Several years ago, the Presbyterian Church prepared new
catechisms for the instruction of both children and adults in the
basics of our faith. What we had been using up till then (or NOT
using, as the case generally was), had been written in the
seventeenth century and was in archaic language that was
difficult for modern ears to understand. The new catechism for
children begins this way:
Question: Who are you?
Answer: I am a child of God.
Good start, I think. And what brings it to mind this
morning is this year's Children's Sabbath emphasis - "Say that
I'm a Child of God," which comes from an old spiritual we will
sing later. We Presbyterians add a big AMEN to that.
I love children. They are great fun. Some time back I saw
an article in the paper that showed how first graders perceived
their world.(1) Youngsters were asked to participate in a creative
writing exercise in which they were to complete a famous saying,
such as "Don't count your chickens before..." One little girl
answered that one with, "Don't count your chickens before you fry
them." "People who live in glass houses...shouldn't be seen
using the bathroom," said little Nathan. "It's better to be
safe...than on fire," answered David. "Don't bite the
hand...that is not clean," said little Stacy. Here's one for you
who enjoy gossip - "No news is...boring," said Mandy. This one I
love - "Sticks and stones may break my bones...but hugs won't,"
said Ryan. Yes, children are fun...but I am glad I am not one of
them.
It is difficult being a youngster these days, far more so
than when I was growing up. When I was a boy, drugs were something you got at the drug store, coke was a soft drink, crack was
the sound of a baseball meeting a bat. Not so anymore. These
days, one in six American children lives in poverty (and most of
them are in working families); one in eight has no health
insurance; 13 million live in families that do not get enough to
eat.
Frankly, it is dangerous to be a child in this nation today.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US
children under age 15 are nine times more likely to die in a
firearm accident, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a
gun, 12 times more likely to die from gunfire, and 16 times more
likely to be murdered with a gun then children in 25 other
industrialized countries COMBINED.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than
2.5 million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported each
year. Of these, 35 percent involve physical abuse, 15 percent
involve sexual abuse and 50 percent involve neglect.(2) Terribly
sad, but to dismiss child abuse as a private tragedy misses a
more important larger point: if children are not protected from
their abusers, then WE will one day have to be protected from
those children. According to attorneys who have represented
them, four out of five death row inmates were abused as children.
If we as a nation were really smart, we would not let this
happen. If compassion were not enough to encourage our attention
to the plight of our children, self-interest should be. After
all, this is the generation to whom we will turn over the
leadership of our cities, our counties, our states and our
nation. These are the ones who will manage our Social Security
system, our Medicare and Medicaid. That scares me. What kind of
future will we have if it is in the hands of men and women who
have grown up so miserably? I shudder to imagine.
A report a few years ago from the Department of Health and
Human Services says that at least one in five children and
adolescents have a mental health disorder. At least one in 10,
or about 6 million, have a serious emotional disturbance.(3) Suicide is the third leading cause of death among American
teenagers. According to a report issued by a commission formed
by the American Medical Association and the National Association
of State Boards of Education, about 10% of teenage boys and 18%
of teenage girls try to kill themselves at least once.
It might be nice to hope that if a child survives all that,
he or she will at least get help in preparation for adulthood.
Some do. Too many don't. Every ten seconds of the American
school day, a child drops out.
If we were smart, we would do something about it. Spending
on children, any economist can prove, is a bargain. A nation can
spend money either for better schools or for larger jails. It
can feed babies or pay forever for the consequences of starving a
child's brain when it is trying to grow. One dollar spent on
pre-natal care for pregnant women can save more than $3.00 on
medical care during an infant's first year, and $10 down the
line. In one of the most thorough studies reported, the Carolina
Abecedarian Project (after the ABCs), followed 111 disadvantaged
North Carolina kids for 21 years. Half were enrolled in a high-quality educational program from infancy to age five, while the
control group got only nutritional supplements. All the children
attended comparable public schools from kindergarten on. The
result: those who attended preschool were less likely to drop out
of school, repeat grades, or bear children out of wedlock. By
age 15, less than a third had failed a grade, vs. more than half
of the control group. At age 21, the preschoolers were more than
twice as likely to be attending a four-year college.(4) As I say,
IF we were smart...
Now, I realize that I have bombarded you with statistics. I
do not expect you to remember them all. I run them past you to
illustrate and reinforce the fact that there are monumental
problems for our children these days. Why should that be? After
all, we SAY we love them. The Psalmist says children are "a
heritage from the Lord." Children are called "arrows" - "Happy
is the man who has his quiver full of them."(5) But, as they say
in Texas, perhaps in dealing with our children, we are "all hat
and no cattle." Yes, we love them...we say. But we are also one
of only four nations on this planet that actually executes
children who commit crimes (which puts us in the classy company
of those progressive and enlightened folks in Iran, Iraq and
Bangladesh). Of all the members of the United Nations, the
United States of America and Somalia (which has no legally
constituted government) are the only two nations that have failed
to ratify the U.N. convention on the Rights of the Child. I
wonder what the Lord thinks of that.
