LISTEN TO THE CHILDREN

September 6, 1987

John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Isaiah 11:6-9
Matthew 18:1-5

“.. anda little child shall lead then."
—~Isaiah 11:6(RSV)

Back when we were having babies I always wanted to announce the
pregnancy from the pulpit, but was constrained by another, more reasonable
voice in the house which convinced me that it really wouldn't be
appropriate, so I never did.

But,. J] have observed over the years that grandparents are granted
permission to do many things they would not have thought of doing with
their own children and I simply cannot ignore the extraordinary experience
of presiding at the Baptism of Caitlin. I have also observed over the
years that every grandparent says essentially the same things:

1) -'Isn't this baby the most beautiful baby in history?

2} ~ This experience eclipses and' magnifies my own
parenting in ways I can't begin to understand or explain - and

3) - Here, let me show you some pictures.

Well, it's all true but instead of showing pictures I got to hold her
up for all to see. Grandparents talk to one another knowingly about
the marvelous new phenomenon, this grace, this completely undeserved
blessing in whose light we now stand. I bumped into an old friend of mine
last spring shortly after the news of our new status was announced. He is
the head of a mining equipment company, a tough industrialist. He pulled:-me
aside and said with a twinkle in his eye - "Contrary to what I've been
telling you for ten years - there is one free lunch and this is it.” - And,
of course, he was right; these babies bless us simply by showing up.
Simply by happening they cause ordinary fathers and ordinary mothers to
become "grand" fathers and "grand" mothers and they cause ordinary
grandparents to become suddeniy "great." ;

Babiés change things simply by showing up. Actually, they have
remarkable power. I was involved in a baptism two months ago which did not
break any ecclesiastical rules, I trust, but surely gave them a good
stretch. It invelved three babies who were cousins: all born at about

the same time. The grandparents live in Chicago but their children, the
parents of these babies, have all scattered and live elsewhere. “Why not
bring them all home for baptism?" the grandparents thought. Trouble is
that one set of parents remained Episcopalian, one were now Catholic and
the third had become Presbyterians in Florida. Because Baptism is a
Sacrament of the church for all of us and we take it seriously, we don't

tsuLte know what to do when invited to baptize ecumenically. It isn't easy

for a Presbyterian to baptize apart from the context of the congregation.

Well, they kept at it and negotiated their way through a maze of
ecclesiastical paraphernalia and finally it happened in an Episcopal
Church. One hundred and fifty people were there, family and friends and
the Episcopal Clergy, a Roman Catholic Priest and me. And it occurred to
me in the middle of this remarkable little gathering (which really didn't
fit theologically or ecclesiastically into anyone's tradition...) that
these three babies had managed to do something which several centuries of
adult activity - including bloody wars, high level negotiations,
international organizations and twenty years of intense ecumenical
relating - had failed to do yet. Namely, they had persuaded us to forget
all about differences and get together around the love of God which. is so
eloquently present in the babies themselves and in this sacrament. And
that thought hit me with such power during the little homily I was
delivering that I barely got through it.

it reminded me of one of my favorite historical vignettes: the night
the Civil War stopped because Confederate General George Pickett's wife had
a baby.

“A little child shall lead them," the prophet Isaiah said in a gorgeous

vision of a peaceable kingdom in which there is no more violence, ne
hurting and destroying. We. read that passage in Advent: “There shall come

forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse." The church hears in the ancient
words of the prophet a promise fulfilled in the birth of the child of

Bethlehem.

it must have been a part of that vision that Jesus had on his mind
when one day he took a child in his arms and said-to his disciples -
"turn... become like children."

Don't you love the question the disciples have asked? “Who is -the

greatest.in. the Kingdom of.Heaven?". We can't resist asking that question.

It is the quintessential adult question —- "Who's the greatest? Who gets to

go first? Who's number one?" It is such a serious, urgent, grown up
question... And Jesus' response was to hold up a little one. I like to

think it -was an infant, a few months old, certainly too young to even have

heard of the Kingdom of Heaven let alone be worried about how to get in it,
and said — "Become like this."

It has always been tempting to sentimentalize these words of Jesus,

They remind us, if we think about them, of a time that once was and is no
more. They invite us to remember when the world was softer and sunnier and

we were safe; when good prevailed and all the enemies were defeated. They
remind us of the relentless movement of time and the loss of our youth and

our mortality and before long we are feeling sorry for ourselves (Who wants

9/6/87

to go through adolescence again?}). That is not what Jesus was: about.

So what did he mean when he brought a child into that somber, adult
setting? I like to think that Jesus knew intuitively what our best
psychology is teaching us, namely that there is something basic to our
humanity in children, and that becoming an adult should preserve, protect,
enjoy and nurture the child we once were and in many ways still are.

