With the help of our choir, I’d like to teach you a little song that I learned at General Conference. A colleague used it for our morning devotions one morning and it stuck with me. It’s deceptively simple—but as we honor our Preschool this morning, It will ground us in the care and love of our God. And it will set our feet on a path of love and service.
We’ll sing that a few times over the course of this sermon. Goes like this…”Good morning, Lord. This is your day. I am your child. Show me your way.”
SING …..
The first church to which I was sent here in our Annual Conference was a small congregation down in the South Bay. It was an aging congregation in what is euphemistically called a “transitional” neighborhood. There were few children, no youth, and certainly no preschool. We turned a lot of that around in the five years I served there, but at first, just going there each day during the week was an act of will. Most days, there were only the part-time secretary, her son, the custodian, myself and an occasional church member stopping by. It was quiet, deadly quiet. Signs of life were few and far between.
One of the first things we did was to have the old upright piano in the parlor tuned--and convince the Trustees to open the church up a few hours each week for kids to come and practice their piano lessons. Kids are kids—and sometimes it got a bit “much,” but still—music, laughter, noise even, lifted our spirits and communicated “life” to the surrounding neighborhood.
So, I can’t tell you what a thrill it still is for me to pull up here on 11th Street each day of the week and meld into the slightly chaotic scene of parents dropping off kids for Preschool, walking them up the walk, overhearing their wonderful observations about things lost on most grown-ups—you know, like the wonder of a particularly ugly bug or the beauty of a fallen leaf. And through the day, the sound of their laughter, their enthusiasm, their play is God’s gift to us all. AND it witnesses to the whole community that this is place that values and supports and loves children. This is a place of life—life in all its abundance.
Sing: “Good morning, Lord……..”
The sound of happy children is the sound of the United Methodist Church. Do you know that that ancestor of our Nursery School, now our Preschool, was the Sunday School program of Methodists? Sunday Schools were started in American cities in the 1790’s along the model of what had been developed in England. Their purpose was to provide basic literacy training to poor children on the one day of the week they didn’t have to go to work. They were open to boys and girls and of course, the Bible, was their primary text book.
Over time, of course, came child labor laws and the development of the free public school system. The purpose of Sunday School changed. Many congregations, as did ours nearly 60 years ago, opened weekday nurseries or preschools to serve working parents and provide children a safe and loving place to grow and learn. And do we not give thanks to God that over the years, we have been privileged to nurture and support over 2000 children through our school?
There’s so much that we now take for granted, in all of this, now. We want so much for our kids, and rightly so. All parents do. It’s good to be reminded from time to time that in some parts of the world, the need is still great. When I was at the General Conference of our Methodist church in late April, I was able to talk with some of our mission partners from the Methodist Church in Nigeria. You may remember that we’ve been working with them on the building of a school there. Communication is difficult and spotty, so I was glad to get an updated first-hand report. “Oh,” they proudly exclaimed. “The school has opened!” “It has?” “Yes,” they said. “We have three walls up! No roof yet, but classes have started. And best of all, the government has just decided to place one of its new water treatment systems adjacent to our school, so that the children will have safe water to drink.”
You see, in many parts of the world, the church is still working to provide education for our children.
Sing: “Good morning, Lord…..”
In our Methodist tradition, too, we not only care for literacy, for making sure that our children read and write and count and know their colors. We care that they are healthy and safe and we do all that we can here to insure that this is so. This grows out of the model of the ministry of Jesus, which had teaching and healing at its center. Following his example, we care that our children grow in compassion, that they develop a love for their neighbor here and all around the world. And so we teach relationship skills. We teach and practice the vocabulary of compassion, learning words like: “kind, gentle, friend, share, take turns.” As adults we model “loving our neighbor.” We include children in service and mission, so that we can practice “loving our neighbor” together. In all that we do, we seek to teach our children to see themselves as God’s lovable and loving children. And in so doing, we empower them to love others and to change the world.
I want to tell you another story from General Conference that shows how this works in the lives of our children, how it shapes children to become compassionate and committed members of the human family. I’ve mentioned to you before that our denomination is partnering with the United Nations Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sports Illustrated and the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares in the worldwide Nothing But Nets! Campaign to fight malaria. This is part of our Global Health Initiative which focuses on fighting diseases of poverty and promoting congregational health and wholeness—all a contemporary expression, you see, of the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.
On World Malaria Day, April 25, Bishop Thomas Bickerton introduced to the General Conference little 7-year-old Katherine Commale of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. After seeing a program on television about malaria and its devastating effects on thousands of families in Africa, the Commale family was shocked that a disease that can be prevented by something as simple as a $10 insecticide-treated bed net is still causing so much pain and suffering.
So Katherine and her mother, Lynda, decided to made a presentation on bed nets at her local church, the Hopewell United Methodist Church. In less than 24 hours, they raised $1,500 to purchase bed nets to help combat the cruel reality that every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies from malaria.
But Katherine and her Mom didn't stop there. Their mission grew as Katherine moved from one Sunday school class to another, educating the church's children about the plight of African children stricken with malaria. She displayed actual bed nets, performed skits with her mom, made bookmarks wrapped in netting, and displayed a handmade diorama, which she had constructed with the help of her 3-year-old brother, Joseph.
During the Christmas holidays, Katherine, her neighborhood friends and the children from the Hopewell Church, hand-decorated more than 500 gift certificates, providing gift-givers with an opportunity to purchase bed nets in honor of a friend, teacher or family member, similar to what we do here through our Alternative Christmas each year. By Christmas Day, Katherine and her friends had raised more than $10,000 for "Nothing but Nets." Her goal, she told us, is $50,000!
Thanks to little Katherine, her mom, and their efforts, people in the whole community have learned the awful fact that a child dies of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa every 30 seconds. That means that in the time it’s taken me to deliver this sermon about 30 children have died. But 7 year-old Katherine Commale knows that it need not be so. She knows and she’s showing others that we can do something about it.
Sing: “Good morning, Lord…”
At this church, this is the environment we want to create for our children through our Sunday School, our Preschool and all of our Children’s Ministry programs. An environment where they learn. And where they learn that they are God’s loveable and loving children. Where they learn that through their lives they can make a difference in the lives of God’s children in this community and all across the world in the example of Jesus Christ, our great healer.
May God bless our children, and their teachers, and their parents and families. And may God help us raise them up to be compassionate and wise, part of a beautiful, great global family. And may God bless all the children this day, with health and safety, with love and a future with hope.
Amen.
Notes: “Commentary: A child shows the way in fight against malaria: A UMNS Commentary by Bishop Thomas Bickerton”
Jan. 17, 2007
© Patricia Farris, 2008. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
"Healing for the Children of the World"