Something Nice to Say

“Something Nice to Say”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

Matthew 19.13-15

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

             I was a lot smarter and wiser when I was sixteen.  Bob Dylan says, I was so much older then; I am younger than that now.  My level of sophistication was on full display in Mr. Houston’s American History class.  Discussing the attack on Pearl Harbor, I took the position that Roosevelt knew, knew before the attack, and let events unfold.  This would give him latitude.  Roosevelt was determined for the US to enter the fight against the axis powers and an attack on Pearl Harbor would remove all obstacles.

            I took this as realistic.  Jaded for sure, but better than naïve optimism.  Such was the 16-year-old me.  Mr. Houston was gracious as always; gave my cynicism some breathing room; gently tried to challenge my surety.  This was par for the course until Glenn waded in. My remark upset my classmate, Glenn.  “That is not possible,” he said.  “What you’re saying is not possible.  No president would knowingly allow such an attack.” 

            What I did next stays with me.  More to the point, the look on Glenn’s face haunts me.  Without blinking I laid out the benefits of entering the war, larger picture, likely loss of life, and how calculations are part of war.  Not the best part of life, but part, nonetheless.  Then, I went in for the kill.  President Truman calculated the loss of life that would occur if the war in the Pacific continued, he calculated the material cost of a protracted war, and then he dropped the bomb.  How is that different than Roosevelt allowing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor?

            A change came over Glenn.  I could see it.  I watched his face go from confidence and surety and pride to shock and confusion and sadness.  What I considered banter became loss of innocence.  I think we both lost some innocence that day. 

            Soren Kierkegaard had a theory about this.  Kierkegaard believed that the story in the bible about Adam and Eve in the garden, the temptation and fall, this story is not so much a historic occurrence, isolated; the story of the temptation and fall in the garden, the loss of innocence, is the shared experience of all people.  We may not be in a perfect world in a garden, but we all have the experience of losing our adolescence, the dreaming innocence of childhood.  Something happens, something is said, and we go from a dappled soft light to a harsh noon-day-glare of too much information, too much knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil.

            Everyone experiences this change.  It can be through tragedy or revelation. No matter how, it happens, and it is unpleasant.  Quite often people feel betrayed, fooled—as if misled until now.

            About twenty years ago there was a misguided, but well-intended attempt to develop a curriculum for children, a curriculum about the environment.  It was designed to convey information about nature, but it would also serve to illumine the danger to our eco-system.  Global warming, deforestation, species facing extinction, pollution.  The intent was to create an awareness in children, an awareness of threat, while they were learning about nature. With this awareness they would become defenders of the environment.

            Well it backfired.  There was certainly an impact on the young learners.  They were very convinced about the danger to the environment.  But they were also convinced the world is dangerous.  Instead of wanting to save the planet, the young learners were now afraid of the planet.  They took the threat to the environment personally and were determined to stay away from nature. 

            The curriculum had the unintended consequence of removing dreaming innocence.  The type of innocence that doesn’t see the snake as a threat; the freedom of not seeing danger. For the most part we try to maintain innocence, not remove it.  True sometimes we hear a parent or a teacher or a coach say, “well, it’s time they learn.”  And by learn they mean the harsh realities of life.  This happens.  For the most part, though, we try to shield children from the ugliness of life.

            The desire to protect, to shield, to keep from danger is a parental impulse, an act of love.  We tell children the stove is “hot” as opposed to letting them discover by being burnt.  We shout, “stop”, as they near the busy street as opposed to letting them discover the danger on their own.  This is part of the blessing we seek for them.

            And then, at some point, we pivot.  “It’s time they grow up.”  Right?  Sometimes this is about money or work or responsibility.  But whatever it is, we change our posture with children.  The blessings change.

            I can remember sitting with a dear friend discussing this moment of change, the pivot.  His son lived more than a decade in and out of addiction recovery and treatment.  He chased his son and shielded him from the consequences of self-destruction.  And then something changed: there was a moment of change for both.  When his son called from jail once again, Jim told him he was on his own.  He was not coming to bail him out.

            Jim described that as the hardest day of his life.  And it was.  His son would describe it later as the beginning of his recovery.  With the consequences no longer kept at bay, the dream world ended. 

             Jim and his son are the cautionary tale we hope never to live.  Our kids don’t need to hit rock bottom in jail before they take their first steps toward maturity.  We pray that young people will discard the innocence of adolescence with ease and grace.  The challenges of life will be seen at a distance and then gradually brought to the fore.  The travesties of history, the legacies of greed and empire, will be the stuff of college curriculum, not fifth grade projects.  Right?

