September 14, 2008
Rev. Patricia L. Liberty
This Childlike Faith
It’s curious that Jesus says we should become like children, because if anything, as we get older just the opposite happens. Usually in the presence of children, even if you have no children of your own, something dribbles out of our mouth that you promised you would never ever say…“clean your plate, there are children starving in the world. And you are amazed…did I really say that? And it goes on…better watch it or your face will freeze like that. Be sure to wear clean clothes in case you are in an accident. Because I said so, that’s why. Some day you will thank me for this. I’m only doing this because I love you.” And my personal favorite, “I don’t care if all the other kids are doing it. If they all jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?” I grew up forty miles up the road, I had no clue about Brooklyn and bridges…
It happens…oh my gosh, I have become my mother. Jesus told us to become like children and I have become my mother….
A child like faith…it’s easy to romanticize what that’s about…but this isn’t a passage to be over sentimentalized. A child like faith isn’t to be confused with a childish faith, but that seems to come easier for us sometimes. Much of the disappointment in our relationship with God comes from things not turning out the way we hoped. I wonder if that’s what Woody Allen had in mind when he said, “the most that can be said of God is that he’s an underachiever.”
It happens to all of us, we wonder why someone we love didn’t get better, why we didn’t get that promotion. We pray and ask and pray and ask and things and things don’t turn out the way we pray. In David Heller’s kid’s letters to God, there’s one from Edward age 7 who writes, Dear God thank you for my baby brother, but I asked for a pony.
Most of us have similar and more painful experiences of disappointment in our conversations with God. God often fails to do our bidding and we are left to wonder what prayer is all about and how God is present in the stuff of our days. And while this isn’t a sermon about prayer as such, exploring a child like faith can put our prayer discipline in a different light.
Think about children, as we are today at the beginning of a new year in Church School. Children need guidance.
The poem by Dorothy Nolte reminds us children learn what they live:
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
In a similar way, a child like faith needs guidance and encouragement. The values of our faith are not easily held on to in our culture of consumption and competition and we need a faith community to help us and our children embody a Christ like life.
While it’s true that part of that encouragement comes in worship and preaching and sharing the sacraments, it requires more. I find it curious and troubling that many people go to Sunday School as youth and that’s it! Once you graduate from church school there is no more formal religious instruction. Yet we know that faith formation continues throughout life and the seasons of our spirituality are different from generation to generation, and each have their own insights and richness. In the absence of exploration and study those riches go untapped.
Our faith needs guidance but less than 10 percent of adults in our church take part in the educational offerings that are part of our ministry. Yes, this is a shameless advertisement for the classes offered this fall. It’s a complicated world and a complicated time. Putting our faith into practice requires a level of exploration and study to keep current. There is no substitute for joining with a group of believers and listening and learning and being challenged to a new level of insight about what it means to be God’s people in the world. A Child like faith is a faith that keeps developing.
Children need examples. They learn from watching and observing. Who are the heroes of our time? It’s a little scary when you think about it. Sports figures who make obscene amounts of money, embroiled in drug and sex scandals. It’s a little frightening. Our children need examples in the faith and so do we. Who are our spiritual giants, people who embody the faith that we can point to as folks who encourage our own journey?
The best examples are the one we are to each other. Being here in community we learn from one another. In every church I serve I am inspired and encouraged by wise ones whose faith and perspective teach me so much. Here in the community of the faithful, we have an opportunity to witness faith at work and to find bread for our own journeys. Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth said, we are the aroma of Christ to one another. We manifest Christ to one another in community and take it with us into the world.
Children are naturally accepting; fear prejudice and hatred are learned behaviors. Several years ago a congregant came to me and said, my daughter came home from school this week and asked, what is black? Karen, the mom, wasn’t quite sure what she meant so they talked more…her daughter was a little agitated and said that a girl at school said that her friend was black and made fun of her. Karen asked thought carefully about how to respond and asked her daughter Sidney, is her skin darker than yours? She said …I guess so, I didn’t really notice, does it matter?
A child like faith draws us back to that place before we were afraid of people who are different. As the love of God is more deeply rooted in us there is less room for judgment. As we receive the grace of God into our own lives there is more room for community and less room for division. The good of the whole comes into clearer focus and there is less emphasis on getting our own way.
A child like faith draws us to the place where what makes us the same is greater than what makes us different. It is here that we can come closer to the vision God has for the human community.
Finally, the children of Jesus time were an example of the most vulnerable members of society. In Jesus’ time children were property and while there is much of that image that is distasteful to us and well should be, the piece that comes to us today to hold onto is that we too are property. We are God’s property. God lays claim to our lives in our baptism. I know I say that a lot, it could probably be my favorite hobby horse. But it is a central component of our faith. Baptism is what unites us in God’s purpose. The baptismal vows that were taken for us and that we witness here on a regular basis are the sign and symbol that we are God’s own, claimed for God’s purpose. It is not something to take lightly.
Sharing the sacraments of baptism and the Lord ’s Supper are two of the most radical things we share. It is not some sentimental remembrance of a quaint act from long ago. It is staking our part in the revolution of love that is the heart of the gospel, joining our lives with the living Christ in our midst and standing for the truth of the gospel.
The author, Annie Dillard, asks the question, "Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? …Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? It is madness to wear ladies' hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews..."
A child like faith is a great adventure, a step forward into the unknown with a sense that there is wisdom beyond our wisdom, love beyond our love, and hope beyond our own vision. It is simpler than we often imagine and more difficult because years and experience and life piles stuff in front of the door of our hearts.
We struggle with relationships and parenthood, with grief and depression, with disease and death, with finances and insecurity. From sharing your journey and learning from my own I know how difficult life can be and how easy it is to pull into ourselves.
But I also know that these struggles are easier to maneuver in a community of people who care about each other and there is much encouragement to be found in the company of God’s people.
There is great strength in this community of caring people, not only those who are here today but those who have come before us and will come after us.
It is in the company of believers that fear becomes a diminishing power in our lives and we discover courage.
It is here that we can quiet minds and nurture our inner lives so that we can face the world with renewed strength and balance.
It is here in this present moment as we leave the past and the future that we can rediscover our purpose and our passion.
It is here in this place that we can find healing for our pain and open ourselves to the gentle coming of love. It is here that we can nurture a child like faith. Amen.