February 1, 2004

To begin this morning, I want to share with you a wonderful experience I had this week. You all know that Ruth McCune’s funeral was held on Tuesday.  I started the funeral sermon with the story of a little girl whose parents had just brought home a new baby brother. She asked mommy and daddy if she could go in and talk to the baby by herself, and the parents hesitated. After all, many older children are jealous of a new baby, and might even hurt him. But they let the little girl go in while they listened on the baby monitor.

They heard the little girl go up to the crib and whisper to her baby brother, “Quick, tell me what God’s like, I’m starting to forget.” The point I was making is that Ruth had a home in heaven with God before she was ever born; her 93 years on this planet was just a temporary journey, a pilgrimage, and now she has returned to her permanent and glorious home.

After the service, however, Ginger was kind enough to share with me a story about Angelina. She was looking at a photo of Jessie Brady, her great-grandmother, and Angelina said, “I know Grandma Jessie.” And Ginger replied, “Well, honey, how can you know Grandma Jessie, she went to heaven before you were born.” And Angelina said, “But all babies come from heaven, and I knew Grandma Jessie in heaven before I was born.” Remarkable, isn’t it? Angelina already understands a theological truth that some people never get—something better, infinitely better awaits us after this life is over, so stop worrying so much.

And that got me thinking about the Gospel story we heard this morning, when Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t prevent little children from coming to me. In fact, you all should learn from little children and become like them, or else you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Strong words, and a little bit puzzling. I think we’re all aware of the need to set a good example for children, although we all, myself included, sometimes slip. But our charge is more than just set a good example, we’re told to become like children, or miss out on the kingdom that is yet to come. Let’s look at some of the implications behind Christ’s words.

It’s amazing and sad the indifference many parents today have about teaching their children about Jesus. One of the remarkable things they say is “I’m not going to teach them anything about religion; they can make up their own mind once they get older.” First of all, people of any age need to feel close to God, because, after all, tomorrow may never come. We are assured only of today. And second, children from the day they are born have a need to be loved, and need to hear about the God who loves them best of all.

The funny thing is, that many people who have trouble teaching their children about Jesus have no trouble at all teaching their kids how to hate. Children don’t hate naturally, it has to be modeled for them by an adult, someone they look up to. In fact, there’s an old song on the subject from the musical “South Pacific” in which a young American naval officer, sings, “You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate, you’ve got to be carefully taught.”

It’s true, a child would never hate unless some adult modeled the behavior for him. Whenever I hear about such a thing happening, a child being taught to hate, or being taught that it’s fun to abuse animals or other people, that it’s cool to steal or swindle, taught that nobody cares if you waste the potential that God planted inside you, or God help us, when I hear that someone has taken part in the sexual abuse of children, it reminds me of another warning that Jesus gave about children: “Whoever leads a child into sin, better for him that a millstone be tied around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.”

And that leads us to the first half of the Gospel message this morning: “Don’t hinder children from coming to me.” Those who remember the King James version of the Bible know that those words were translated, “Forbid them not.” Now nobody in their right mind would forbid a child from coming to Jesus, but isn’t it true that lots of people hinder them?

Again, we’re talking about the example that people set, the way some people will act one way on Sunday and another way the rest of the week, the priorities that parents set for children that make soccer practice more important for a Sunday morning than church. The world sets up many hindrances between God and children, yet they seem to find their way to him instinctively.

In the book “Children’s Letters to God,” children demonstrate their capacity for getting straight to the point. From Helen: “Dear God: Where do children come from? I hope you can explain it better than my daddy.” Eugene wrote, “Dear God: I never did think that orange went too good with purple until I saw your sunset last night. That was cool.” Sherry wanted to know: “Dear God: Could you please send me a burning bush for my back yard? My daddy has trouble getting the grill started.” And Chris seems to have the right attitude when he wrote, “Dear God: I am sending you a penny to give to a kid who is a lot poorer than I am.”

