Several years ago a mother wrote to “Dear Abby”: “Dear Abby, My son is in jail for running his mouth at a cop. They’ve given him one phone call a day, and he’s calling home to ask us to bring him things. His dad has gone over there with whatever he has wanted: two Big Macs on Monday, a pizza on Tuesday, today an apple pie. Personally, I think it’s disgraceful that we have to feed this boy, because that’s what our taxes go for. I have been telling my husband not to waste his time and our money jumping to take our son all this junk food. All I intend to do is just to send him two packs of cigarettes each day. Dear Abby, what do you think?”
I’m not going to tell you just yet what Dear Abby said. But I am going to suggest that we need to learn from God, specifically from God’s Holy Spirit, how to give real gifts to our children. I’m going to suggest that what people say they want often disguises what they really need. And so, if we are instructed by the example of the Holy Spirit, we can learn how to live in families and give something precious and priceless, though it has no price tag.
The other day while I was standing in line at the grocery store, I watched a little drama acted out. Mom and two little children, a boy about five, a girl about three. Admittedly a handful. I know all about that. As somebody said to me this week, been there, done that, and got a T-shirt to prove it! But I learned something there!
The little girl whimpered: “Mom, I want this candy.” Mom, with her face stuck in a tabloid cover: “Hmm, no.” Girl again, “Mom, Mom, I WANT this candy.” Mom, still entranced by stories about aliens and murder: “I said no. PUT IT BACK!” Little girl one more time, “Mom, waaaah, Mom” And into the cart went the candy, PLOP! That got Mom’s attention: “No, no, no.” Grab. Slap. I do not need to quote the little girl at that point. But her older brother, wise beyond his years, looked up and said, “Mom, I think we NEED that candy.”
You may not think he needed the candy itself, for food, nor did his little sister. But I tell you, he was on to something. He did know there was a difference between “I want” and “I need”. And he may have figured out that “I want a candy bar” really meant “I need attention.”
When Jesus wanted to teach us about needing and wanting and asking, He posed some questions about what parents do in order to get us to see what God does. He asked us a couple of what seem to be no-brainers about how parents treat children, so that we could discover how God treats us. But, you know, maybe Jesus’ questions about what parents do could stand closer examination today.
I
For example, Jesus asked, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?” Is there anybody out there who is so hard-hearted and so stingy, so callous and so cold, that when your child is hungry and asks for a simple piece of fish, you would offer him an inedible, unpalatable, worthless, slimy old snake?
Surely not. Certainly not. Or are we so sure? Let’s take Jesus’ images and expand them a bit. Jesus spoke of a child asking for a fish. Fish were the staple meat in ancient Israel. A child who asked for a fish would have been asking for nothing more than ordinary, everyday nourishment. Of course the child should have it, of course any parent would give it.
But a snake!? You know the Biblical imagery around snakes! You know the story of the Garden of Eden, where the tempter is represented as a snake! You know the revulsion that surrounds the very thought of a snake. Some of you remember that the only thing that snakes were good for when you were a kid was that if you brought one anywhere close to your mother or your sister, she screamed like bloody murder! The snake is the very embodiment of everything loathsome and degrading.
I see Jesus asking about much more than diet. I see Jesus asking: will we see to it that our children are given wholesome, nourishing things, and not worthless, trashy, harmful things? Will we see to it that our children are fed in mind and spirit as well as body, and are fed things that truly nourish rather than things that pollute and sicken? Will we see to it that what is available to young people is strengthening and healthy and empowering? Or will we sit back and do nothing while the purveyors of garbage fill children’s minds with worthless junk?
Let me ask some searching questions. What are we putting into our children’s minds? What is playing back in their memories, over and over and over? Is it a Bible verse you taught them at the breakfast table yesterday morning, or is it some heavy metal lyric that downgrades women and suggests violence as a way of life? Is it fish or a snake? And what will they find on your coffee table or down in your desk drawer? Will it be philosophy or pornography, Paul or Playboy? You know that they will dine on what we serve up. What have our children been fed, fish or snakes?
I went to visit one of our little ones in the hospital the other day. Three years old. I decided to find out what her mom and her grandparents had been doing at home! I asked her, could she sing “Jesus Loves Me”. I want you to know she got it letter perfect, all the way through! That child is getting something healthy fed to her!
But she may be the exception rather than the rule. What are we putting into the minds of this generation? What are we putting in front of them to stimulate their imaginations and draw out their intellects? Have we filled our homes with books and encouraged our children to read them? Or have we signed up for fifty cable channels so that there is electronic baby-sitting every hour of the day and night? Have we taken our youth to museums and art galleries, to gardens and historical monuments, all of which we have in such abundance in this city? Have we taken them to places that will feed the soul? Or have we decided that a few dollars for movies and popcorn, never mind the R rating, buys a cheap break for Mom and Dad? Have we decided that when our children need something that would grow them and stimulates them, we will give them not fish but snakes, not nourishment but garbage?