There is a child in all of us, the psychologists say. A decade or so
essentially that ali of us are three persons: a Parent, an Adult and a
Child. These three persons, or “personality states," exist in us
regardless of our age, and in every life situation - we use one of the
three. Sometimes our Parent is "on," other times it is our “Aduit" doing

the talking and sometimes we are “in" our "Child."

Dr. Thomas Harris, the author of I'm OK — You're OK, describes the
Child in us:

“In the Child resides creativity, curiosity, the desire to explore
and Know, the urges to touch, feel and experience." [p. 27]

The Child in us wants to play. It is where our sexuality resides.
It is where we can laugh and tease and rejoice and trust and be vulnerable.

And the fact is that something happens to that in nearly all of us.
Harris said that as we mature, the Parent and Adult in us grow larger and
stronger - and that is good. But then they crowd out the Child in us and
that is not so goed.

We do not respond freely and reach out in love, as the Child in us
would do because the Parent in us says "be careful, don't risk getting
hurt, don't make a fool of yourself, remember what other people will
think." .

We don't stop and smell the roses, as the Child in us wants to do
because the Adult in us has to get to work on time. Slowly but surely, the
ability to laugh spontaneously, to love freely, to weep openly - the Child
in us - is reduced-in stature and pushed into the corner of our psyche.

"Turn and become like children," Jesus said.

Philosopher Sam Keen, in-a marvelous short’ story, “Education for
Serendipity," recalls a miserable afternoon he spent in an elementary _
classroom that is so close to my own experience I know about it personally.
The subject was "Penmanship," my own personal Waterloo. He was listening
to Mrs. Jones' monotone: “make your i's come all the way up to the middle
line. Make your o's nice and round. Circle, circle, circle. Period. Now
repeat." ;

His despair was interrupted by a warbler building a nest outside the
window. He watched and wondered and dreamed and was caught and stayed
after school.. He reflects: “Mrs. Jones won more than the day. Schooling
became a habit. for me and I- remained in the classroom for twenty-five years

9/6/87

and five degrees without.seriously questioning the maxim that. private
enthusiasm must be divorced from the educational task." [To A Dancing God,
p. 38-39] 7 : we

Something like that happens to all: of.us...We learn-that getting the
i's. straight and the o's-round is more important than the ability. to
respond with curiosity and.joy and love to. the beauty. right outside the
window. .

And that is something of what. Jesus had in mind when he, in-response
to the calculating, joyless, somber and very adult question -—: "Who: willbe
greatest. in. the Kingdom of. Heaven?"...... held up a baby and-said---"become
like children." :

‘Let's not sentimentalize and romanticize. Children can-_be terrible.
They can be messy, inconsiderate, unapologetically selfish and they cry a
lot when they're hungry and wet...There is more than a little truth to the
old saw that the best part. of grandparenting comes in handing them back to
their parents when all that stuff starts.

The childlikeness Jesus. meant was not childishness. It-was; I
propose to you, the elemental grace that is simply a given ina child -

.the. openness. and responsiveness

.the wide-eyed wonder at mystery and discovery
.the curiosity ;

-the integrity which allows the child te

, say the. most. honest. things...

A three year old guest at my table, when we bowed our heads: and J
began.to pray the grace asked in a wonderfully penetrating voice —. "What
are you doing, man?"...

And one of my own, who when the Presbytery Executive was at our table
and had bowed for grace - thus revealing a baid head to her for the first
time. ~ announced, “Daddy, that man has a hole in his head."

All of which was anticipated by Hans Christian Andersen's story of
the Emperor's New Clothes .in which all the adults are "“oohing and ahing"
and saying the conventional things until a child pipes up and points out
“But he has nothing on." .

Jesus meant the creativity that can make a game out of two clothes
pins and a jar... and the ability to ask the awkward and often profound
question... "Who made God?"-which is, of course, “the". question,.-what | the
theologians call the basic ontological dilemma.

Bruno Betttleheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, proposes that children
can handle “mythic truth" and don't need adult explanation of Jack and the
Beanstalk or Little Red Riding Hood. It's Miami Vice and Dallas that we'd
better exepete for them.

Children are not restricted by adult prejudices. We are not. born
bigots. We are taught that. Black and white children don't seem to notice

9/6/87

any difference until someone points it out. One of mine, when his new
bicycle was stolen from our garage, and I was enraged at the violation of
my property — said “Dad - the boy who took my bike must have wanted it
pretty bad to do all that." ,

"A littie child will lead them," Isaiah promised. -"Become like that,"
Jesus said. My proposal this morning is that we listen to it for starters.

And when we listen to the children we will hear some of them crying
for help. . What keeps this topic from maudlin sentimentality is the
reality of what being a child is like not very far from here. The ghastly
counterpoint to our beautiful infants is that new born deposited in a
garbage can in our city two weeks ago.

The motif of children which runs through the story of Jesus had a
profound impact on Western civilization. Jesus was unique in suggesting
that children were human beings, objects of God's love — and the Christian
church challenged and then changed a mentality which regarded children as
expendable. So this sermon would be irresponsible if .it did not contain a
suggestion that as a culture we are very much behaving as if our children
are expendable.

