Sermon April 17, 2011

“They Are All God’s Children!”

Psalm 141 read responsively, Luke 18:15-17and John 1:9-12

Preached by Linda Jo Peters

April 17, 2011 Palm Sunday ~ Children’s Sabbath

Psalm 141 read responsively

1I call upon you, O Lord; come quickly to me; give ear to my voice when I call to you.

2Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.
3Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.
4Do not turn my heart to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with those who work iniquity; do not let me eat of their delicacies.
5Let the righteous strike me; let the faithful correct me. Never let the oil of the wicked anoint my head, for my prayer is continually against their wicked deeds.
6When they are given over to those who shall condemn them, then they shall learn that my words were pleasant.
7Like a rock that one breaks apart and shatters on the land, so shall their bones be strewn at the mouth of Sheol.
8But my eyes are turned toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; do not leave me defenseless.
9Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me, and from the snares of evildoers.
10Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I alone escape.

Luke 18:15-17
The story of the children being brought to Jesus for a blessing has been our theme scripture throughout this series on children. The devotional resource has ended most of the prayers with the phrase “We are all children of God.” It is why we were brought to Jesus as children or why we have brought our own children to him: For we are all children of God.

15People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. 16But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 17Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

John 1:9-12
This passage from the great hymn of praise that opens John’s gospel reminds us how we become children of God. “…not of blood nor of the will of the flesh… but of God.” Listen to the Word, children of God.

9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

Sermon
Here it is Palm Sunday and we should be reading passages about parades and preparations for the Last Supper. But today we culminate our journey in a Children’s Sabbath. Like the children on that first Palm Sunday we here the children sing Hosanna to the King for the little child will lead us into the Kingdom of God. They lead us with their enthusiasm for life and their trust that we can make a difference for them. We can kiss the owies of life away. We are the children of the light born of the will of God. Yet every so often I feel less precious and I seem lost in my struggle against not just evil but life itself.

Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones writes: …our whole human experience is something of an ongoing struggle: we struggle with our moral and ethical decisions, we struggle to make the right choices in life, we struggle to discipline our lives, and we struggle to achieve justice and a better world. We struggle to give love and peace the upper hand, we struggle to preserve the works of mercy, and we even struggle to remain Christian. Perhaps without realizing it as such, we struggle daily to ensure that our children are safe, protected, loved, educated, and/prepared to live out their dreams.

That is a tall order, because sometimes we seem to win that struggle and other times we seem to fail miserably. No matter how much we love someone we cannot protect them, we can only work for good and trust that we are making a difference for our children in our families and around the world.

In 2006, an American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. (Sounds very familiar to our own William Seo when he was deployed to Afghanistan. ) Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by TOMS customers. At a presentation for his employees, Blake reports meeting a customer in an airport:

"He notice a girl wearing a red pair of shoes -- the shoes you make. Except for that girl they're not just a pair of shoes, they're a story. One she's ready to tell a stranger while he's trying to get a boarding pass.

He pretended he knew nothing about the brand and asked the girl what the shoes were. She related his story back to him enthusiastically. “She knew my whole story,” he said to the packed auditorium. After hearing such passion in her telling, he could not resist and revealed his identity to the girl. She opened her eyes very wide and exclaimed: “Why did you cut your hair?”

People remember. And when a message is a mission, they will tell your story to anyone who will hear it -- even a stranger at an airport, and by doing that, they become your strongest advocates in marketing your product."

What is our mission? Can you tell Christ’s story with the same enthusiasm as this girl did with her red shoes? Can you call out your Hosanna?

These past two weeks I was helping a friend recover from major surgery. I had the ability and time to make a difference in her recovery. But through the week I became more and more frantic as Vincent’s condition worsened and Diyo was hospitalized. I needed to be in two places or maybe three places at once. I grieved with Frank and Gwendolyn and I worried with Valentine. But I was too far away to touch them and hold them except in prayer, to kiss their “owies” away.

One of my friend’s pastors was able to join us at the hospital. How ironic I was being pastured while my congregation was not. In our getting to know one another Pastor Tim revealed that his wife was on her way to Haiti. To a small congregation she has been involved with since she was in college. It has become a mission for their whole congregation to rebuild the church’s school destroyed last year by the earthquake and to provide lunches for the children for whom this lunch may be the only meal they get that day.

When my friend came out of recovery she was shared that the assisting surgeon had sat by her side as she went under anesthesia and held her hand. This simple contact gave her a wonderful image of being cared for by the grace of God.

I can’t do heart or brain surgery. I cannot run into a burning building a rescue a family.
But I am still a child of the light born of the will of God and so are you. I have an important mission to witness to the love of God found in Jesus Christ. It is your mission too. You see the children of God are everywhere. They need their hands held. They need wells dug and medicine sent and schools built and food provided. And when you feel you have been a failure and less than precious, remember maybe all you can do to make a difference in this world is to buy a pair of red shoes so that somewhere in this world another child of God has a pair of shoes. Amen.

RESOURCES
“Persistence, Struggle, Advocacy, Hope: Allowing the Children to Come to Jesus” By the Reverend Mark Bozzuti-Jones, Priest for Pastoral Care at Trinity Church Wall Street, and former Specialist for Children’s Ministries, The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

www.helpafghanistan.net/915/
www.toms.com/our-movement?icid=us032011_06