Oh, I remember what it’s like. I know what it’s like to try to persuade kids about something worthwhile. But I also know that when they are exposed to something positive, they will respond. One spring, about this time of the year, when our children were small, they announced they didn’t have anything to do. We’re bored! Let’s go somewhere, Daddy. Let’s do something, Mom. So we decided we would take them over to see the National Arboretum. Well, that was not what they had in mind. They were thinking more in terms of maybe rides on the water flumes and spins in the bumper cars. When we told them we were going to see a bunch of trees and shrubs, well, you can imagine the objections, the grumbling and the pouting. Until, that is, we actually got there. And when we let those kids out of the car in the midst of all that color, all of God’s creative glory, they ran into the woods, shouting for sheer joy, and I thought we never would get them home again!
You see, children will respond to something real, given half a chance. Children really do want fish and not snakes, they really do want something nourishing and not something worthless.
Jesus asked, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?” Let’s be very sure, on this Mother’s Day, that we who parent and we who grandparent and we who are responsible adults provide wholesome things for the mind and the spirit, fish, and leave out the slimy snakes.
II
But Jesus takes His questions a step further. The issue gets even deeper as He continues to ask what we really want to do for our children? It’s not only fish versus snakes, the nourishing versus the worthless. It’s something deeper as well.
“Is there anyone among you who, ...... if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?” An egg or a scorpion? Again, the answer seems obvious. But maybe it isn’t.
From earliest times eggs have been the symbols of life. The reason is obvious. Everybody is fascinated by watching eggs hatch. That’s why eggs are used at Easter; symbols of life. But scorpions are among the most poisonous and dangerous of creatures. Some varieties of scorpions inject a venom that can cause a very painful, agonizing death within minutes. Eggs and scorpions, powerful contrast between life and death. Jesus is asking, which parent, which adult, if a child asks for life, would deal in death?
Is the answer obvious again? It is not. Sadly, the answer is all too often: death. An eleven-year-old boy has his chest crushed because he couldn’t tell time correctly. Two sisters were buried yesterday because someone just took them and wasted them. On and on it goes in our culture of violence. There are some who, very directly, will give children scorpions instead of eggs, death instead of life.
But I am moved to push Jesus’ question a little harder. Are some of us also offering children death instead of life? What is the message we are sending when drugs and alcohol pass into our bodies, in plain view; how weak is our warning to young people, “Not for you”? What is the message we are sending when we are cavalier about advertising tobacco and other harmful things? Come on, America, is “Joe Camel” really the best image we can provide for our children?
I know all this sounds very conservative and out of fashion; well, so be it. I have a Methodist pastor friend just down the street here who has formed a group, the ‘Cause Children Count Coalition. He and the coalition are doing everything they can to push back the purveyors of death, because he himself almost died from these abuses. They say he’s an extremist. May I suggest that where life and death are concerned, we need extremists? Martin Luther King was once accused of being an extremist for civil rights, and he responded that yes, he was, just as Gandhi was an extremist for peace and Jesus was an extremist for the Kingdom of Heaven, he was an extremist for justice. Well, now the times call for extremists, extremists for the lives of children.
“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?” Is there anyone among you who, since children do ask for life, will give death? I’m afraid that there are. There really are. The week before last I did, as I do every Friday, a Bible study with the children in our After-School Program. Since it was the Friday on which the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial had been dedicated, I picked up on President Roosevelt’s quotation, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I wanted to teach them on the Bible verse, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” Together we talked about what people were afraid of back in Roosevelt’s day, and then I asked them what they were afraid of. Are you ready for their answers?
One little girl spoke up, “Somebody might hurt me.” That didn’t surprise me. A very tiny girl said, “A man I didn’t know tried to get me in his car”. Bad as it was, it didn’t surprise me. But then one of the little boys hit me from the blind side. He said, “I’m afraid of 45’s and Saturday Night specials.” I said, “You mean you are afraid of guns?” “No,” he said, “I’m only afraid of 45’s and Saturday Night specials.. I’m not afraid of shotguns and rifles, I’m not afraid of 32’s and 9-millimeters. I’ve got some of those at the house.” And the whole room suddenly erupted with all these kids talking about the guns they have at their houses, the guns their father uses, the guns their grandfather collects, and so on. It was incredible! I had to tell them that what I am afraid of is their fascination with guns. What have we done, creating an armed camp? Children are asking for life and we intrigue them with the culture of death? No! No!
