an adolescent had to kill a lion with his hands as part of his ritual toward manhood. He started school late because his dad doubted it was possible to hold a spear and knife in one hand and books in the other. But his mom really wanted him to get an education, so about age 9 with the sponsorship of World Vision he was able to attend school and also had access to medicine that his family otherwise could not afford when he was sick. During his final year in high school, Moses became a follower of Jesus at a World Vision sponsored youth camp in my senior year of high school. He was eventually able to come to North America and got a PhD in theology. He now teaches theology in both North America and Africa.
Later on in this service you are going to have an opportunity to hear about an opportunity to sponsor World Vision children—many of you are already sponsoring a child through World Vision, or Compassion, or through International China Concern, or through some other ministry organization. If you are not in the practice of sponsoring a child, and you would like to, there is no pressure, this is simply an opportunity to serve a child.
Before that, how do we become people who welcome children, who welcome people who do not have power, status or beauty in the worldly sense (who have an open heart toward our elders)? How do we follow Jesus and become counter-cultural? How do we become his hands, his feet, his eyes, his heart in our world?
In our passage, Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Jesus looked at the children, welcomed them, and said, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Jesus doesn’t say the Kingdom of God belongs to these children, but to such as these. Jesus is saying that in order to receive the gift of God’s kingdom and of God’s life, we must become like children.
Jesus says, Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
Unless we become as a little child, we will never enter the kingdom of God.
This is, of course, a metaphor. Jesus here is not romantizing children. Jesus had many younger siblings, so he knew first hand that children can be irritating. They can be annoying. They can be selfish. He is not idealizing children. He not saying “become childish.” He is saying become childlike.
In what ways?
A young child is completely dependent on a parent or a caregiver for their existence. Our 2 1/2 year old son Joey is completely dependent on us as parents. His favorite expression “Mommies—apple juice… Mommy… hungry.”
Joey cannot make macaroni and cheese for himself or even cut an apple for himself. He is dependent on us – and especially on his mommy.
Young children can't negotiate (slightly older children can be very persuasive negotiators).
In the same way, if we are to receive the kingdom of God, if we are to experience life with God, then we need to be utterly dependent on him. Like a young child we can’t negotiate. We can’t say “I have accomplished this and that, therefore you must accept me.” Like a child we come to God utterly dependent, acknowledging there is nothing we can do to scrub away our sins. We acknowledge that we are completely relying on Christ’s sacrificial death for us on the cross for our sins in order to be forgiven. We are wholly relying on the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life to guide us into the way of God.
In order to receive the kingdom we must become childlike in our dependence on God.
There is also another quality of childlikeness that comes to mind. Again, one of the things that I am observing about our 2 ½ year old son Joey is that he lives with an air of confidence that he will be loved by everyone. When he talks, even though most of his talk is gibberish, he expects people to listen and find him interesting. There is a part of me that is fully aware that he will be rudely awakened by the reality of the world at some point. He will be rejected. He will be hurt by someone. But as a little child he expects that people will love him.
And that is the way we are to relate to God—utterly dependent, but also confident of his love for us. As we grasp how deep his love for us is, we will become people who are able to love children, our elders, people without money power status, or worldly beauty.
As I have shared with some of you before, when I was a teenager in high school, I was incredibly insecure. I know most teenagers are insecure, but I was far more insecure than most. I made it my goal to become part of the popular crowd, to become part of the “in” crowd, to be part of the bad boy athlete crowd. I worked really hard and I made it in…just barely, but I did make it in.
One of the things that irked me most was when some kid, some nerd, some loser would try to sit in proximity to our group. I made a point of trying to shoo them away or saying to my friends “we just can’t let people like that sit close to us or our image is going to tank. What will people think?”
Then I met Jesus Christ and my life began to change. One of the kids in my high school who was considered uncool, a nerd, someone who we actually shooed away from the part of the hallway that we “owned,” gave his life to Christ and started coming to my church and our youth group. I started having lunch with him in the school cafeteria. A couple of people started coming up to me and to my sister, too, who started going to the school, would whisper, “Why is it that you are not hanging out with the cool crowd anymore and you are hanging out with this guy?” I thought, “Here is a great irony. I was part of this really popular group and feeling so insecure, but because now that I have this deep sense that God loves me, for the first time in a very, very long time, I am feeling secure and good about myself.” So I had the freedom to connect with this person who is not doing anything for my social image, but I want to connect with because he is my brother in Christ.
It is as we meet Jesus Christ, as our hearts are filled with a sense of his love for us, as we come to Jesus like a little child, and let him bless us, then we can turn and offer our time, our touch, voice and prayers and our blessing to children, to elders, and people who are on the margins of our life. We can give kids and others our time, touch, voice and prayers to people who can do nothing to advance us – because in Christ we have already been advanced – in Christ we've already been offered everything that matters.
(Jay Calder and World Vision Video)
posted by Shigematsu at 6:30 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home