“I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.”
Torrey Salmon
Trinity Episcopal Church
Mt. Pocono, PA
Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
Today’s Gospel can be read in the adult way, but I
prefer to rewrite it my way. It begins: Jesus walks toward Jerusalem
with his disciples. Then ten lepers yell for pity from these people going past,
who just happen to be Jesus and his disciples. Jesus says “Go to the priests!”
They went, and as they went, they were healed. They have no idea how, seeing as
Jesus did not touch them, but when one realizes that they are healed, he runs
to Jesus, yelling, “HEY THANKS” to him, and almost hugging him. Everyone else
just goes to the priests and presumably gets a clean bill of health.
The lepers
remind me of kids being told to ‘write a thank you note,’ which to them is
stuffy and boring, but that one happy, child-like leper runs to Jesus, joyously
shouting praise. Here, the child’s idea is better than the adult idea. How many
adults do you know that run around, yelling thank you and hugging others?
Adults tend toward the thank you note. But children, they thank others with
such exuberance that the receiver can’t help but feel loved by that child. God
wants us to show gratitude like children, with true, unadulterated joy and
thanksgiving, directly from the heart.
We should take a few cues from the younger, supposedly less knowledgeable
among us, because they have got it down.
So what do
we need to help the children with? Interpretation of the Bible. What we see as
eloquent passages of God’s word, children see as a bunch of big words. It is up to us, the older and hopefully wiser, to help them
understand the Bible. Children
understand the simple messages and can live them better than we can because
they are not affected by peer pressure and hate. They know that Jesus loves the little
children, to quote the song, and know how to share that love with others, but
they do not yet understand the full realm of God’s saving love. That is what we
are called to help children learn. That is how a child’s faith can grow from
simple love to a full understanding of God’s mercy and love. We must help them, or our beloved children
will not understand the faith we have or are headed towards as we grow up. I’m
in the growing up stage, and I’m sure I’m not alone, but I know at least a few
of you have full faith and trust in God, just like the children, but with
deeper meaning and implications that we can pass on to the children.
And to help
children interpret today’s Old Testament reading from Jeremiah, here it is in
simple terms: Jeremiah tells the exiles, people who have been forced away from
their homes and families to settle in for the long haul. He tells them to build
a great city from nothing, by planting gardens, having children and building
houses. Then Jeremiah throws them for a loop and tells them to pray for the
people responsible for their exile.
This lesson
reminds me of my recent trip to New Orleans.
The people of New Orleans are the
exiles, and they are being told to settle in for the long haul. They are trying
to build a prosperous city, but like the exiles, they have begun with nothing.
They are the forgotten exiles of the United
States, and it is the mission teams that are
really spreading Jeremiah’s message to keep working and to not give up. As for
the praying for those who are responsible for their exile, that is harder for
them. Why should they pray for a
government that has virtually abandoned them? They can pray for the police
officers, government workers, who try to protect their city from crime, or they
can pray that the government will learn to judge need better, and better help
those who need it most, which, right now, are the people of New Orleans. But exile is not always of this magnitude.
For children,
exile could mean the death of a pet, or moving to a new house, or starting
school, all of which are very emotional and sometimes scary events. Jeremiah tells the children to adapt to the
change in their lives because it is not going away. He is, in effect, telling
us what our parents tell us: tough luck, and deal with it. We are usually stuck dealing with unpleasant
events when we would rather ignore them and pretend that life is normal. But we
can’t do that. When a child switches schools, the best way to make their
experience positive is to make friends with the other children, and the worst
thing to do would be to pretend that she is not staying, because, chances are,
she will be staying. Jeremiah says to us
that the way to deal with exile is to take in the reality of it and deal with
it the way it is.
God and Jesus help us through those periods of exile by
sharing their unconditional love with us, as mentioned in the letter from Paul
to Timothy. Paul tells Timothy that Jesus will lead us to salvation, and then
goes on to elaborate on why. Paul says that we will live with Jesus if we die
with him, we will reign with Him if we endure with him. And if we deny him, He
will deny us. But then he says that if we are faithless, Jesus will still be
faithful. To me, that is my ultimate
faith statement. No matter what I do, Jesus will not give up on me. This unconditional acceptance of me, the way
I am, even if I mess up, blows my mind. In a world where everything seems like
one more popularity contest and people are not forgiven for their little, tiny
mistakes, it is amazing to know that Jesus will never do that to me. Even if I wear the wrong shoes or tell
someone, who isn’t supposed to know, that my friend has a crush on them, Jesus
will not hold that against me.
Going back to children, they hear the same message. As the
song says, Jesus loves me. That unconditional love helps children through tough
times. It helps to know that someone loves you, even if it seems like the whole
world has abandoned you. I know that
that knowledge has helped me survive many times, especially when I was younger. When I cared what my friends thought of my
hair and clothes, I took their comments to heart, even those that were made in
jest. Sometimes I would cry because I
thought I had no friends because I dressed wrong. But Jesus always accepted me for who I am. No
matter what it was like at school, I knew that I could come to church and no
one would make fun of me. I knew that in
church, because of Jesus, I had a safe haven. No one could hurt me because
Jesus was, and is, there to support me.
This message, one of unconditional love, acceptance and support is the
one message that our children need to hear most.
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