You all are going to have to pull on my coattails this morning and remind me what time it is. I don’t have time to talk about how they start out wanting to love and be loved by everybody, but we feed them prejudices against other races, other cultures, other languages, and we sow the seeds of death. Wish I had time to talk about that.
Nor do I have time even to mention that they want eternal life, they want to know the Lord, from whom all life is received as a gift, and what of us? We don’t have the energy to bring them to Sunday School, we are intimidate by the youth group. We don’t have time and we’d rather sleep in and hey, when they grow up they can make their own choices! Our children ask for life, eternal life, and we abandon them to death! Wish I had time to talk about that. Sounds to me like a scorpion, death, instead of eggs, life!
III
But I’ll get on to what I do have time for, what Jesus promised that the heavenly Father would give. Because that teaches us what we can give to our children. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The Father will give the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? That means that God gives His presence. God gives His personal presence. That’s what we mean by the Holy Spirit. We mean the personal, powerful presence of the Father. Not things, not material stuff, but personal presence is what God gives to every one of His children who asks. He is involved in our lives.
Men and women, on this Mother’s Day, the Lord teaches us that the most valuable thing we can give is our presence. Our hands-on involvement. There is absolutely no substitute for close-up personal engagement with the children and the youth who are coming after us. The gift of time. Not things, not stuff, but time, presence, precious and priceless, carrying no price tag. And all of us can do this.
The other day I spoke with one of our church leaders. He’s a single young man, no children of his own. So we were just talking about how we use our time and what we do with ourselves. The conversation turned really serious when he said, “Well, pastor, you know, I’ve found a calling.” I asked him, “A calling? You have! What’s that?” And he said, “My calling is to serve the youth of this community.” Praise God for someone who sees that, like God’s Holy Spirit, he is called to be a presence and to make a difference!
Or, on the other end of the age spectrum. This week I was involved in enlisting a church leader. Her task will have to do with providing something training for the children and the youth, as well as the adults of this church. She said, “I’ve already raised my own son, but I think God is calling me to leave something else behind for the youth of this community.” Praise God for a mother who sees that her mothering days aren’t really over, for she can be a presence for somebody else.
Friends, this church is called to be a redemptive presence for the children and the youth of this community. There are some things we must do. We must sustain our after-school program. It is our personal presence that will help those children flourish. We must grow our Sunday School, which needs more teachers, and our Children’s Worship, and our nursery, and our Children’s choir and our youth choir and our Love Alive youth group and our Vacation Bible School. We must. It is not sufficient to hire staff and expect them to do the job. It’s a mistake to think that hired help, as good as they are, can do it. We are not sending the message that we care, really care, if that’s all we do. God sent the Holy Spirit as an abiding presence, a loving, caring, personal presence, for each of us who ask. If God will do that for us, can we do less for our children?
Pastor Bruce Larson, out in Seattle, tells of a woman he knows who bought about a hundred cheap purses. Each night she goes out, carrying one of these purses. She goes to a rough part of town, where young toughs hang out. She knows, that her purse will be snatched. She’s planned for it. And that’s exactly what happens, nearly every night. But when a young thief runs off around the corner and opens the purse, he finds no money, no wallet, no credit cards. But he does find a note. And the note reads, “Maybe you have snatched this purse because you are hungry. Call me (and she gives her phone number) and I will give you a meal. Or maybe you have grabbed this purse because you don’t see any other way to live. Call me and I will show you a more excellent way.” Do you know that this woman has now led to Christ more than fifty young people, through her presence?
The late comedian Erma Bombeck wrote in one of her articles that someone had asked her if she would change anything if she could live her life over again. Erma Bombeck wrote, “If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more... I would have invited friends over to dinner, even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.... I would have taken time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth. ... I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about the grass stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching real life. ... When my child kissed me impetuously I would never have said, ‘Later, now go wash up for dinner.’ There would have been more ‘I love yous,’ more ‘I’m sorries,’ more ‘I’m listenings,’ but mostly ... I would seize every minute of [life], look at it and really see it, try it on, live it, exhaust it, and never give the minute back until there was nothing left of it.’” Presence. Presence.
That’s why God gives us His Holy Spirit. Presence from the Father. That’s why God gives us the power to be present for somebody else. Nothing else really matters.
Oh, and the Dear Abby letter? The one from the mother whose son was in jail, and she was complaining that Dad took him food instead of letting the taxpayers do it, and she thought it was sufficient just to send two packs of cigarettes a day? Dear Abby wrote back, “Dear Mother, Your husband is not just taking food to your son in jail. He is taking love. That’s what your son is really asking for.
Fish, nourishment; not snakes, sickness. Eggs, life, not scorpions, death. And most of all, like the gift of God’s Spirit, a presence. A presence.
