The Best Way to Love Our Children”


Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – June 16, 2019

Centenary United Methodist Church

    Psalm 8; John 16:12-24

 

Father's Day

    This morning, we are going to discuss one of the most sensitive areas of our lives.  The topic is: What is the best way to love our children?   When couples have their first baby, many of them have no idea about how to rear their children.  They are in unknown territory surrounded by a lot of opinions and personal testimonials found in popular magazines, books and the Internet.

    When creating a family, new parents also bring their experiences of having grown up in their own families.  We know that our parents did the best in guiding us that they knew how to do.  Our review on how they performed, however, can be one opinion among several points of view held by our siblings.  Highly motivated Self-starters many times have a different attitude about their parents from brothers and sisters who need to feel validation coming from them. Families do not become complicated until later on as the family grows up together.

    Expecting parents say, "All we want is a healthy baby."  When the new arrival invades the peace of their household, immediately, the child begins to assert its independence.  

    Babies insist on being fed at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Sometimes after we have struggled to stay awake during this process, suddenly the entire feeding effort is evacuated everywhere.  Why?  We had forgotten to burp our new addition. 

    A foul odor signals that our baby needs its diaper changed.  They cry and hyperventilate when it is nap time.  At night, when they hear voices in another part of our home, babies cry because they want to be where the action is when mom and dad are entertaining friends for dinner.

    At every stage of a child's life, they are asserting themselves as they try to learn what everything means and how they can make use of what is available in their new environment. They can hardly wait to develop more mature bodies so that they look like older teenagers who are getting lots of attention.  

    They want approval and validation that their lives matter and are valued by their peers.  They want to be cute, pretty, and handsome so that they can more easily transition into the various peer groups that really matter to them.

    How do parents teach their off-spring that they do not need to have a pair of designer shoes, a current popular hair-style, a sure way to get rid of pimples, and an appetite for a particular kind of music in order to feel whole and complete just as they are?  The question remains, "What is the best way to love our children?"

    Last week was Pentecost.  We discussed the coming of God's spirit in various forms that came to teach us how to live in a material world.  We also talked about how God loves us with a spirit that remains invisible to our human eyes but can be sensed by developing the eyes of faith.  Our Creator is mysterious and unpredictable.

    What does this teach us about loving our children?  How has God demonstrated love toward all life-forms?  God knows who we are before we came here.  God also knows that we have everything we need packaged inside of us to live a successful life.  We are left alone to develop just as we are when for nine months, we were going through all our physiological changes in our mother's womb. 

    It eventually dawns on parents that the best way to love their children is not to interfere with the pattern of their choices.  If parents attempt to tell their children what they need to do, particularly if they are not seeking advice, their words often fall on deaf ears.  Just as infants want to taste everything, children want to test every boundary until they set their own limits. This is called growing up and learning from their mistakes. Generally, consequences to their choices teach them all they need to know about what works for them and what does not.

    Jesus found it almost impossible to teach others.  The Gospels are full of illustrations where Jesus was completely frustrated with his listening public. It was not that Jesus was a poor teacher.  Many in his audiences found that Jesus' teachings were beyond their need or desire to listen, to understand, or to put into practice what he was saying.  He told them:

What gives life to people is God's spirit.  Human efforts are of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you produce God's life-giving Spirit." (John 6:63)  

    His listeners stood there looking at Jesus and asking themselves, "What in the world is he talking about? His words are too hard for us to understand!" (John 6:60) Instruction is fine, but what has a more profound influence on our children is the spirit in which that instruction is communicated.    

    Last Sunday we celebrated the life of Jeanette Moniz.  Her daughter, Cheryl, told me that she had given the responsibility for handing out the bulletins to her daughter, Holly. I was unaware that she had a daughter so I went into the narthex to get to know her. We talked for thirty minutes prior to the beginning of the service.

    As we talked, I could not help but notice that she was a duplicate of her mother.   I commented on that and Holly said, "Yes, many people have noticed that I am a younger version of my Mom." How does this happen?  Holly had been tuned into her mother's behavior and attitudes without any instructions on how to do that.  Is this what Jesus was teaching and demonstrating from a cross?

