Persistent Care

Persistent Care – Children’s Sabbath 2013

Jeremiah 31:27-34                                                    October 13, 2013

Luke 18:1-8                                                               Russell Eidmann-Hicks

On Thursday I was at a seminar on media training, how to convey a message clearly and forcefully.   One example the leader offered was about a woman who heads the Michigan Council of Churches.  She gave an interview stating that one out of four children under 5 years old in the US lives below the poverty level…one out of four, powerful statistic.  “So,” she said, “let’s not talk in general, let’s talk about real children – say Diane, Pat, Juan and (looking at the interviewer) do you have a child?”  The interviewer said yes, a daughter.  “What’s her name?” she asked.  “Pamela,” the interviewer replied.  “OK, then, we’ve got Diane, Pat, Juan and Pamela.  Which one of these children do you think should grow up in poverty?  Which one should be deprived of nutrition, adequate education, safety, child care?”  The interviewer was silenced.  

 When it comes down to real lives, it’s not so easy to push people over the edge. We live in a harsh world, powered by immense forces, global corporations, a vast web of information and the Internet, governments and economies.   In the hub of all of this are you and I, and children and families, and normal folk trying to get along.  We can get caught or crushed in the spokes of massive wheels of change and trends and destructive forces that threaten our futures.  Right now our government is shut down – with the threat of economic chaos. What hope do we have for change and for justice? 

Jesus tells a story of a judge who had enough power that he did not feel he needed to fear God nor respect others, and of a woman who had nothing to lose.  Having enough power to meet his own needs, the judge had no need to believe in justice, only the power to act as he saw fit. The woman had given up all her needs except for the need for justice for she and her children, and the belief it was possible. There she was banging on the judge’s door, nagging him from the street, shouting up into his window – making herself a pain the behind so that he would give her justice.  The judge’s job was to dole out justice, yet the power of his job enabled him to ignore divine mercy and respect for others. The widow, who had little status or power, believed justice is eternal; it cannot be ignored. She is breaks the judge’s callousness with her persistence. Justice is granted to those who persevere.  One person can make a difference.  Here’s an example…. 

A year ago, we heard a riveting story about an armed man who entered a school full of elementary school children in Decatur, Georgia.  But this time, it had a happy ending.  He walked into the McNair Discovery Learning Academy with an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammunition, and took hostage Antoinette Tuff, the school’s bookkeeper.   She is a middle-aged African-American woman, and he told her that he wasn’t afraid to die.  Instead of being paralyzed with fear, instead of screaming or panicking, Antoinette spoke to this young man as if he were a member of her own family.  She called him ‘baby’ and told him she loved him.   She promised that if he put down his weapons, she would stay with him until the police arrived, and that he would not be hurt.  Her 911 call recorded the entire conversation.

This feels like a miracle in our age that one person could turn that situation around.  Jesus teaches there is an alternative to the hatred, the polarization, selfishness we are so used to, if we persevere.   Antoinette was true to her word.  No one was physically harmed that day, not even the gunman.  As Stephanie Paulsell, a teacher at Harvard Divinity School, writes, “Antoinette Tuff was obviously a remarkable person with deeply nonviolent instincts and a lightning quick ability to marshal a whole range of her experience to deal with a situation that sprang up with no warning…  She was able to get a coded message to her colleagues to let them know to lock down the classrooms and get the children out of the building.   She drew upon her own experiences of hopelessness, sharing stories of her struggles with the gunman, reminding him how human it is to feel that you have to come to the end of your rope.  She was also able to make use of a practice she learned in church.  In interviews she has noted that her pastor had taught her how to ‘pray on the inside,’ how to ‘anchor’ herself in God no matter what was happening around her. She began praying on the inside for the gunman as she spoke with him, a practice that helped her keep him in view as a struggling human being as clearly as she could see the danger he posed.  When the gunman told her that his last name was Hill, she replied, ‘That’s my name, too.  My mama was a Hill.’  She never stopped offering him opportunities to see what he had in common with her and with every other person in the building. ‘We all go through something in life,’ she told him.” 

Antoinette is like the persistent widow pleading before the judge. We are called to do all we can to protect children, to work for justice, to prevent evil and violence.   As parents, teachers, grandparents, friends, we know of the many dangers faced by children in our age.  We stand up to protect them and to seek ways to reduce these threats and looming hurts – even in our congregation.

“Let the children come unto me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven,”  Jesus said.

Charlotte E. Ellison wrote this about protecting children:  Congregations need to awaken to the full meaning of sanctuary: a place marked by the presence of the Holy One, who always speaks for the widow and orphan and who says to the children, Come to me. They need to reclaim sanctuary as a safe place where everyone is covered by the promise of God's providence, where the One who called the slaves out of Egypt again parts the Red Sea and where impossible acts of protection and provision may still be expected. ...