I am convinced both from my own experience and from talking to many older adults that this kind of knowledge of God never really goes away, it just maybe gets misplaced a little. I want you to picture in your mind a photo of yourself as a child, maybe a school picture. Got that picture in your mind? What a cute kid you were. Now I want you to understand something about the person in that picture. Whatever life may have done to you, you’re still that kid. You’ve still got the same vulnerabilities, and the same amazing creative potential. Each of us, at heart, is still a little child in need of her heavenly father, and that’s good.

But still, we need to get our hands around the true meaning of Christ’s words when he said “Unless you receive the kingdom of God like a little child, you will never enter it.” Scholars have debated what Jesus meant ever since he said those words, and sometimes what they came up with was quite silly. Some thought that Jesus wanted us to act childish.

In fact, in 12^th Century Switzerland a movement sprang up in which grownups left their chores and spent their days playing child’s games like ring around the rosey, convinced that their salvation depended on it. The magistrates had to step in and order people back to work before the community starved.

No, if being childish led to salvation, many of us would never have to come to church. How many of you know somebody like that? How many of you are sitting next to somebody like that? Just kidding. But today, we can all agree that Jesus wanted us to approach him with child-like qualities. Our hearts need to scrape off some of the crust we have acquired though living and become like the heart of a child. What would that look like?

First of all, a child’s heart is simple. Children are uncomplicated creatures. They are direct, honest, sometimes blunt, but always truthful.

Children are not naturally good liars. They have to be taught how to lie. They are far more likely to blurt out exactly what’s on their minds. I remember a story of a little boy curled up in his grandpa’s lap, and he reaches up to stroke his whiskered face. The boy asks, “Grandpa, did God make you?” Grandpa replies, “Yes, Tommy, he did, many years ago.” “Well, did God make me?” “He sure did, he took real good care when he made you, just a couple years ago.” The boy rubs his own smooth, soft cheek and he says, “I guess God’s getting better at it.”

Has your life gotten so cluttered that you have forgotten the simple things that make life worth living? Have you forgotten how to share your feelings? Have you forgotten how to share your needs with God? Have you forgotten how to share your love and affection? Do you remember the words of the old Shaker hymn, “Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free,” free of all the mundane concerns that pile up in our grownup years. God wants our relationship with him to be simple: “I love you,” he says. “That’s all you really need to know.

Second, a child’s heart is teachable. And we’re not just talking about classroom teaching, either. A child is a sponge. They want to learn, and they are very easily led. They will sit and listen to a story, hanging on every word. Whenever they acquire a new skill, whether it’s riding a bike or trout fishing or putting on makeup, they want so badly to get it right. And they listen and follow an example. They are teachable—easily molded..

But if you’re like many adults, you’re far less teachable than you used to be. Many people get so hard-headed and hard-hearted that nobody can tell them anything, not even God. Their pride takes over, and nobody can even suggest that there might be a better way to do something. They know best. Once you lose your teachability, you lose your ability to be used by God. You can’t grow and change. There’s no magic age at which God has stopped trying to use you. But he needs a teachable heart to do it. How’s your teachability these days?

Third, a child’s heart is enthusiastic. Sometimes it seems that kids just mope around all the time and say things like “Mom, I’m bored, I’ve got nothing to do,” but the real problem is that they haven’t been exposed to anything to catch their enthusiasm. And kids delight in God easily. It’s right under the surface. Not hard to find at all. It’s us grownups that get blasé about the good news of the Gospel. But whenever someone, child or adult, delights in God and gets fired up to love him, that’s what moves the heart of God. Remember the story of the prostitute who was so filled with love of Jesus that she washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair? Jesus told her, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

What about you? Are you enthusiastic about a God who knows you by name and cares about you every day? We could do so much more for God if we only were open to a child’s enthusiasm. There is a lot of wisdom in the remark, “Don’t look before you leap. If you do, you will decide to sit down.” That’s one of the problems with the world today—too much skepticism, too much thinking and not enough leaping. Those who are enthusiastic for Jesus the way a child is enthusiastic are the ones who will inherit his kingdom.

