Roots and Wings
By Julie Yarborough
June 27, 2004
Ephesians 3: 16-19 and Deuteronomy 6: 4-9
was at home one night watching television a few years ago, and I was flipping through the channels, when I happened to catch a bit of the Emmy Awards. Now, I don't usually like to watch awards ceremonies, but at the moment I turned to that channel, I saw that Fred Rogers was being honored with a Life-time Achievement Award for his long-running PBS show, “Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.” I always loved Mr. Rogers. I watched his show when I was a child and as an ordained pastor who works with children, I feel a connection to him. He'll always be a model of deep integrity for me.
That night, on the
Emmy Awards show, Mr. Rogers talked
about how his career in television started: “I always wondered,” he said, “Why
can't we take this thing called television and use it to bring a message of
grace to the world?”
Ahh! I thought,
that's exactly what his show is all about! He's taken the core message of the gospel and translated it into
language that even children can understand.
“Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your
mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)
“Who is my neighbor?” the young
lawyer asked Jesus. (Luke 10:29)
“Won't you be my neighbor?” Mr.
Rogers asks of us.
In his acceptance
speech, Mr. Rogers took a moment to thank the people who “helped him into
being.” He then asked the audience,
“Won't you join me in silence for ten seconds to remember the people who have
helped you become who you are? I'll
watch the time.” And for the next ten
seconds, on national television, there was silence. The cameras panned the audience of glitzy, glamorous people, and
many of them had tears rolling down their cheeks, as they remembered the people
who had helped them into being.
Once again, Mr.
Rogers used the medium of television to bring a message of grace to the
world. It was a powerful moment.
Think now, for a
few seconds: Who are the people who have helped you into being? (I'll keep the
time!)
In ten to twenty
years, who are the people your children will say have helped them into
being?
I hope that they
will say the people of Christ Church. As members of this community, we are called to help each other into
being. When a child is baptized in our
midst, we, the congregation of Christ Church vow to offer “understanding and
support, and to enfold the child in love.” We vow to “seek together in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and
all people.” And we join with the parents to “tell the gospel in our midst, so
that their child and all children may live with us for Christ, showing forth
his love for all people.” This is not
an empty promise. This is a serious commitment!
In
the passage from Deuteronomy that Janet read this morning, Moses is giving
instructions to the Israelites as they prepare to go on into the promised land
without him. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you
today in your heart. Teach them to your
children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when
you lie down and when you rise. Bind
them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an embellishment upon your forehead,
and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Do whatever you have to do to internalize
this commandment. Don't just give lip
service to the idea of loving God. Make
this part of who you are at your inner core. And don't let it stop with you. Instill this love for God in your children as well.
At our house, Jeff
and I make a point of reminding each other and our children, “You're the
beloved of God” before we go to sleep at night. One day, when Matthew was two
years old, we were walking across the campus at Drew University, and Jeff
picked him up and put him on his shoulders. Matthew said, “Daddy, I have something I want to tell you.”
“What is it Matthew?” Jeff asked.
“You're the beloved of God.”
Parents, start teaching your
children about God's love as early as you can, and you will be amazed at how
quickly your children catch on, and what they will be able to teach you
about the love of God.
There is an
African proverb – you may recognize it as the title of a book by Hillary
Clinton - “It Takes a Village to Raise
a Child.” The parents who bring their
children here for baptism or dedication do so because they know that they need
all the help they can get. They invite
us to participate in the spiritual development of their child and we, in turn,
agree to do what we can to nurture their child and all children along the way,
showing forth Christ's love for all people.
We, the adults of Christ Church,
offer our children the very foundation of a life of faith
When we listen to them,
When we pray with them and for
them,
When we give them the opportunity
to participate in worship,
When we offer them the Lord's
Supper,
When we tell them the stories of
the Bible,
When we tell them how much God
loves them,
When we encourage them to ask
questions about their faith,
When we tell them about our
spiritual journeys, however rocky they may be.
For when we do these things, we are
watering and fertilizing roots, which will grow deep into fertile soil. Later in life, these roots will provide an
anchor when the winds and storms of life try to toss them around.
Each spring we
celebrate Confirmation Sunday. As Chuck
is fond of saying on that Sunday, we do not celebrate Confirmation as an end in
itself, but as a step in the journey of faith. We gather as a community to celebrate a rite of passage, a transition;
and to give our blessing and support to those youth who begin a new phase of
their journey. Many of you watch children grow up in this church. Some of you teach them in Sunday
School. All of you have a profound
impact on their lives, whether you know it or not. For it is here at Christ Church that these kids learn what it
means to be people of faith, and they learn by watching and listening to
you.
In her book, Offering
the Gospel to Children, Gretchen Wolf Pritchard writes about the influence
of the church community on the lives of children. She says, “We have them,
often, for so little time. We can pray
only that some of the taste of that Bread of Life, that Cup of Salvation, will
stay in their mouths, and by God's grace, when they are bigger and can make
their own choices, they will remember where to find it and come home.”[1]
The ways in which
we as a faith community instruct, nurture and care for the children of this
church will have a great influence on their lives, for better or worse. And if our children are rooted and grounded
in the love of Christ, and in the love of Christ Church, not only will they
have an anchor in times of trouble; they will also be given wings to fly.
Mary Chapin Carpenter has a
wonderful song called “Why Walk When You Can Fly,” that begins with this verse:
In this world there's a whole lot
of trouble baby
In this world there's a whole lot
of pain
In this world there's a whole lot
of trouble but
A whole lot of ground to gain
Why take when you could be giving
Why watch as the world goes by
It's a hard enough life to be living
Why walk when you can fly[2]
Roots and wings are the two most
important things we can give our children to help them into being. To be rooted and grounded in the love of
Christ is to know that we are the
beloved of God. To be rooted and
grounded in the love of Christ is to know that even in the darkest of times, we
are not alone and that in the midst of suffering, God knows our pain. To be rooted and grounded in the love of
Christ is to be given the wings to fly, even in a world where there's a whole
lot of trouble. Why walk when you can fly?
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Benediction . . .
"When you come to the edge of all that you know and are called to step
into the darkness, know that one of two things will happen: either your
feet will find the path, or you will be given wings to fly."
-- Unknown
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[1] Gretchen
Wolf Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children, (Boston: Cowley
Publications, 1992), p.175.
[2] Mary Chapin
Carpenter, “Why Walk When You Can Fly?” on Stones in the Road, October
1994.
© 2004
Julie Yarborough.
All rights reserved.
