Last summer I while I was away, I had the opportunity to worship with a lot of other local churches. Of course, I noticed all sorts of differences between our worship and their’s, but one of the most notable things for me was that no other church gave time in its service to the children. I find that really surprising, actually. That’s not to say those churches don’t care about kids. They do, but I was saddened to see that they didn’t make time in worship to focus on the kids.
I love the Word for Children. It’s the time of the service where the most unexpected things happen. The pastor plans out something they think will connect kids to faith, and then they see what happens. Kids say interesting things. They ask hard questions. They completely derail our best laid plans. And I love it.
Today we’re focusing on the window that sits right next to the sound booth. It depicts messages around Jesus saying, “I am come forth in my Father’s name.” Because of where it is, I suspect it’s a window that has drawn some of the least attention in our sanctuary. You have to want to see it, and when you finally do really see it, you’ll be blown away with all you can learn from it about our faith.
This window has five different stories in it. All of these stories focus on the significant role children play in the story of faith. In each of them, adults look intently at children who are saying or doing something that is essential to the work of God that culminates in Jesus. I love that these stories are so essential to our faith, and I am also grateful that valuing the faith of children has been part of the very fabric of this church through the years.
This window centers on the story we heard from Luke about the 12-year-old Jesus engaging with the teachers at the Temple in Jerusalem, and I’ll get back to that story. First, let me trace the other four stories, starting with the three from the Old Testament.
The lower right of the window shows Miriam, the sister of Moses, saving her brother by entrusting him to the care of Pharoah’s daughter. Here is a child of promise — Moses, the one who will lead God’s people out of Egypt — being delivered by two women, and one a young, brave girl. God does indeed work through unexpected people!
The lower left image is a story from 2 Kings 5 of Naaman, who was a commander in the Aramean army, an enemy of Israel. The story goes that Naaman had leprosy and needed healing. The Arameans had raided an Israelite village and taken a young girl captive. This Jewish girl became a servant to Naaman’s wife, and she shared the news that there was a prophet in Israel, Elisha, who could bring healing to Naaman. So, the king sends Naaman and his army to find this prophet.
Naaman first shows up to Israel’s king bearing silver, gold, and clothing looking for the cure, and the king tells Naaman where to find Elisha. So, this entourage pulls up to Elisha’s house. Rather than meeting Naaman, Elisha sends a messenger to him with instructions to go to the Jordan River and bathe seven times. Naaman is beside himself with fury. Elisha won’t even meet him! He’s important! Plus, the Jordan is a mere trickle compared with the rivers back home. But another servant tells Naaman to give it a shot, and he does and is healed. It’s another story of God working through a child to bring healing, and this time it’s to a foreigner. In the window we can see Naaman in the river — a kind of baptism — and receiving healing all because a servant girl shared what God could do for him.
On the upper right we come to the story of the boy Samuel serving in the Temple under Eli. This story comes from 1 Samuel 1-3, and our text in Luke will have a lot of parallels to this story. Basically, a woman named Hannah was barren. She came to the Temple to offer her sacrifices and begs God to bless her with a child. God does, and Hannah dedicates this son to serving the Lord in the Temple. This is Samuel, whose name means “God listens.”
The scene in our window comes from God calling to Samuel. The chief priest, Eli, was old and practically blind. At night, while all are sleeping, Samuel hears a voice calling his name, so Samuel runs to Eli to see what he wants. Only, Eli was asleep and not calling him. This happens again, and Eli tells Samuel it is the Lord calling to him, so Eli tells him to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” the next time this happens. And God calls Samuel into his service that will ultimately lead to crowning David as king of Israel.
The fifth scene is in the upper left, and it’s Jesus as a boy learning how to be a carpenter. There are his parents, Joseph and Mary, teaching him the way. The boy Jesus has fashioned a cross in his father’s workshop, which is darkly funny when you think about it, but it’s a sign that even in his youth, Jesus is preparing for a way of suffering and his parents see this in him.
As I spent time with this window, I found it notable that all the adults’ eyes are fixed on the children. Joseph and Mary look intently at their growing son. The teachers are focused on what Jesus is doing. The king is looking at the serving girl. Pharaoh’s daughter is looking to Miriam and Moses. The only one not looking at the child is basically blind. In all, the children are taking center stage.
For much of my ministry here, our church has been blessed to have Laura Burns offer her tender, thoughtful care to the children and families of our church. This week I asked Laura about her “why’s” of children’s ministry. Why does she do it? What is meaningful about it? Why should you make time to be with our children, and what will you learn when you do it?
