Sermon, March 20, 2011

Single Parenting and Extended Families: Sermon Series on Children

Scripture: Psalm 121, Genesis 21:10 – 20,

Esther 2:5-7 (Adopted by Mordecai) and

2 Timothy 1:1-7(Faith from mother and grandmother)

Preached by Linda Jo Peters ~ March 20, 2011

Introduction to Scripture:
Psalm 121
We are on a journey through Lent to Easter. This psalm was on of the road songs of the pilgrims sang on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples may have sung this song once he turned his face to Jerusalem. It recalls for all pilgrims that it is God’s strength that will provide when all else seems lost.
1I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?
2My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
3He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Here is a selection of three Biblical families. The first is a broken one that still brought forth the promises of God, the second affirms that even in a foreign land God protects the widows and orphans and finally a reminder of how important our witness is for our children and grandchildren.

Genesis 21:10-20
10So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.”
14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.

Esther 2:5-7
5Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite. 6Kish had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away. 7Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother; the girl was fair and beautiful, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter.

2 Timothy 1:1-7
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, 2To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.
6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Sermon
Ishmael means “God hears.” Ishmael, the heir of Islam, cousin to Jews and Christians, all who trace their spiritual ancestry to Abraham, bears a name that signals a promise to every human being. God is not deaf, dumb or blind nor implacable, impersonal, or impassible, without feeling or emotion. Dan Clendenin puts it, “God is not an absentee landlord deity.” No, we believe that God sees every human misery, and hears every painful sob. As the Hebrews learned after four centuries of slavery and exploitation in Egypt, "God heard their groaning" (Exodus 2:24), the same is true for us today: Ishmael, God hears.

God hears the single mother at the end of her rope, the father who loses custody of his children in a bitter divorce, and the grandparents who feel helpless in the face of the death of a child they love. God hears the cries of the abandoned and abused. Hagar comes to represent many people who are cast out from family, home or country: a runaway child from abuse, a refugee, the abused wife, the homeless. The list of those represented by the figure of Hagar is very long. As children of God we need to listen, to hear as God hears to the cries of the Hagars of our day.

Last week I told you about Professors Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein who wrote Raising Resilient Children. I think we can learn from their recommendation that we meet “life’s challenges with thoughtfulness, confidence, purpose and empathy.” These are tools for listening to Hagar.

Thoughtfulness: As a spontaneous person, I know both the joy and the pain of acting without thinking things through. Teaching children to think through consequences is something everyone can do. Single parents and extended family this is simple. I know single parents that work two jobs and come home and have no more energy to even make sense of their fourth grader’s homework let alone help their teenager with calculus. But even that over worked parent can help raise a resilient child by watching of all things TV with her/his children. When there is a problem presented on TV whether it is trying to catch a criminal or trying to catch a pass, ask them what other choices the people in the story or on the team could have done. Remember there are no wrong ideas. Encourage them to extrapolate and think outside the box of your expectations, because they know them. Your job to at this point is not to tell them what you think is right, but to develop their skills at making thoughtful choices. You make choices every day, when was the last time you asked your child or grandchild to help you make a choice?

I have a feeling that Timothy’s mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois let him see the choices they made as they grew in faith with Jesus Christ. Not telling him what to believe, but living their faith for him to see. Thoughtful Christians are some of the best witnesses for our faith.

Confidence: A resilient child builds confidence by how he or she handles mistakes and setbacks. Brooks and Goldstein tell of a child who had numerous surgeries before he was five. Even though he was now a healthy nine year old, he had come to see his body as defective. He came into therapy angry and sad and demanded to know why they were trying to help him. They asked him, “Why wouldn’t we want to help?” His response was profound, “I was born to quit and God made me that way.” Contrast this self doubt with Hall-of-Fame baseball player, Willie Stargell who was asked what baseball had taught him:

As much as I was known for my homers; I also known for my strikeouts. The strikeout is the ultimate failure. I struck out 1,936 times. But I’m proud of my strikeouts, for I feel that to succeed, one must first fail; the more you fail, the more you learn about succeeding… My success is the product of the knowledge extracted from my failures.

Eventually the boy that Brooks and Goldstein worked with came to value what he was good at and built is confidence in areas he had felt a failure.

The orphan, Esther, that Mordecai adopted seem to have it all: beauty, intelligence and power. But she felt she could do nothing to protect her people when the time of testing came upon her.
Mordecai told …Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:14-16) Esther was successful in saving her people and became a great queen. But she had to risk failure to find her confidence to face any challenge, even death.

Purpose: Several years we began considering ways to grow our congregation and better serve God. We reviewed a resource called “Natural Church Development that help us focus on our weakest aspect and strengthen it. Our first area was holistic small group development. So we began small groups with a church wide study of the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, which sees that we have five purposes: formed for God’s family, created to become Christ like, shaped for serving God, made for a mission, and planned for God’s pleasure. Our purpose is more succinctly put in our Book of Confessions in the “Westminster Shorter Catechism” that has as its first question: “What is the chief end of humanity?” The answer is “to glorify and enjoy God forever. (7.001) If that isn’t a purpose to make you stand proud. This is your purpose whether you are 8 or 80, wealthy or poor, have a job or still searching, fast or slow, short or talk you have a divine purpose that transcends your life into eternity. Every child that is going to grow up resilient needs to know they have a purpose and they are valued by their Creator. Every parent and family member struggling to raise a child needs to know they too are valued and loved by their Creator.

Empathy: Credited to Native American wisdom is the saying “Don’t criticize another until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.” This is empathy, to understand from where someone is coming. Brooks and Goldstein write that, “Empathy has nothing to do with giving into children, spoiling them or refrain from setting appropriate limits.” In fact (they see) children learn better and accept limits more readily when their caregiver practices empathy by trying to understand their point of view. Abraham is empathic with Hagar, but still sends her away. Mordecai is empathic with Esther’s risks, but still demands righteous behavior from her. Paul loves Timothy as a father, but still exhorts him not to give up but claim a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

So single parents and extended family alike need to practice: thoughtful behavior, build confidence in their children, claim their life giving purpose and be empathic with everyone. Remember the children are watching and they will learn how handle to life’s challenges from watching you. May God give you thoughtfulness, confidence, purpose and empathy. Amen.


Resources:
The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself Reflections By Dan Clendenin, Essay posted 13 June 2005, “Ishmael: God Hears and Sees”

Pentecost 6, Commentary, Background, Insights from Literary Structure, Theological Message, Ways to Present the Text. Anna Grant-Henderson, Uniting Church in Australia., June 22, 2008.
Professors Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein who wrote Raising Resilient Children, Contemporary Books, Chicago, Illinois, 2001. (Quoting Stargell 1983, II) see page 170.