            We want our children to know they are blessed, not cursed.  We want them to come unto God as a loving parent, not the angry god in the sky who needs vengeance.  Right?  Church and the bible and faith and religion should be offered as a place of compassion and mercy before they are ever considered in terms of judgment.

            This is the blessing we seek for children as they move toward maturity, a more critical understanding of life.  Along the way, we shield them from harsh truths or the depth of tragedy.  Peter Pan defeats Captain Hook; Superman is a good guy; and if you brush your teeth and clean your room and do your homework all will be well, a good career will be yours and two point five children in a 2000 square foot ranch with a nice back yard will be yours as well.  We try to keep them safe; at bedtime we say to them, “sweet dreams.” 

            Today is the twenty-first anniversary of 9/11 when 2997 people died when hijacked aircraft were flown into three buildings and a farm field.  This is something we should not forget, nor relegate to obscurity.  For this reason, everyday young children in Metuchen walk past a memorial to those who we lost on 9/11. 

            At first, I thought, Rally Day, 9/11?  Not a great fit.  And mind you it is not easy, but the more I thought about it and ruminated, what I came to see was the light this shines on what Rally Day really means.  For how and when and in where we teach our children about justice and mercy is the point of Christian Education.  We want to teach our children that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; we want to teach our children that in Jesus we have God with us, a life lived where justice and mercy find perfection.

           We want our children to know about God and we want them to know how hard it is to be godly.  Justice and mercy are real because of our brokenness.  If everything is perfect there is no need for justice; if everything is good, there is no need for mercy.  But we don’t believe that; we believe the world is broken and the church is a witness to how and when and where we can escape evil, deliver us from evil.

           The world needs the church to teach children.  We forget that.  We are needed.  We don’t need to teach children that life is bad or broken.  This is not where we are needed.  Life will bring the tragedies, hardship, and evils destroying dreaming innocence.  I was not being the church in Mr. Houston’s history class and Glenn will never confuse me with Jesus.  Life will reveal its harshness. 

           And God will reveal to all: love redeems, hope will lift us, and faith is what sustains.  Jesus came and comes again to the world. This is our theology, the Reformed tradition: we believe the Holy Spirit is power revealing truth. 

          We are not here to prove good or evil.  The church is here to teach humility, justice, and mercy.  This is our job, our responsibility.  And we are to do it in such a way that is graceful and kind and compassionate. Restore each person’s dignity.

           Our Christian education is here to help a child navigate tragedy, like 9/11, with mercy and justice in all humility.  And we are here to help the child weigh the twenty years of war that followed with justice and mercy in humility. 

           In our schools the tragic nature of history is a question of timing and maturity.  When does a child, a young person, an adolescent, a young adult, when are they able to weigh and measure both the tragic event and the tragic war of 9/11?  When are they mature enough to ponder this?  How and when do you introduce the second tragedy, the 170,000 people killed in Afghanistan, the twenty years of sustained aggression and warfare? First grade; fifth; tenth; college? 

           The world does not need the church to answer this question.  Our role, our calling, the reason why we rally, is to provide the definition of mercy, the ability to measure justice, the power of humility enduring the weight of truth. 

           This is why we have Christian Education.  This is why we read the bible.  The world reveals its harshness just as God reveals the unity of all things is love.  The church has a different path.  We are here to train and guide our children unto the art of being both just and merciful; we are here to be honest about how difficult it is to hold justice and mercy together.

           I believe my generation is the last one to hear, if you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.  Now a days, if don’t have something awful to say you should be quiet.  The demand to only say nice things kept a lot of truth unspoken.  Yet, to speak without filter or decorum allows falsity too much room.  When and how we tell children the truth can be a blessing or a curse.

           The church has something nice to say. We do.  What we say is this: come unto Jesus as a child and be blessed. Amidst the harshness of life, we offer blessings, words of grace.  Amidst hard things, we can speak tender words of blessings just as Jesus did.

          As a parent we want our children to be blessed.  We want their dreams to be sweet, abide in the freedom of innocence.  As a church we are called to train our children, to teach them about justice and mercy and humility so to navigate the loss of innocence.  Hence Jesus said, do not keep the children from me.  Let come unto me for theirs is the kingdom of God.  Let the children be blessed at home and here; let them know innocence and truth so to do justice and love mercy.  For this we rally.  Amen.