Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

October 15, 2006 – Children’s Sabbath

Texts: Jeremiah 31:15-17; Mark 12:28-34

Not Far from the Kingdom of God

If you grew up, as I did, going to Sunday school, you probably remember a certain poster hanging on the pale yellow wall of the Sunday school class. The poster pictured an idyllic scene: Jesus with the children—all the children of the world—sitting on his lap or at his feet, and the sky pink and blue with fluffy clouds above and bright green grass below, and the children of different races, wearing the costumes of their native lands, and the caption read, “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of God.” Jesus was not wrong about children, but we certainly are. For one thing, the Sunday school class was likely comprised of all white, middle-class, comfortably housed and fed, and well cared for offspring of parents who grew up just as their children were in the process of doing. Furthermore, those children sitting in rows were likely going to high school, then college or careers, and would produce children exactly like themselves, thus perpetuating the myth of happy youth at home and the false concern for children the world over who were, perhaps, different in every way, with the exception of being young.

We have a curiously contradictory and ambivalent attitude toward children, as statistics prove. On the one hand, we call children our nation’s most important resource. On the other hand, we pay those who work with and educate children the lowest salaries. On the one hand, in this age of information we use all types of media to educate our young with facts about how to eat healthily and on the other hand, we have the highest obesity rate among children of any other country. On the one hand, we struggle to give our children the finest education, and on the other, the children in the United States lag behind, academically, almost every advanced nation on this earth. On the one hand, we decry violence and drugs, and on the other hand, we buy our children violent video games and allow them to watch movies that make us blush with their glorification of sex and drug use. On the one hand, we emphasize quality medical care and make sure our children get all their proper examinations and inoculations, while on the other hand, nine million children in our nation—one out of every nine—do not have health coverage. And here are some more alarming statistics. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, the United States ranks 26^th in infant mortality; each day four children die of injuries from abuse and neglect; illegal drug use among children is rising daily; each day more than 1,150 babies are born to teenage mothers; and over 1.3 million children will experience homelessness this year. More startling even than these statistics is that there are greater tax benefits for breeding horses than for raising children. And we say in this great nation, our children are our future.

On this Children’s Sabbath Sunday it is appropriate to ask ourselves, “Why these contradictions?” “Why this ambivalence?” When we read in Jeremiah of Rachel’s lamentation and bitter weeping over the children of Israel, we have no doubt that the grief is genuine and unbearable, and yet, oddly enough, God says something to her that is the opposite of what we might expect to hear if we, like so many families, experienced the horror of losing a child. God says, “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work. Your children shall come back to their own country.” In one sense, of course, God is talking about the children of Israel, over whom Rachel grieves. But in another sense, the message is about us and about our own children, as well as our nation’s and world’s children. Perhaps the reprimand from God—for such words would feel that way to any grieving parent—is actually a merciful bit of wisdom: namely, that the remedy for sorrow is action, not an endless surrender to loss and grief. It is the same wisdom of Elie Wiesel when he writes, “True, we are often too weak to stop injustices; but the least we can do is protest against them. True, we are too poor to eliminate hunger; but in feeding one child, we protest against hunger.” In other words, God is calling Rachel and us to concrete demonstrations of our genuine care for children, for our neighbors. On the one hand, our humanity and our compassion for our fellow human beings, however young or old, will always call for us to lament and shed tears when there are those among us who hurt and lack for the basics in life. And on the other hand, our faith will always call for us to act on behalf of those who hurt and lack for the basics in life.

So, on this day, when what we most want is to enjoy the safety of this sanctuary and celebrate the incredible gifts of our children we can’t fully do that without, at the same time, asking, “What can Pullen do to improve the lot of children in our church and in our community and in the world? I don’t know how we want to answer this question as a church but imagine…imagine if we made space available in our facilities for an open door health clinic one day a week that specifically addresses the needs of children? Imagine to whom it might make a difference if Pullen were designated to be a safe place, (with one of those yellow safe place signs out front) where children could come to escape abuse. Imagine that some among us who are childless took financial and/or emotional responsibility for a neglected child or a child whose family does not have the financial resources to support that child. Imagine the effect it would have if every member of this church made a commitment to write her or his legislator about the health-care needs of children in this community. Imagine what a difference it would make in our lives if our community stretched itself—to know our neighbors, whose children may not be able to see a doctor when they are sick or injured, let alone when they are well. Imagine how it might change your life to seek out a family that does not have health care and stand in solidarity with them as they fight daily the unjust health care system in this country. Imagine that the United States would rank first, not in the middle or near the bottom, as regards all health and education issues related to children—and that we paid our child-care workers and teachers well for their invaluable services in advancing the well-being and status of children. Imagine, if we did these things and more, how much closer we might be to the kingdom of God here on earth. I know that many of you are doing these things and more. But imagine what our community, our world could be like if more of us became advocates for the children living next door, or down the street, or in that other neighborhood. How close can we get to the kingdom of God?

When asked, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “You shall love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” In the commandment that is the first of all, God calls us to embody our faith. But how can we expect the 9 million children who don’t have access to proper medical care to love the God of their faith with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength if they lack the power to do their homework or to get out of bed in the morning or to escape an abusive parent? In other words, a malnourished or sick child cannot learn at the same level as those who are well fed and well treated.

It is sinful, and I don’t use that word lightly or apologetically, but it is sinful that we live in a country that can house people in space for months on end, bring the world into our living rooms via the internet, stay constantly connected to each other through cell phones, find increasingly sophisticated treatments for cancer but we can’t figure out a health care system that at the very least takes care of our children and at best ensures that every person living in this country has equal access to adequate health care. Jesus said that the first commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We need not feel guilty that most, if not all, of us sitting in this sanctuary have the resources to take care of our health care needs—that we love ourselves enough to take care of our bodies. And yet, our work is not done nor can we fully celebrate our lives until we figure out how to love our neighbors just the same.

As a religious community we must be a voice for justice—defending the health care services children depend on and reducing the inequalities between health care coverage related to income, race, age, disabilities, and immigration status. As a people of faith, we have a responsibility to speak out against proposed cuts to programs like Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) that would result in more children without health coverage, limit the necessary services they provide, or increase the difficulty that families (working families) experience in applying for and maintaining enrollment in these programs. We have a prophetic role to play in calling for an equitable approach that assures that every child has health care regardless of where she lives or how much money his parents make. For our children, we must keep working to bring the kingdom of God closer.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a teaching that goes like this. The great Rabbi Israel Salanter was missing from his synagogue on the Eve of Atonement, the holiest night of the Jewish calendar. The elders of the synagogue went out searching for him and they found him. There are two versions: one, he was taking care of a wounded calf, the other, he was helping some sick child. And they said to him, “Rabbi, why aren’t you in the synagogue?” He said, “Do you see what I’m doing?” “But, Rabbi, it’s your duty to be in the synagogue praying.” He said, “I am praying. Every act of kindness is a prayer—a prayer that walks, moves, breathes and lives.” To ensure that the millions of children currently living without health care coverage receive that coverage will require us to pray prayers that walk, move, breathe and live. Jeremiah and Rachel remind us of God’s promise: that there is a reward for our work and that there is hope for our future. Jesus reminds us that the first commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as our self. In this country, we have nine million neighbors who need for us to love them as we love ourselves. The more of them that we can love the more likely we are to hear, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”