The State of the Child, a remarkable document, is a thorough survey
by the University of Chicago which makes for very sobering reading by.
reporting that “the condition of children in Illinois has worsened by
every standard of measurement." ,

The state of children in Chicago includes dramatic increases. in:.-

child abuse and neglect,
substance abuse,

school drop outs,
unemployment,

teen-age pregnancy,
crime, ~

‘all played out against a Housing Authority that doesn't work. And
now, irony of all, the one public effort which does work — public
education — will not be available because of a strike.

An independent, private sector plan of action, responding to the: grim
findings of The State of the Child says, "If we do not care for our
children, the cost of our failure will be prohibitive in human and
financial terms. They will grow to adulthood too impaired to funetion as
productive, independent men and women."

So we will continue to offer Tutoring at Fourth Presbyterian Church,
not only because we hope fora better world —. but in the name of Jesus.
We will try to offer more in terms of values and family support. We will
take some chances because people who know Jesus cannot read the statistics
and drive west on Division Street without a very deep sense that all these
children belong to all of us. And that if we don't redirect some public and
private attention, and stop using poor and minority children as pawns in
the tricky finances of partisan politics, we might as well save the money

nf A fae

we are so eager to spend on Star Wars defense schemes because there will be
nothing much left here to defend.

Among the sounds we hear when we listen to the children will-be a
distinct and urgent cry for help. But perhaps the most edifying and
touching and most profound characteristic of childlikeness is trust.. God
creates human beings with the innate ability to trust.

Those disciples of Jesus who asked, “Who will be the greatest in the
Kingdom of Heaven?" were being very serious and adult. They were trying
very hard. They were men whose religion had taught them that the harder
they tried, the more goodness they performed, the more rules they obeyed,
the closer they would approach their salvation. And Jesus told them that
they were missing the whole point. The Kingdom of Heaven is not .a prize to
be won but a gift to be received. And religion is not a list .of rules to
be obeyed but songs of gratitude to be sung, and joy to be expressed and
laughter to be shared. ;

So we try hard — to be the best we can be, to hold up our ‘end of. the
load, to live up to the expectations of others, to be responsible. We
try hard to be givers and earners and accomplishers and succeeders. And
for many of us the hardest thing in the world to do is to accept anything
without earning it, working for it, winning it. We try hard at religion.
Even our praying is adult work which we are constantly analyzing for. beauty
of prose and exactness. and syntax. We try hard at relationships -and: for
many of us the most difficult assignment in life. is not to try harder,
because we're good at that, but to stop trying - to simply belong enough
to receive the love another-has for us... to allow the love of another to
flow down over our heads like the fresh water of. heaven.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the incrediblé/ good news that God is
lave: that the maker of this universe is not an ngry, judgmental tyrant,
but a beloved parent. The Gospel is the incredible good news that the
first cause, the ground of all being, the creative energy behind everything
that.is love... Those serious friends of Jesus missed that and so do we.

So on occasion God gives us a child;. brings a child into our midst
and says, “become like children." There is a child in you that knows about
that.. There is a child in’ you that once knew. how to accept the - warmth and
caring and love of another. There is a child in you that remembers how to
Jaugh. and rejoice and be grateful. There is a child in you and in'me-that
very much wants and needs the love of God. And is a child in you capable
of trusting God for your. salvation and quite capable of receiving it. with
joy and laughter. me

“Last Tuesday the staff of this church was engaged in its weekly
meeting when it was blessed by a special interruption. We had been at it
all morning, and because it was our first time all together after. summer, we
worked through lunch - planning our priorities for the fall. It was very
‘ Adult, sometimes ponderous, and by 2:30 p.m. we were tired, impatient
and becoming irritable. It was my turn - at the end — to-tell the others
about. my priorities. | ,

9/6/87

Because it was late and the sitter had to leave, Geoffrey, son of
Deborah and Tony, joined this solemn assembly. Geoffrey is two. The first
thing he did was look at our empty plates and cups and say - “eat!" The
second thing he did was refuse to stop saying "eat." The third thing he-
did was throw his pacifier across the table to Dave Donovan and the fourth
thing he did was fly to the piano in a gale of laughter and
enthusiastically have at it. Whereupon a meeting that was far too long and
far too serious came to an end. With smiles and laughter and a sense of
grace and a.common, unspoken understanding that, in a way, the benediction
had just been pronounced on each of us - we had been blessed by a child.

Listen to the children.

Better yet, turn — become like children.

We pray for the children, Lord God, bless them.

We pray for courage and compassion to love ail your children.

We pray for the child in us, and we thank you.. You who are father
and mother to us —- for that love which created us and sustains us and

nurtures us all our days; that love which keeps us. safe forever — through -
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Q/6/R7