She shared that children are filled with wonder and are not afraid to jump in. All of us experience God long before we walk into a church, and God is present and available to all of us all the time. We take all of those things and bring them into our experiences and learning at church. Our children’s ministry is centered on Children and Worship, where adults and children have conversations about God. Part of that includes wondering. I wonder what you liked best. I wonder what you think is most important. I wonder where you are in this story. I wonder if we could retell this story in one sentence. (As I dwelled on this practice, I came to realize that we’re doing something similar with exploring these windows. We’re bringing wonder to them.)
Children can also be irrepressible. They are happy to try something new. Most of them haven’t been so shamed or beaten down by life that they’re willing to put themselves out there and say or do bold things. They are trusting.
Laura reflected why Jesus welcomed children and held them up as a model for having a relationship with him, and she had four things to offer us. First, children can be so authentic. Have you ever met anyone better at joy or lament than a child? Second, they are made for relationship and interdependence, which is something that is true for all of us, but we adults keep aiming at self-reliance. Third, they are growing, and that’s something all of us should be doing. Fourth, they are not afraid to ask questions.
So, if you want your faith sparked, I encourage you to talk to Laura about helping with our children. You’ll grow so much if you do!
As I keep thinking about children and these windows, I’m struck by how there’s a huge difference between being childlike and being childish. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes about how he used to be childish in his faith and how he had to put that away. Frederick Buechner does a great job of drawing this difference.
“Childish people are people who cling to the worst of childhood, who tend to go on being spoiled, selfish, unreasonable, quarrelsome, egocentric, afraid of the dark, scattered, helpless, and so on long past the point when they should have pulled themselves together and wised up. As [Paul] suggests, you don’t automatically grow out of those things the way you do diapers and acne. You have to make a conscious effort put them behind you.” Jesus says, “If it’s the Kingdom of Heaven we’re interested in…we’ve got to be childlike. It’s not so much a prerequisite or condition as it is simply a practical expedient. It’s like saying if it’s a pleasant surprise you’re interested in, you’ve got to come as you are and hold out your hands.”
This window reminds us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who will embrace it like a child — to come to it with open arms, with wonder, with trust. It also shows us that God has been in the business of working through unexpected people. In this window we see foreigners and children engaging in God’s work of salvation. The powerful are humbled into the place of encountering God by the voice and action of children.
I want to turn back now to the central image in the window. We read this story from Luke 2. It’s the only story in the four gospels where Jesus is an adolescent. His parents have made their annual pilgrimage for Passover, and now that he is of age (and also because Archelaus is now dead) Jesus joins his family in Jerusalem for the Passover.
When it comes time to leave, Joseph and Mary head out with the cohort going north. Before you think they’re terrible parents, you need to know two things. Often the men traveled in one group and the women in another, so it’s conceivable that both thought Jesus was with the other. Also, theirs was a much more communal society, so the assumption that their son is part of the pack is one most would make. They made it one day’s journey — about 20-25 miles (they were used to walking everywhere!) — when they discovered Jesus was not with them.
I wonder if we can be like Jesus’ parents. Do we assume Jesus is with us when he actually is not? Have we taken the time to notice his presence or absence among us? Even his parents are challenged by who he is.
The next day they walked back to Jerusalem, and the following day they found their son in the Temple. What was he doing? He was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. You can only imagine how amazing Jesus must have been as a 12-year-old to see that he could captivate religious teachers in Jerusalem. Jesus is a boy in his father’s house, and it would take time for his parents even to realize the complexities of raising God’s Son as theirs.
Our window portrays this a bit differently. In it, Jesus looks a bit more like a Protestant preacher. On his lectern is a scroll with the symbol Chi-Rho, the first two Greek letters in the word christos, that is, Christ. As Jesus teaches, I notice that his hands are different colors. His left hand is gray as it points to the scroll. His right hand is illuminated and light shines forth from it. I wonder if the artist is displaying the move from the old way to the new that will bring life.
But I’m also struck by the three teachers before Jesus. There is one with his jaw open, staring straight at Jesus. His hand bears a scroll of the same color as Jesus’, but it seems to be letting it go in an act of only wanting to give attention to Jesus. There are also the other two teachers, who appear to be deep in conversation with each other. One is leaning in and motioning with his hands, while the other is pointing up while holding a different colored scroll.
In these teachers, I see us. One is ready to lay it all aside and go with Jesus. The other two aren’t sure, clinging to their scroll — their understanding about God and how the world works.
And then it struck me. While we don’t use scrolls much these days, we certainly do scroll. Up, up, up our thumb swipes as we scan our feeds. We whip by news curated to our tastes, affirming what we already think. We scroll through opinions, writing others off as wrong or less than. We cling to our scrolling, and while we’re doing that, we’re unable to see Jesus for who he really is and the difference he could really make for us and our community. Sometimes the scroll is simply deadly, and yet we cling to it anyway, all while Jesus is showing us a better way.