Sermon on September 12, 2010
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He 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.”
Well, today is Rally Day—the last utter confirmation that summer is indeed over and that fall is here. As far as church life is concerned, we are now officially “back into the swing of things” as we watch our kids scamper off to Kaleidoscope and Sunday school this morning. At the end of this worship service, we will invite our children and youth to come forward to join their teachers at the front of the sanctuary, and we’ll celebrate them as they make their way upstairs or downstairs to their classrooms.
Maybe you’ve heard this one. A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Sunday school. As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don't let me be late! Dear Lord, please don't let me be late!” While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. As she ran she once again began to pray, “Dear Lord, please don't let me be late... But please don't shove me either!”
Off they go for another year. And I know I’ve said this before. We often hear that our children are the future of the church—that our youth are the future of the church. But that’s just wrong, completely wrong. Our children and youth are the church right now. They’re the church now. Maybe that’s a little bit of what Jesus was thinking when he called the disciples’ attention to a child and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The simple nature of childhood is a gift to those of us who would embrace the kingdom more fully.
Jesus goes on to say that “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Keep that in mind every time you welcome children in this church family—when you see them coming in the door on Sunday morning, when you see them running around fellowship hall, and even when the child in the pew behind you is getting a little restless during worship. When you welcome one such child, you welcome Christ. Jesus seems pretty clear on this one, folks—that God’s very presence is seen and felt in the lives of the least of these—especially children.
Change. Become like children and enter the kingdom. I hope I’m not the first or last to confess that I often think more about what our children need to learn than what they have to teach. Perhaps it’s just that as I look at the world around us, I can’t help but feel the weight of this task before us—this task of raising our children in the faith and helping them embrace their identity as followers of Jesus. Because it’s been some of Jesus’ followers who’ve been driving me crazy lately… Christians whose language is filled with fear, Christians who somehow think it’s appropriate to even consider burning the Koran, Christians who think of the world in terms of “us” and “them.”
We live in an age where people’s beliefs about God seem to inspire them to build fences rather than bridges. The proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City reveals an ugly truth about humankind at the moment—not only do we not understand each another, but we’re also apparently not willing to work to understand each other.
Now make no mistake. The presence of violent Islamic extremism is a real threat in this world—just as the presence of violent Christian extremism has been and could continue to be a real threat in this world. The true enemy is any ideology that fails to acknowledge God’s image in another human being. The real enemy is that temptation we face to project our fears and insecurities onto someone else and to see difference as deficiency.
So this morning, as our kiddos trot off to Sunday school, I wonder to myself, “What kind of world will these children get themselves into one day, and how do we prepare them for it? How do we, as their family of faith, encourage and equip our children to be faithful to a gospel of love in a world so easily tempted by fear?” The great task we’ve been given as a church when it comes to our children is one of shaping and nurturing identity.
With that in mind, a story that I love comes out of a particular tribe of people in Africa. When a woman of that tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the unborn child. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child’s song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song. If the person commits a crime or inflicts harm on another, the community sings the song. And I have a feeling that, no matter what the words are to that song, the meaning is always the same: remember who you are, remember who you are, remember who you are.
All along the journey of life, remember who you are.
When you have reason to celebrate, remember who you are.
When you fall in love, remember who you are.
When things get rough, when you make a mistake, when life tempts you to be something you are not, remember who you are.
I have a friend back in Texas who said to his teenage children every time they left the house, “Remember who you are. And remember whose you are.” I like that. And I may use that line someday with my own daughters as they run out the door with the car keys: Remember who you are. You’re a Johnston-Krase. Don’t be someone you’re not. Be yourself. Be your best, truest self. And remember whose you are. You’re a child of God. God’s love is a force in your life to be honored and lived out. So remember whose you are.
When you stop and think about it, that’s basically what we do each week as a church family, isn’t it? For our children and for each other—we come together in worship say, essentially, “Remember who you are.” Remember who you are. Your sins and shortcoming do not define you, for in Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Remember whose you are. You are a disciple of Jesus Christ, and as such, you are called to a life of compassion, love, and peace.
This is life-giving, important work, friends—singing this music of “remember who you are” to each other and to our children—because the world we live can make that song hard to hear.
We’ve got the music of routine, the music of comfort
The music of it’s on sale!
The music of scarcity and get it while you can
The music of fear, the music of isolation
The music of an overscheduled life
The music of every man for himself
The music of nationalism, the music of death, the music of ME first
The drumbeats to these songs are all the same. More, more, more, and me, me, me. And we listen to it all the time. Truth be told, it’s background music to the soundtrack of our lives that plays incessantly on and on and on… Sure, in a clear, quiet moment, we can listen to it and recognize it for the lie that it is, but we seem to run short on clear, quiet moments these days, and it’s as if someone is turning up the volume slowly enough that we never notice.
And in the midst of it all, our song, the song that’s always been ours, is a tune we can’t quite recall. We can sort of hum the melody sometimes, but at other times we open our mouths to sing and find, to our great shock, our song’s gone missing. It’s easy to lose track.
Jesus said that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So, friends, remember your song. Remember who you are. Remember whose you are.
Someone asked me over the summer about the water. You know, every Sunday morning at the beginning of the worship service, I pour water here in this baptismal font. “Why do you do that?” she asked. After all, it’s not like we do a baptism every Sunday.
Every Sunday I pour water into the font to remind us of God’s love and grace. Here at the font, in the sacrament of baptism, we remember that we are God’s children not because of anything we could ever do or believe. Rather, we are God’s children because of who God is. God has loved us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it! We can’t escape that love, of course, but neither can we make it more real by trying to earn it. That’s what we believe. And so every Sunday, as I pour water into this font, it’s essentially a song. And the words are…
“Remember who you are. Remember who you are. Remember who you are.”
Amen.
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