Make Time for the Children
Mark
9:33-37
Mark
10:13-16
March 16, 2014
I’ve asked this question over the
years. On Tuesday I asked our program staff, “If you could recapture one quality you had as
a child, but lost as an adult, what would that one quality be? Here are some of their responses.
One said, “I wish I could regain
that absolute sense of trust that children have in others. That simple faith has faded, but I wish I
could have it back.” Another said, “I
wish I could recapture that sense of unbridled enthusiasm for life. Children shed all inhibitions when they play
and become lost in the moment. They are completely engrossed in what they are
doing. I am always thinking about what I
have to do next. Life is an endless “to do” list.” Another added, “Wonder! Children look at the
world through eyes of wonder. They are
amazed at simple things like the hatching of a baby chick; they are awed by the
blare of a fire engine siren. Nothing surprises me anymore. Life has become ‘been
there - done that.’” “Innocence,” cited
one more, “to face life once more without a sense of jaded cynicism.”
What childhood quality would you
like to embrace once more? Trust?
Wonder? Enthusiasm? Innocence? For many
of us these are distant memories. The
world has been hard and harsh; so in defense we gradually protect our hearts
with a wall because someone has betrayed us.
We look at life through dark
glasses because we have lost the ability to be dazzled. In other words we have lost our connection
with what some psychologists call, “the inner child.”
Jesus understood the magnitude of
that loss because he saw a quality in children that is essential to our
salvation. He said, “Whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Mark 10:15) There
is some kind of “child-like” character
which is key to our relationship with God. There is something children have,
that we often lack, which forms the bridge between ourselves and God. Before we go back to the days of our youth to
search for that quality; let us go before the Lord in prayer:
God, we come to you as your children
who have lost the wonder of child-hood.
Faith has faded and trust tainted with a sense of jaded cynicism. Lord,
help us to recapture that childhood sense of utter dependence upon you. Restore within us the wonder of our
youth. Grant us, once more that sense of
enthusiasm that we once had. Help us to
receive your kingdom as a child. Amen.
The scene has been painted a hundred
times. It hangs in a thousand
churches. Jesus is sitting on a rock,
and he is covered with children-climbing, laughing, smiling children. His hands rest upon their heads in the form
of a blessing and he is also smiling. The scene is touching, nearly
sentimental; and it almost didn’t happen.
Parents then, as parents do today,
brought their children to Jesus. For
they recognized in Jesus the presence of God; and they believed God would make
all the difference in the lives of those children. They believed that a child who grows in faith
will grow in self-confidence. They
believed that a child who grows in the love of God will learn to love
deeply. They believed that God will hold
every child given to him in the palm of his hand. That is why they brought their children to
Jesus. That is why parents bring their
children to Jesus today. That is the meaning of the waters of baptism. That is the purpose of our Sunday School
program which flows from those waters.
In this passage conflict emerged
between those who saw children as being a bother and Jesus who saw children as
being a blessing. When the children
began to climb upon his lap and pull at his beard, the disciples stepped in to
shoo the kids away. Now, I am sure that
Peter and James and John loved kids as much as anyone. The New Testament does not portray them as
Scrooges.
I don’t think the disciples were
like that; I think they just came from the old school that said, “Children
should be seen and not heard.” I think
they believed that these kids were encroaching on the dignity of Jesus. They were concerned about appearances and
Jesus’ public image. They wanted people
to see Jesus as serious. Rolling around
on the grass with a bunch of frolicking kids did not fit into that image. It made Jesus look like a favorite
uncle. To their way of thinking, all of
this cavorting was just not “solemn”
which they equated with “spiritual”.
So, worship for them was whispers
not laughter, frowns and not smiles, stilted and not stirring. That view of worship has followed many
disciples of Jesus to this day.
My father told me the story of the
Session of a church they attended in Florida.
The congregation is in the midst of a large retirement community, so
most of the members are collecting social security checks. He said the one recurring theme of every
Session meeting bemoaned the absence of young people. The elders thought the health and vitality of
their congregation was measured by either the absence or the addition of young
families.
So, they strategized and studied on
this question, “How do we get families with children to come?” They fixed the immediate and obvious
problems. They created a nursery and a
small Sunday School program. They started
a Vacation Bible School program to reach out into the community. But, there was a deeper problem that was not
so easily fixed.
This problem surfaced the day a
young single mother brought her brood to church. She had four kids, two years apart from the
baby to the six year old. No one told her about the nursery hidden upstairs, so
she just marched her family in and sat down.
Now, my Father said, “the kids weren’t bad or even disruptive, but they
were kids - a little bit fidgety in a new and strange place. It was obvious that she was doing her best to
pay attention to God and her four kids.