    When I was growing up, my father was seldom around.  He was the pastor of a large United Methodist Church for 35-years with constant demands on his time.   I remember only one time that the two of us played catch with a baseball.  My father was invisible when I was growing up.  However, through the years, countless people have said to me, "You are just like your Dad."  How does this happen? I do not recall a single thing my father ever taught me, but there I was duplicating many of his characteristics. 

    Even though Jesus frequently referred to God as his Father, God's characteristics are not associated with being masculine or feminine.  God assumed a masculine identity from Jesus' Jewish heritage.  In the agricultural cultures, God assumed the identity of fertility and growth associated with being a goddess. 

    The skills of spirit Jesus taught give us a presence filled with peace, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and integrity. These qualities and others are universal and they become visible when we use them.  When we use them, a form of the Holy Spirit shows up.

    I have told people throughout my ministry, "The best way to love your children is to polish your own stone."  When fathers and mothers remain attentive to their children by listening and hearing them, by remaining kind to them when they show that they still have much to learn, and forgiving them instantly when they make mistakes in judgment, such responses of parents effortlessly transfer to their children. 

    Our children may become moody and angry with us, particularly during their teenage years, but when understanding and patience are part of a parent's response, what they are reflecting back to them sticks as the memory of what had angered them fades.  Not everyone hears parental instructions but their responses remain unforgettable. We were born hardwired with all the abilities to love as God loves us.  The source of our spiritual skills is as invisible as God. 

    When the circumstances around Jesus were such that his words were not sinking in to his listeners, he began to create visual images through his storytelling (Luke 8:9f)  He created the image of what love looks like from the response of a father to his son who had refused guidance (Luke 15:11f), through the love given to a badly injured person by a member of an ethnic group that was despised, (Luke 10:25f), or through reflecting his trust and confidence when Jesus and his disciples were caught in a fierce storm that was threatening to sink their boat. (Luke 8:22f).

    What we can take with us this morning is universal.  We love our children and others by demonstrating attitudes and behavior non-verbally.  There is great wisdom in practicing the ancient Golden Rule that is found in every religion in the world, "Love others in the same way that you want to be loved."  (Leviticus 19:18)   We sow the seeds of spirit and allow them to grow in whatever garden they land.  Here is this morning's message in a nutshell:

I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day.  I would rather one walk with me than merely tell me the way.   The eye is a better student and more willing than the ear; fine counsel can be confusing, but example is always clear.  I can soon learn how to do it, if I only see it done; I can watch your life in action, while you're serious or having fun.  The greatest of all my friends are the ones who live their creeds; for to see the good in action, is what everybody needs.

      

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

We thank you, God, that life is a classroom without walls.  We thank you that we have the privilege of refining and defining ourselves each day.  We have learned that struggling helps to establish our lasting values. We have learned how our choices create consequences.  We have learned to be patient with ourselves because growth is an infinite process.  Guide us to learn how to outgrow our need to hold on to frustrating thoughts.  Guide us to outgrow our need to complain and cast blame.  A time will come when we will bloom in your Kingdom and that will have made all the stages of life worthwhile.   Amen

                           

PASTORAL PRAYER

Eternal God, we enter our sanctuary this morning realizing that worship can become one of the most refreshing and nourishing ways to begin our week.  Thank you for loving us even when we do not respond to you, when our vision is fixed on issues of self-interest, or when we slip into pleasures that we hope will quiet the tensions and stresses that we encounter every day. 

This morning, we celebrate the presence in our lives of our fathers.  Often our dad’s words stood between us and a mistake we were about to make.  We accused him when we were convinced that he did not understand us. Sometimes he was protecting us from dangers we could not see.  Thank you for all our dads who took their responsibilities very seriously even though he often felt he was never quite good enough to take even partial credit for what we have become.

Often, he could fix our broken toys but found it nearly impossible to mend our broken hearts.  He instilled confidence by helping us confront our fears.   As the years passed and our understanding grew, he became a real person, an advisor, and a friend. Yet, often he was a silent witness to the person we were becoming.  We now know that many of the values that we see in ourselves sprouted from seeds he sowed in our inner garden when we were not looking.  Thank you for this marvelous source from which we have learned a number of values upon which we have built our character and integrity.  We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . .