Let The Little Children Come Unto Me

An Easter Sermon by Reverend Lynn Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, April 8, 2007

Reading

Mark 10:13-16

And people were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them. “Let the little children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.

Today is a good day to speak of miracles. And so let us speak of children. For each child born is a miracle. Haven’t you been there, haven’t you seen it…haven’t you reached out to a tiny infant hand and felt her fist wrap gently, but firmly around your finger…and hold on for dear life.

For dear life…a child, an infant, the presence of children rouse in us the feeling that life is dear…life is valuable, life is an awesome miracle. Feeling deep gratitude for the children in our lives, we must ask, What is our responsibility, what is it we must pass on to them, what is it they need from us.

Writer and poet Wendell Berry, writes of the experience of passing on knowledge to future generations…he writes of what we know that cannot be told in words… in his essay “Life is a Miracle” he tells of his son and grandson.

“My grandson, who is four years old, is now following his father and me over some of the same countryside that I followed my father and grandfather over. When his time comes, my grandson will choose as he must, but so far all of us have been farmed this land. I know from my grandfather that when he was a child he too followed his father in this way, hearing and seeing, not knowing yet that the most essential part of his education had begun.

And so in this familiar spectacle of a small boy tagging along behind his father across the fields, we are part of a long procession, five generations of which I have seen, issuing out of generations lost to memory, going back, for all I know, across previous landscapes and the whole history of farming.

This living procession through time in a place is the record by which such knowledge survives and is conveyed. When the procession ends, so does the knowledge.”

What is it that we pass on to our children that cannot be told in words? We too are part of a procession, not of farmers, not on a particular and unchanging piece of land…but we are part of the procession of congregational life…part of the procession of liberal religion…and by our presence with our children, we too are passing on knowledge…knowledge that we don’t always have words for.

Our search for the right words, for the right story and theology, often blurs the more significant education our children receive within our Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Wendell Berry’s point applies. It is not the words that matter as much as the experience. Did we all understand the words of the religions within which we grew up?

When I was a child, I sang a song about Jesus. “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white; all are precious in his sight…Jesus loves the little children of the world”.

This song was a comfort to me. It was also confusing. I thought and thought about yellow children and red children and I just had never seen any…the song itself made little sense to me at age five, but the feeling of the song was a comfort…Jesus loves the little children of the world.

The adults in my Methodist Sunday School sang this song right along with the children, and I felt included with all the children of the world, I felt that Jesus must love me too, if the grownups were singing it, it must be true.

Some Sunday mornings here at UUCR, when the children are here for the First Fifteen, we often say with them, as we did this morning…”May we have eyes that see, hearts that love and hands that are willing to serve.”

I confess I often feel awkward when participating in this ritual. I feel silly, and a bit embarrassed…I guess I never stopped to think of what it might mean to the children to have all of the adults say these beautiful words with them. I never thought about how comforting it might be to them.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come unto me…for to such belongs the kingdom of God”.

Translated into Unitarian Universalist speak, I invite you to change “kingdom of God” to- presence of Love. “Let the little children come unto me, for to such belongs the presence of Love.”

Liberal theologian James Luther Adams, was a Unitarian and a professor at both Harvard Divinity School and Meadville Lombard Theological School in the 1940s and 50s. He writes of the kingdom of God as that which is already present and is also yet to come. It is, put in Wendell Berry’s words…a knowledge that cannot be told…a time in the future that also carries the past.

The children in our lives today, the children of our Sunday School, all children, need to know that they are loved in this divine way. They need to feel that they will inherit the Love that is already present and the Love yet to come.

For children the world remains a harsh and often violent place. In the past weeks in two separate tragedies, children were killed by adults who were supposed to care for them. We see photos from Iraq in which small children are covered with blood and terrified. We know that children are starving in Darfur and other places around the world. And so many children in the United States of America, so many in Washington DC, live with one or more of their parents in prison. Children are the most vulnerable minority of all.

What is it we are supposed to pass on to our children? What is the knowledge that cannot be told?

The kingdom of God is meant as a reference to the future, to the vision of a better world to come. When we think of the world that our grandchildren will inherit, we can only imagine the strength and character and love that they will need to repair and make whole the world we have damaged so.

There is a movie, “The Children of Men”, I don’t really recommend it, it is hard to watch. It tells of a terrible time not too far in the future, when the human race is unable to procreate. Women have stopped having babies. There have been no children born for 18 years. The sound of child laughter has died away, and no baby has been heard. Violence has increased in the world, people have turned on one another…they’ve lost hope in a future that will not be…In the course of the movie, one young pregnant woman is discovered and a group try to get her to safety.

In one scene, there is a shoot out in a bombed-out apartment building. There is constant sniper fire and the military are moving in…the just born baby begins to cry, gradually the shooting ceases as people begin to recognize what they are hearing…a baby’s cry…the mother and baby are escorted down the stairs, the soldiers step apart, silencing their guns…making a path for the child…whose cries continue as a blessing to all who can hear.

What do we have to offer our children in a world so broken?
What can we promise them? What can we give?

Children of all ages, need to be honored and respected. Because we walk with them in the procession of liberal religion, in the procession through history of the UU congregation of Rockville, we have special gifts to give.

We have special religious rituals and holidays…special sacraments to offer. Our children will remember collecting, saving and pouring their water in the water ceremony. Our children will remember bringing a flower for the flower communion. They will remember being an angel in the Christmas pageant, and finding eggs on Easter. They will remember lighting the chalice and bringing food for the Manna collection.

They won’t understand all the words or meanings of these rituals, but they will remember the feeling of inclusion and comfort and joy. They will remember the words of “May we have eyes to see, hearts that love and hands that are willing to serve.” They will remember the words of “Spirit of Life.”

And they will remember you.
Our daughters can tell stories about the Unitarian Church in which they grew up. They remember the intergenerational Choir for Peace. They remember the hundreds of peace doves they helped to make. They remember the neighborhood kids who participated in our Sunday School, they remember the visit to the Buddhist Temple and the Jewish Synagogue. They remember the quirky old people in the congregation who invited them into their homes to see their labor history art collection and to serve them tea. By your giving of yourself within this congregation, you will grow in spirit.

The children of this congregation will remember you. And there is something more we can do for our children.

“And people were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, “let the little children come to me, do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.”

As Unitarian Universalist elders, we have the power to bless our children. Our faith does not extend spiritual power to the clergy, alone. All who are moved by the spirit, all who are members of a congregation, all who have sacred knowledge and experience which cannot be put into words- can claim the power to bless.

Our religion extends power and responsibility to all who wish to claim it, in good faith. We can offer to one another a blessing.

To bless means to pronounce holy, it means to bestow good, it means to protect. To give a blessing means to offer a spiritual, a sacred kind of love.

James Luther Adams wrote of both the Prophethood of All Believers and of the Priesthood of All Believers. And Reverend Rebecca Parker, President of the Starr King School for the Ministry…calls upon each of us to bless the world.

Let us begin to bless the world by blessing our children.
Let us pronounce them holy, let us bestow goodness upon them.
Let us protect them from all harm.

Take a moment in silence to form a blessing in your heart. And as you go into the day and week ahead…bless a child, and give thanks for the children …for all the children of the world.

And in embracing your power to bless others, may you be changed. May your heart be changed, may your mind be changed, may your soul be changed.

May you fully embody your place in the procession that is the liberal religious tradition and the journey of this Unitarian Universalist congregation.

So May It Be/Amen