How many of you know what the children's Sabbath is? Or where it came from? To be fair, I didn’t until I entered the ministry. The National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths is its proper name and it is sponsored by the Children’s Defense Fund.
The Children's Defense Fund grew out of the Civil Rights Movement under the leadership of Marian Wright Edelman. The first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, Mrs. Edelman began the Washington Research Project in 1969, a public interest law firm that monitored federal programs for low-income families and, out of that initiative, she founded the Children's Defense Fund in 1973.
The National Observance of Children's Sabbaths Celebration is a way for faith communities to celebrate children as sacred gifts of the Divine, and to renew and live out their moral responsibility to care, protect and advocate for all children. It is supported by Catholic Charities U.S.A., the Islamic Society of North America, the National Assembly of Baha’is in the U.S., the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and more than 200 other religious organizations and denominations.
In preparing for this service I waded through stacks of papers - worship suggestions, hymn choices and statistics, statistics, statistics. Statistics like these:
Every second a public school student is suspended.*
Every 11 seconds a high school student drops out.*
Every 19 seconds a child is arrested.
Every 32 seconds a baby is born into poverty.
Every 41 seconds a child is confirmed as abused or neglected.
Every 42 seconds a baby is born without health insurance.
Every minute a baby is born at low birth weight.
Every 4 minutes a child is arrested for a drug offense.
Every 7 minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime.
Every 18 minutes a baby dies before his or her first birthday.
Every 45 minutes a child or teen dies from an accident.
Every 3 hours a child or teen is killed by a firearm.
Every 5 hours a child or teen commits suicide.
Every 6 hours a child is killed by abuse or neglect.
Every 15 hours a mother dies from complications of childbirth or pregnancy. [1]
Sit with those statistics for a moment. They don’t come from Nicaragua, Afghanistan or Haiti. They come from right here in the ‘greatest nation’ - from right down the street and all over this land. I bring this up, not to limit the plight of those in other places, but for us to recognize that so often we think of other places as places of suffering - when children are starving right in front of us. Children who can’t get a proper education, who are born into poverty with little chance of every getting out. Children who are sucked into a cycle of abuse and neglect, that have no one to comfort them. Families that cannot afford clothing or food or heat. Families that cannot find health care – like the family of Sarah Guerrero who take their children into Mexico in order to receive affordable routine medical care[2]. The majority of assistance calls this church receives from social service agencies concern families of all shapes and sized struggling to make ends meet. We help with everything from clothes and bus passes to light bills and prescriptions. And as the winter continues to speed toward us the requests will only continue.
Our text from Luke for this morning reflects our own time well for a story told nearly 2,000 years ago Judges, then as now, are powerful people, pillars of their community. Widows in Israelite traditions were often dependent upon judges for protection and fairness - because they were so isolated, so easily victimized. There was no one to take their part, to argue in support of them. In this story the judge is the widow’s only hope for justice - and he is a bad judge.[3]
The phrase in verse 5, “I will grant her justice so that she may not wear me out” - literally translates as ‘hit me in the face”[4]. I will grant her justice so that she may not hit me in the face. Since the widow would not have enough power to physically accost the man, we can view it as metaphorical - that he would publicly lose face. The widow keeps standing before him repeating ‘justice, justice, justice’ and astonishingly he finally caves. This big bad judge who Luke tells us has no fear of God or people grants the widow justice.
The unjust judge does the right thing - for the wrong reason. Perhaps, Luke tells us, sometimes we need to simply exert enough pressure - that even those who have no interest in doing justice will acquiesce. Consider for a moment if we all vowed to leave this place and vote with our ballots and our wallets for only the people who listen to our cries for justice - who understand and hear that our children are dying. That struggling families need support, that every child deserves a fair shot. Sure, our limited numbers couldn't make much of an impact in Washington, but we sure as heck could make some changes around Douglas county. Change starts in small, small increments that have amazing ripple effects.
You’ll perhaps have noticed that a second ago I said our children. Not other people’s children. OUR CHILDREN. The process of preparing for this sermon was a difficult one for me. Anyone who saw my facebook status yesterday knows that. Mary Newberg Gale is getting a little depressed writing her children’s Sabbath sermon. The statistics are sickening. And they are. The more l looked at them, the more I read the stories and looked at pictures the more I began to identify those children with my child. The opportunities and chances she has that others do not. How I would want someone to fight for her if she didn’t have those opportunities. Once these statistics took on a face - not to mention a face I love - there is no way to turn away, to way to disregard their suffering. And I think that’s the point - to see people as God sees them. To read every one of those statistics like a shot in the gut. To see the faces of children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews and neighbors – faces we love. To live into the vows we make at baptism and understand them to encompass more than a single moment with a single child - rather a call to nurture all god’s vulnerable. For God looks at people suffering here and around the world and always sees beloved children, all faces God loves.
This parable is one of Luke’s how much more parables that make their strong points by moving from the lesser to the greater. If an unjust judge grants justice how much more quickly will our just and loving God grant justice? We don’t need to wait for God to come around to the side of those suffering - because God is already there. God has promised a new creation - where suffering and tears will no longer be heard, where children and adults live out their life in fullness, surrounded by the community God intends.
We can’t promise the date or the time by which justice will be realized in our world. What we can promise is that we don’t have to persuade God to yearn for our wholeness, don’t have to change God’s mind to make God intend us to live in a world of justice. God already does. [5] And we know God has called us to act.
The parable of the widow and the judge, Luke tells us, is about the need to pray always and not to lose heart. It invites us to consider what it means to pray always, how many different ways we can pray throughout our day.
There are the silent prayers of our hearts; prayers for the health of our child, for a troubled teen to find the right path, for the strength we need to continue being a voice for justice.
There are the spoken prayers of our lips. Prayers we murmur into the downy hair of a baby, giving thanks for their health or a plea for their healing. There are the prayers some sing around the dinner table: “Now we thank thee, for our food and our many blessings. Amen. ”
Then are the prayers of our hands and our feet. Billy Graham is quoted as saying, “The most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that heal and bless. The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.”
How might our hands and feet pray this day? Will they pray as you write a letter to an elected official calling for adequate safety nets for children in poverty, for just policies that give every child a fair start? Will your hands pray as you stock an emergency food pantry, or hold the hand of a child you are mentoring, or hammer a nail to repair a low income family’s home?
In the wealthiest nation on earth, millions of children still do not get the head start in life they need and the opportunities to fulfill their God-given potential. That is why we must continue to be a loud and persistent voice for every child. God has blessed us, that we might be a blessing to others. As our hands and feet pray they became God’s hands in the world.
We are called to consider how we’ll use our lives to pray and to promise to pray without ceasing. Because there are children suffering – God’s children. Our children. And they need our prayers.
[1] Children’ Defense Fund, Promoting Your Children’s Sabbath, 2010.
[2]Sarah Guerrero’s story. Christian resources for the Children’s Sabbath, pg 17, Children’s Defense Fund
[4]Sakae Kubo, A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pg 74.
[5] Shannon Daley-Harris, Sermon Notes, Luke 18:1-8.