Actually, I do not wonder. Our Gospel lesson makes plain
that Jesus had a special place in his heart for children. As was
the custom in Palestine, Jewish mothers brought their youngsters
to a famous Rabbi for a blessing. It was such a situation that
prompted the little story we find in Mark's record. One might
think it strange that the disciples would have tried to stop such
a thing. They were not boorish or ungracious men - they were
simply trying to protect their Master from being overwhelmed.
Jesus would have none of it though. He said, "Let the little
children come to me."
One of the things we need to note in this lesson is that
Jesus was indignant - ANGRY - at what was being done. It is not
hard to imagine how he feels about the situation of the children
of our world today. He would indeed be angry over the lack of
elementary rights denied to those we call "underprivileged." He
would be angry over our limp acceptance of the preventable
poverty which condemns children not only to suffering but to the
withering of the soul. He would be angry over our tolerance of
all the vicious forces that prey upon children. He would be
angry that his own people...we who call ourselves Christians...
are content to let it happen.
"Let the little children come to me; and do not hinder
them." Many of us grew up learning that verse in the King James
Version and its wonderful Elizabethan English - "Suffer the
little children to come unto Me and forbid them not." We can
easily escape condemning ourselves in that word "forbid." Who
would forbid a child's coming to Jesus? None of us. The word
suggests active, conscious, deliberate obstruction.
But the obstruction, the stopping, may be unconscious. It
may come simply from neglect to take some positive action. In
our own homes we may stop children from coming. We can do it by
making Christ unattractive through our own example. We can do it
by showing from the decisions we make that we do not consider
Jesus very important - if we are at worship on Sunday, OK; if
not, OK too. We can stop our children simply by neglecting their
religious life. We can stop the children of a community, a
nation, and a world by our provision of nothing but lip service
in their behalf. That ought not to be.
In his book, The Moral Life of Children,(6) Robert Coles tells
the story of Ruby Bridges. Ruby was six years old when a Federal
judge ordered that an elementary school in New Orleans be
integrated. Ruby and three others were the first black children
to enter that elementary school. Every morning as she arrived at
school and every afternoon as she went home, accompanied by
federal marshals, fifty to a hundred people met her at the door.
They shouted obscenities, threatened to kill her, and they spit
at her. Dr. Coles was researching what happens to a child living
under stress. Coles was so sure that Ruby would crack under this
stress that he asked her teachers to watch for signs. One day a
teacher noticed that Ruby was talking to the people who greeted
her so angrily at the door of the school. The teacher asked Ruby
about what she was saying but Ruby denied talking with them. So
the teacher called Dr. Coles to report what might be the first
signs of cracking. And when Coles met we Ruby what he discovered
was that each morning and each evening as she passed the crowds,
she was not speaking to them but praying for them. "Why Ruby,"
he asked. "Why would you pray for them?"
"Because they need praying for," she said.
Coles replied, "You know, frankly Ruby, I don't feel like
praying for those people."
Ruby said, "There are sometimes I don't feel like praying
for them either, but you should pray for them even if you don't
feel like praying for them."
"And what do you pray?"
"Forgive them. They know not what they do."
Folks, Ruby caught that kind of faith from her parents and
from her church.
There will be no real progress, no genuine hope for
America's children to ALL be looked upon as GOD'S children until
some sense of urgency forces us to reconsider our values. That
Congress and the administration could give business a $136-billion tax break this week while so many millions of American
youngsters cannot get medical care is unconscionable. The
ultimate test of any civilization is not the power of its armies
nor the size of its gross national product but the condition of
its children. If they flower, a society deserves to be described
as flowering. At the least, they are owed food, clothing, and
shelter. If they are corrupted, if they suffer, if they die from
abuse or neglect, an atrocity has been committed for which no
other achievement can atone. We can and should do better.
At a Christmas Eve Children's Service at Our Lady of Lourdes
Catholic Church in Decatur, Illinois, the priest, surrounded by
about 100 youngsters at the altar addressed the parents as
follows: "Christmas is the time to be thankful for the blessings
in our lives. I am thankful for two things. I am thankful for
all these wonderful children with us here today - I love them
all. And I am also thankful for the gift of celibacy."
As I said at the beginning of this, I am thankful I am not a
child (I will pass on that celibacy thing). And I am thankful
that there are Christian people who care enough about children to
make them a priority, who provide help through those difficult
years, and particularly to those youngsters who are at risk.
These are the people who listen and respond when the Lord says,
"Let the little children come to me; and do not hinder them..."
Are you one of those who care? Are you?
Amen!
1. Associated Press, "Kids Say the Darndest Things," Charlotte Observer, 11/26/87, p. 6F
2.
http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZ3S3DRUDC&sub_cat=355
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999). Mental Health: A Report of the
Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
4. "Does Universal Preschool Pay?" Business Week, 4/29/02
5. Psalm 127:3-4
6. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987
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