Fourth, a child’s heart is trusting. There is not an ounce of doubt in a child’s mind that mommy really can make a hurt go away with a kiss. That is trust that transcends logic—absolute confidence in the protective power and unfailing love of a parent. In the same way, when you tell a child that God loves him, he doesn’t need to be sold on the idea. He just says “Wow!” God wants to do great things with our lives, but he can do so much more if we trust him enough to place our lives in his hands. Doubt builds barriers, but trust opens doors.

I remember a TV show about blind skiers being trained to race through a slalom course. A slalom is a series of gates that skiers must maneuver. You would think it would be impossible for a blind skier, right? But once the blind skiers were taught how to turn left and right, it became only a matter of trusting in the guidance of a sighted companion who would yell out “left” and “right” to steer them through the gates. That’s the kind of trust that a child is willing to invest, and the kind that we so-called sighted people find so impossible to give.

But in this world, we are the ones who are blind, and God the only one who is truly sighted. We must rely on his word if we are to safely finish the course.

When Jesus said you need to become like a child to enter the kingdom, he wasn’t saying that children are better than adults, or adults are better than children, but he was saying that children have something adults lack—an open and trusting heart. Adults are very proud of how smart they are and how shrewd. Roll that word around for a minute. Shrewwwd. It means somebody who drives a hard bargain, somebody who won’t get taken for a fool. They don’t trust people, and they demand proof for anything that someone tells them.

Have you been burned so many times that you find it impossible to trust someone? Only a crazy person would deny that people can really let you down sometimes. Even God can be hard to trust. But unless you trust, you can’t really have faith, because that is what faith is—trust. The only way to rediscover trust in God is to focus on how much he loves you. When you see that he really does want the best for you, you’ll be able to trust him again.

Finally, a child’s heart is forgiving. And this is amazing in light of how children can hurt each other. But they can be fighting one minute and be best buddies the next. When a child does something to hurt another child, often a simple “I’m sorry” is enough to heal the relationship. What’s more, children can forgive grownups for an awful lot of sins against them. What do I mean by that? Well, listen to what a group of 10 years olds in a Sunday School class at the Brookside, N.J. Community church came up with when they were asked, “What hurts you about grownups?”

1.          Grownups make promises, then they forget all about them, or else they say it wasn't really a promise, just a maybe.

2.           Grownups don't do the things they're always telling the children to do--like pick up their things, or be neat, or always tell the truth.

3.           Grownups never really listen to what children have to say. They always decide ahead of time what they're going to answer.

4.           Grownups make mistakes, but they won't admit them. They always pretend that they weren't mistakes at all--or that somebody else made them.

5.           Grownups interrupt children all the time and think nothing of it. If a child interrupts a grownup, he gets a scolding or something worse.

6.           Grownups never understand how much children want a certain thing--a certain color or shape or size. If it's something they don't like--even if the children have spent their own money for it--they always say, "I can't imagine what you want with that old thing!"

7.           Sometimes grownups punish children unfairly. It isn't right if you've done just some little thing wrong and grownups take away something that means an awful lot to you. Other times you can do something really bad and they say they're going to punish you, but they don't. You never know, and you ought to know.

8.           Grownups are always talking about what they did and what they knew when they were 10 years old--but they never try to think what it's like to be 10 years old right now. 

I think if we are wise enough to admit it, we have many sins against children for which we need to seek forgiveness. But are we willing to forgive others for the sins that have been committed against us? Or is our attitude like Peter, who was all puffed up with himself when he asked Jesus, “How many times must I forgive? Seven times?” And Jesus replied, “Seventy times seven,” which is a metaphor for saying, “Keep on forgiving until you forget what you were hurt by in the first place.” Just like a child will forgive.

My friends, when we were children, we understood God very well. But then we made the mistake of growing apart from him. We thought we were so strong, and so smart, and so independent. If you’re anything like me, life has knocked some of that pride out of you. Life sometimes makes me feel like not only don’t I have all the answers, I don’t even understand the questions. Like that little child going up to her baby brother, have you forgotten what God is really like? Do you want to be reminded? It’s not too late to rediscover that sense of wonder you had before you grew up, and let him carry your cares and burdens, the way a good parent does for a child.