Our churches must become safe-houses in the midst of the domestic wars that rage in our neighborhoods, claiming so many children as victims. They must open themselves to the fullest meaning of Holy Place -- not simply centers set aside or exclusive, but pure and life-giving centers of human community, oases of shalom, where those who thirst may come and be renewed. We need to gather the children in and let them know there is safety in God's house, in the shadow of the steeple, beneath the bell that rings the weekly invitation to come in and remember God's worth -- the mighty, living God who rescues. Let them come and be saved. Then sanctuary will be a reality once again.  (Perspectives, August-September 1997, quoted in Context, January 1, 1998, 6.)

Persistence is needed, not only in bravery and advocacy for those in need, but also in prayer.  Notice how Antoinette Tuff was able to keep praying inside in heart for the intruder, even one holding a gun, and to keep her mind clear and her will focused.  Prayer is a discipline that strengthens the soul and opens the heart.  Like lifting weights or doing push-ups, it makes us more vigorous, resilient and tough of mind and heart, if done regularly.   So, when we end up in a tight corner or a place that demands calm and clarity, then we are better prepared.   Like Antoinette Tuff, we are better able to save the day.  We need to continue to pray for children who are in need, children who are struggling under burdens of destitution or distress.  Mahatma Gandhi said: "Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

You and I know that in our world, too many children fall by the wayside and are pulled down into poverty, neglect and despair.   Too many are caught up in gangs, violence or cynicism.  We are riveted by terrorism and violence, and yet are callous in our disregard for those who suffer from poverty or illness, even though thousands die from these causes.  

We hear talk now in congress of drastically cutting food stamps that 48 million people in our country depend on.  54% of these are children.  Many are disabled.  So which children should we deny their last thread of sustenance, and while we’re at it cut unemployment benefits to their parents?  Will this give them more incentive to get to work? But where are the jobs?   Is this really the society we want to create?  Which child should we cut off?

Dr. PERRI KLASS, M.D. wrote an article last May entitled “Poverty as a Childhood Disease”   He writes…  Poverty is an exam room familiar. From Bellevue Hospital in New York to the neighborhood health center in Boston where I used to work, poverty has filtered through many of my interactions with parents and their children. I ask about sleeping arrangements. Mother, father, older child and new baby live in one bedroom that they’re renting in an apartment, worrying that if the baby cries too much, they’ll be asked to leave.  I talk to a new mother who is going back to work too soon, leaving her baby with the cheapest sitter she can find. Is your housing situation secure? Can you afford groceries? Do you go with the cheapest fast food? Can you get the prescription filled? Raising children in poverty means that everything is more complicated.

Me, I’m one generation out. My mother will tell you about her Depression childhood, the social worker who checked the family’s pots to see whether they were secretly able to afford meat, the landlord who put the furniture out on the street. It wasn’t character building or noble, she says. It was soul-destroying, grinding and cruel. And it’s even crueler, now that social mobility has decreased and children who grow up poor are more likely to stay poor.

Poverty damages children’s dispositions and blunts their brains. We’ve seen articles about the language deficit in poorer homes and the gaps in school achievement. These remind us that — more so than in my mother’s generation — poverty in this country is now likely to define many children’s life trajectories in the harshest terms: poor academic achievement, high dropout rates, and health problems from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, substance abuse and mental illness.

Recently, there has been a lot of focus on the idea of toxic stress, in which a young child’s body and brain may be damaged by too much exposure to so-called stress hormones, like cortisol and norepinephrine. When this level of stress is experienced at an early age, and without sufficient protection, it may actually reset the neurological and hormonal systems, permanently affecting children’s brains and even, we are learning, their genes.  

After the first three, four, five years of life, if you have neglected that child’s brain development, you can’t go back. In the middle of the 20th century, our society made a decision to take care of the elderly, once the poorest demographic group in the United States. Now, with Medicare and Social Security, only 9 percent of older people live in poverty. Children are now our poorest group, with almost 25 percent of children under 5 living below the federal poverty level.

Like the persistent widow in Jesus’ story it is time for us to speak up for the children.  If Dr. Klass is right, this is the best way to improve our educational system; not by tweaking hours or testing, but by offering quality pre-school to all, and by focusing on childhood poverty and nutrition and safety. Children are resilient, and can heal and bounce back if given a chance.   Though for some children damage from poor nutrition or trauma or stress or pre-natal alcohol or drug poisoning can be irreversible and can lead to lasting developmental problems.  Little children are like sponges – they need to be given love, social skills and play to soak up. We can persist in prayer that this healing can occur.

This is the Gospel.  “Let the children come unto me,” said Jesus.   He also warned, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come.  It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea, than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Lk 17:1-2)   Children are our future and our hope.   Let us pray, as persistently as we can, to foster faith and hope and love in our little ones.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.