He Put a Child in the Middle

He Put a Child in the Middle                               The Dover Church

September 23, 2012                                   Scripture: Mark 9: 30-37

         As I grow up as the father of two boys, ages 8 and 5, so much of the Bible is becoming more real. Take the Creation story, where it says, “And then there was life. And God saw that it was good.” I understand and appreciate the “good” that God sees in a whole new way when I am walking down the beach holding their little hands in mine, really knowing how very precious their life is, how very precious all life is, and how very fragile.

         I am more and more certain of two other Biblical truths. First, love is indeed the most powerful energy in Creation. It is the center of Creation, the adhesive, if you will, which holds it all together, and I really am blessed to be part of it. God in Jesus Christ was neither kidding nor mistaken. There is a lot in parenting which isn’t fun, which is hard, tedious, repetitive work, but which, in the blink of an eye, becomes an incidental bother, quickly forgotten with a hug, that little boy smell, the words, “I love you, Daddy.” Those few moments, that connection to love, that desire to love, overcomes whatever bad I might be living.

         And second, life really is essentially good. Sitting at the kitchen table as our 5 year old spells his name for the first hundred times, this way and that, watching him devour macaroni and cheese with ketchup with more gusto and delight than I feel for haut cuisine in France, lying in bed reading stories, watching him wobble off on his bicycle for the first time and then riding alongside him as we go for our first big boy bike ride, watching him run to get on the school bus, having him climb into my lap so I can kiss away a booboo, feeling the warmth of him in my arms, the young arms and legs, the flawless skin; it's one of the most intense experiences of life I know: holding another person in your arms and being completely responsible for his well-being, and being completely pleased with that responsibility. The only word I have for it in my vocabulary is blessed. Being a parent of a 5 year old is just about the greatest thing there is, but there are times when I forget what a blessing it is.

         Do those of you who have five year olds remember? Do those of you who have had five years old remember? The sight, sound, smell, feel? The emotions? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to your kitchen table or those first bike rides.

         I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful.  You see, before we had that 5 year old, we had 8 year old who used to be a 5 year old. I find myself forgetting the blessing he was then until our present kindergartner is complaining about his homework and our 3^rd grader puts down his pencil in righteous indignation and says, “when you’re in 3^rd grade you’re going to wish you were still in kindergarden. Look at all the homework I have to do while you just play and draw.” 8 years old is so smart, so curious, so many questions, so much to learn. He can run and climb and kick and swim and throw and read and all the rest that now we really are doing them together. Through his eyes I see much about life that I had forgotten, so much that I just stopped being curious about or marveling at, much to my loss. Sometimes he is difficult about bedtime or homework or being nice to his brother. I know this is just the beginning and I all too easily forget what a blessing he is. Being a parent of an 8 year old is just about the greatest thing there is, but there are times when I forget what a blessing it is.

         Do those of you who have 8 year olds remember? Do those of you who have known 8 olds remember? What it's like to be part of that exciting and precious time of life? Do you remember? Go ahead. Take a minute and take yourself back to climbing trees or swimming in the deep end or reading chapter books for the first time.

I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful.  I myself forget all the time, every day when I get caught up in our societal striving towards greatness, our drive to do ten more things, finish five more projects, rise three more rungs, achieve two more goals. I forget from time to time whenever I allow the system to push my precious boys towards being the greatest, just one more sport, a second or third activity, better grades, reading at a little higher level, one more party. It just gets rolling on a parent and I get caught up in the energy, the sense of necessity. Do you remember the pressure? Go ahead. Take a minute and feel it.

         I ask you if you remember because I know that people are forgetful. I myself forget from one day to the next in this beautiful, safe, prosperous place, with my children living a blessed life, with all of us living blessed lives as we strive together for greatness, about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of Dover. I forget about this most important vision of the Kingdom of God which Jesus gives us this morning. I focus on my children and your children and delude myself into thinking that everything is OK because everything is really good in this kingdom. I forget that Jesus isn't just placing my children or your children in the middle of all these grown men striving to be the greatest. I forget that Jesus is taking a nameless nobody, a person of no societal standing, power and value and placing that person in the middle. I forget that my boys are already in the middle, that they are going to grow up to be men striving to be the greatest, that they are already people of societal standing, power and value and placing because of who I am and where we live. I am not saying that I feel guilty or ashamed of the advantages my boys are enjoying and will enjoy. How could I? I worked hard so they could be in just such a position. My parents raised me to be in just this position so that their grandchildren could be in just this position.

All I am saying is I forget. I am so busy striving to be the greatest. I am so busy striving for my boys to be the greatest that I just don't have the time or emotional energy to remember the billions of societal cast offs, powerless and nameless children whom Jesus is also putting in the middle, whom Jesus is especially putting in the middle because they didn't happen to be born to parents like the Reverend Dr. Charles Maxwell Olmstead, Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley, Senior Pastor of the Dover Church in Dover, Massachusetts, which is just about as a close to being in the middle as one can hope to get in the kingdom of this world.

In my more lazy moments I forget all the nameless children because I am tempted by Satan to believe that there's not much one little pastor in one little town in one little state in one little corner of the greatest kingdom of this world can do for all of them. I have my hands full just making sure my boys and I keep moving towards the middle of the middle.

How about you? Do you remember all those forgotten children? Do you want to remember?

I ask you to remember because I now people are forgetful. I know that all of us forget that Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and not just to serve us but particularly those people who need serving. I know we forget that the Jesus way is one of service and welcome. I am not trying to be a hard horse making folks feel guilty, but as a servant of Jesus I am also here not to be served but to serve, and I would be serving myself if I just told you we're all good and on the right track. I would be serving you all badly if I failed to remind you that we are here not to be served but to serve, not to be welcomed so much as to welcome, that we're not here for ourselves but for the world.

If you are like me and forget all the nameless, powerless, and valueless children without standing in our world, all the children on the outside, if your striving to stay in the middle and give your children the best chance at living their lives in middle, if you think that you just don't have any more time, emotional energy or money to spare on all the other children of the world because you are flat out making a way for your children, if you feel like this sermon is just another sob story for all the poor kids in Framingham or the hungry kids in Africa, think again. It is ultimately a sob story for my children and your children. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

What good will it do us to see our children become the greatest if they end up on an ever shrinking oasis in the middle of a God forsaken wasteland?