Sometimes, the kids took precedence.”
After worship my Dad said he made a
bee-line to the mother to welcome her to their church, but he didn’t make it in
time. Immediately ahead of him was one
of the other elders and he was criticizing her for bringing her kids into the
worship service. He told her that they
had ruined “his” worship service. The
damage was done. She never came back. But, at the very next Session meeting that
same critical elder was bemoaning the lack of children in their
congregation. He wanted children; but he
wanted them to be seen and not heard.
Now, before we focus on the speck in
the eye of that elder to the south we need to look at the log in our own eye as
well. (Matthew 7:3) Our church is blessed with many wonderful children. It is
not children we lack; it is people who are willing to spend an hour a week in a
Sunday School class or at a youth meeting that we are wanting.
We reveal our real attitudes toward our
kids, the values that we really hold, in the time and effort we are willing to
commit to them. If our desire is to just
drop them off in a Sunday School class, or at a youth meeting, or at a children’s
choir, but we are unwilling to pitch in and help - then were are not much
different from that southern elder or from the disciples who want “children to
be seen and not heard.” If we believe
that we did our duty when we were younger or that we are absolved from
responsibility because we do not have children, then we miss the point that
Jesus made when he said, “Let the children come unto me, do not hinder them,
for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”(Mark 10:14) “Whoever receives one such child in my name
receives me and receives Him who sent me.” (Mark 9:37)
When we do volunteer and become
involved in the lives of the children of our congregration, we often receive as
much as we share. We learn to see the
world once more through fresh eyes.
A child spontaneously enjoys life,
but we don’t...not very often. The poet
T.S. Eliot sums up our condition with this verse:
Where is the Life we have lost in
living?
Where is the Wisdom we have lost in
knowledge?
Where is the Knowledge we have lost
in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty
centuries,
Bring us farther from God and nearer
to the Dust.”
What child-like quality does Jesus
yearn to see in us? Is it wonder and
awe, enthusiasm and spontaneity, innocence and faith? Perhaps he desires to see all of these; but more
important is that utter lack of pretense that is found in the humility
of a child.
These verses follow Jesus’
introduction to the cross. Jesus, for
the first time, tells us explicitly that those who would be his disciples must
learn to depend not upon their own wisdom, wealth, or good look; but to depend
upon the power of God that is revealed to us through the cross. Peter misses the point and contradicts Jesus,
telling him he is wrong. (Mark 8:33)
James and John miss the point and get into an argument about who shall
be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
They didn’t understand that the power of the cross is unlike power as we
usually understand it. The power of the cross is not measured in kilotons, or
platoons; it is not measured in wealth or worldly influence. The cross does not force, but persuades; it
does not mandate but bids us to follow and to lay our burdens down.
What children know, what we
sometimes forget; is that when you are hurt you run home. Dr. Robert Cleveland Holland, one of my
mentors told this story:
“One day this summer in front of our
cottage, three children were playing together who often do -- two brothers,
four and six, and a little girl who is about seven. One of the boys was Superman- he had the big ‘S’
on his chest, and the blue satin cape.
Superman fell on the sidewalk and hurt himself. Without a sound Superman picked himself up
and ran down the walk to where his mother was supposed to be. She wasn’t in the yard, so Superman looked
out back but she wasn’t in the back, so he looked on the sun porch, and there
she was. Having found her, then, only then, did Superman begin to cry as he
showed her his ravaged knee. I thought to
myself, what a pantomime of trust. Even
Superman comes running, believing, relying on, trusting his mother.”
That is the one child-like quality
that is essential for salvation. We do
not enter the kingdom of God, Jesus said, “unless we receive it as a little
child”. As long as we try to pretend
that we are super men and women; as long as we maintain the facade that we are
in control; as long as we lean on our own understanding, we will not trust in
the Lord with all of our heart, and he will not make straight our paths.
(Proverbs 3:5)
Children know automatically that
they do not understand everything, and that there is much yet to learn. Children know that they are not in control. Children have sense enough to run home when
they fall down. That is what we often
forget, and that is what we need to learn.
That’s the lesson we
learn from children. They are ready to
be filled, they are eager to be filled; but we so often are too filled with
ourselves to let God in. So, this
morning I am inviting you to empty your life of those feelings of
self-importance, to lay down the regrets you carry from yesterday and the
worries you hold for tomorrow, and let yourself be filled with Christ. That is the key to God’s kingdom.
Let
us pray;
God,
our Father, help us to truly be Your children.
Help us, where we need it, to become like children in our approach to
life and to our faith. We ask now that
if there is anyone here who needs to be renewed in Jesus Christ that Your
Spirit will touch that person’s life right now, and that the change will take
place. We pray in Christ name.
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